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Haiti, 2 years after the earthquakeCreole is the real language of HAITI, and it is necessary to understand and speak it to make any real contact with people. Luckily, someone lent me a Creole/Spanish textbook from the Dominican Republic, the neighbouring country. I found it very heavy going for the first few days, but it has got a bit easier now. I can understand about 90% of written Creole, but only 50% of the spoken language. Fortunately, I had two nurses with me who could help me to understand the patients who came to me. Most of them were not suffering from anything serious, and as I had been able to bring 20kg of the most essential medicines, I had what I needed. I did very little work in the health service; the hospital is well staffed by members of the International Brigades. I had a fascinating time during which I made real human contact not just with patients, but also with families living in tents (of which there are about a million in Port au Prince). The scale of the tragedy is glaringly obvious: houses are 'squashed' as they say here - in other words they have collapsed, with most of their residents still under the rubble. The earthquake has left an imprint of suffering and death before which one feels both awed and powerless. In the hospital the children sometimes have amputated limbs, and are often orphans, and they cling to you and give you a very bad conscience because in fact there is nothing that you can really do to alleviate their distress. I think that people's salvation, and what currently prevents them from succumbing to drugs or depression, is a kind of deep inner joy, their faith in God and a will to live as befits a people who were uprooted from their countries of origin and brought here to grow sugar cane. Faith - a foolish preacher in the USA had the nerve to maintain that the earthquake was divine retribution. People reacted to this idea virtually with one voice: over and over again I heard them say that it was a natural disaster, which had struck a country with poorly built buildings. Children have an incredible capacity for laughing and smiling in all circumstances. About 7 p.m. one evening, we were on our way back to the hospital with an Argentinean friend, at a time when there is normally not a single white person to be seen in the streets.
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