Keep Your Priorities Straight

Life goes on in post Earthquake Haiti. The Hospital still is running on generator power. EDH, or the Haiti power company, still hasn’t made it to Leogane with restoration of power poles. We hear rumors that EDH is in Gressier, a small town about 5 miles towards Port Au Prince. But it’s just as well that it hasn’t come to the hospital, because after the earthquake, we rearranged the power once more, so that either of our two generators could run the 3 story part of the hospital. To use EDH once again, we will have to do yet another kludge of the wiring system. Those of you who have been to Haiti and have seen the switching board in the hospital hallway will appreciate the problems.
There are a few parts of the hospital that are not being used. The pump house is on the edge of the property, bordering on a side street. Next to the pump room is a room that was used as a Depot, or storage room. In the earthquake, the wall that was on the street side collapsed, and the room was looted. We managed to save a room full of adult diapers, some walkers, and a few barrels of outdated medicine. The barrels were welcomed by the locals who are probably using them as water containers. The room, with the outside wall missing, is now empty and open to the side road.
The hospital has always shared its good water resources with the neighboring community. Immediately after the earthquake, whenever the generator was started, people came running with cell phones and empty buckets. We had a long string of power strips hooked together, and folks would recharge their cell phones while we ran the generator. Others would fill their water buckets. (We only have water when we have current for the pump.) We have restored the faucet on the street for the community to get water, and folks have learned the hours that the generator usually runs, so we have a steady line of neighbors who don’t have to purchase water from the trucks that roam the city sounding like ice cream trucks.
Today, we found out that we are sharing another resource with the neighbors. A few days ago, John decided that we needed to be able to use power equipment in the pump room. So he had a plug installed from the power line that runs from the generators to the pump. Now, if we have to use a drill or saw in that area of the hospital grounds, we have a place to get electricity for the tools. Today, around 3:00 pm, John was refilling the fuel tanks for the generators. Both generators were turned off while the tanks were being filled. John noticed that there was a crowd of about 50 people milling around in the street while the tanks were being filled. There was a lot of shouting and arguing going on. Someone (John didn’t know him) finally came up and asked when the generators would start up again. John explained what they were doing, and thought that would satisfy the man, but he seemed agitated. It was puzzling, because the man wasn’t a hospital employee, like a doctor who needed power in the emergency room. The water hadn’t been off very long, so it probably wasn’t someone who needed to fill his water bucket from the community faucet provided by the hospital. Besides, men don’t carry water in Haiti. Women and children do. But, as soon as he could, John turned the generator back on and suddenly, the street was quiet again. All the people who had been milling around were gone. John decided to investigate.
It turns out that someone in the community along the street by the pump room, and the empty depot room, had found out that we had installed the new plug in the pump room. (We think we know who spread the word—the electrician lives in the neighborhood along that street). Someone had plugged in an extension cord to the new plug, and ran it around the building to a radio that was set up in the empty depot room. The World Cup Soccer game was on, and John had interrupted the game broadcast when he was filling the generator tank. Already, the depot room apparently has become a gathering place for the daily soccer games. Nobody can say that the Haitians aren’t adaptable people! We are often asked when the hospital will reopen. We assume that people are concerned about medical care. We have learned, however, that we don’t always know what the real priorities are.