Inspired by Peace and our own yearning to be of service, the two Andy’s and I , “AB,” my husband, and “AZ,” my best friend, departed for Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, to work with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. We arrived at the airport Francois Duvalier and were immediately caught up in the masses of people. As we were driven into town, even the dry crusty earth reflected the poverty that was visible everywhere.

By the following day we had met with the head nun, Sister Carmeline, and toured the facilities – a combination dispensary and clinic, a children’s home, and a home for the destitute and dying. We were to split our days mostly between the first two, helping out occasionally at the hone for the dying.

The nuns, dressed in white saris with blue trim, were a striking community of cheerful acquiescence who, with loving devotion, followed the high ideals of Mother Teresa:

If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not because God did not care for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not instruments of love in the hands of God…”

The clinic stood downtown behind locked iron gates next to the Catholic church. On a typical morning the crowd would be thick when we arrived a few minutes before eight. There would be an assortment of people with various ailments, perhaps a leper, mothers with small, malnourished babies, and others who came for tuberculosis shots and treatments.

The people who stood waiting for the gates to open were the poorest of the poor. Some were dressed fairly well and were relatively clean, due to a benevolent gesture by the ruling family, Michelle Duvalier and her husband, Baby Doc, successor to his father, Papa Doc. Others arrived in rags week after week. It was a mystery how some managed to stay even superficially clean considering the lack of water for even basic hygiene.

When we arrived, the crowd would part and let us through. The spontaneous reaction to white people, blancs as they called us, was one of simple respect. It was generally assumed that blancs were rich, privileged, and sometimes generous.

The first room on the right was used as a first-aid station where the bandaging and cleansing of wounds were tended to and shots were given. On the other side of the alley a table stretched across open double doors laden with various tablet and liquid medications, cleansers and lotions. At the far end of the same room, school desks were pushed to the sides and a dressing screen provided some privacy as we treated people with scabies. When there was an American doctor or dentist on hand another room was set up for that person’s use.

Time in Haiti didn’t have the same relevance in as it did in the United States. The nuns would arrive somewhere between eight-fifteen and nine o’clock. Before any activity started, we would stand behind nuns in a little stock room and bow our heads with them as they intoned a special prayer:

Dear Lord, Thou Great Physician, I kneel before Thee, since every good and perfect gift must come from Thee. I pray, give skill to my hand, clear vision to my mind, kindness and sympathy to my heart. Give me singleness of purpose, strength to lift at least part of the burden of my suffering fellowmen, and true realization of the privilege that is mine. Take from my heart all guile and worldliness that with the simple faith of a child I may rely on Thee.

Once everything was prepared, someone at the gate would let people in a few at a time, directing them to different areas. On Saturdays, which held TB clinics exclusively, a food line was set up. Participants carried blue cards as a form of identification for the food program. Usually the fare was powdered milk and crackers or a soy protein powder.

Everywhere, we observed a lack of the most basic necessities for proper hygiene – and the clinic was no exception. In the first-aid section there was a row of old chairs for the patients. The floor of rough cement was swept and sometimes mopped, but dust blew in from the barred windows and collected everywhere. Supply cabinets with mesh or cloth doors lined two walls. In the center of the room a long wooden table was wiped down and then set up with bandages, ointments, and equipment for injections. A small sterilizer was plugged in first thing, and all the needles and syringes were prepared for the day’s use.

The first patients to enter sat in a row of chairs as the line continued out the door and along the walls. We would then begin mass treatment of every imaginable affliction. Many conditions were visually shocking to incoming volunteers from the States, who at times were simply unable to cope with the enormity of suffering and affliction. Some had to leave. Others remained and were touched by the simple acceptance and resilience of those being treated.

The general clinic took place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Many came in for routine bandage changes. It was funny to watch a volunteer attempt to help one of the regulars. Most were barefoot and illiterate. They would sit passively and smile angelically if you looked in their direction. Often they would burst into lengthy dissertations in Creole. No matter how much we interrupted them with, “Mi pa pale Creole. Mi comprend petit” (“I do not speak Creole. I understand little”), still they would continue, usually speaking louder and faster.

When attending to wounds, a strict adherence to procedure had to be followed. Otherwise a very stern expression would appear on the patient’s face. His or her head would shake in disapproval. Newly arrived volunteers would look exasperated and puzzled as an equally puzzled Haitian would rapidly chatter, pointing to the table, settling for no less than the usual treatment. Patients were particularly adamant about receiving the mixture of Mercurochrome and hydrogen peroxide. This was a favorite for everything, probably because of the bright red color.

If an abscess was runny, sulfur powder was sprinkled on. The powder was expensive and not always available, in which case expired bottles of penicillin powder were torn open and used as a substitute. The emphasis was always making do – if it can’t hurt, give it a try. It was the spirit that counted. The faith of the nuns was striking, as was the love they demonstrated. Mother Teresa taught them, “Be kind and merciful. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting. In the slums we are the light of God’s kindness to the poor. To children, to the poor, to all who suffer and are lonely, give always a happy smile. Give them not only your care, but also your heart.”

We didn’t see many old people in Port-au-Prince. We were told the mortality rate from birth to five years old was 50 percent. The average life span was twenty-five to thirty years. But one of the regulars appeared to be a fairly old man, very thin, with a twisted and misshapen left arm. The arm was full of abscesses, with a large open sore in the elbow area. The man was suffering from syphilis. He begged the nuns to help him get the arm cut off. After a time they agreed to assist with the amputation.

Arrangements were made at the community hospital. It was quite a feat to set it up, including finding a willing doctor, but the nuns had many connections along with their strong determination, will and prayer. Beds were not assigned so they had to scout around and find one – making a quick claim on the spot. Further, no food was or medication was given out; every patient had to have his or her own supply.

After all was made ready, the old man had his arm amputated. We didn’t see him for a few days. When he showed up again he looked cheerful and grinned proudly, displaying a stump that extended four or five inches from his shoulder. He came regularly as usual, for dressing changes. The stump never healed. The abscess set in deeper and he became weaker. He was ill and dying and received little reprieve. His countenance was resigned and he never complained. His gentle smile remained to the very end.

The hospital procedure was too complex for the average illiterate native to negotiate. Many who went for treatment were too weak to leave, had no one there to assist t hem, and were removed to a shack behind the hospital called the depot. There, they were left to their own resources or lack thereof.

The depot consisted of a dirt floor, walls to lean against, and a roof to keep the rain out. When the Sisters of Charity first arrived in Haiti they arranged for the hospital to deliver these outcasts to their home for the dying, but they themselves had to go to the depot each day to see who was there and what their needs were. Then they would go to the hospital administration and request a delivery. One of the first people they encountered in the beginning was a young man who was paralyzed from the neck down. They were too late to retrieve him. Rats had eaten him while he was still alive.

I went to the depot once with Sister Jacqueline. There were two rooms opening in back to an old outhouse Two men were lying on mats in the first room. Sister stopped and spoke with them. In the back room was an old woman on a cot. Sister explained to me that she was paralyzed and her family no longer wanted her in their home. They did, however, pay someone to bring her food and change her each day.

The sisters did what they could. They tried to offer, in their home for the ill and dying destitute, a place where people could face death with dignity and the comfort of love. The home was overflowing. Cots spilled outdoors and lined the walkways. The sisters had to discriminate. Not all of the ill and dying poor could be accommodated.

Cheryl Canfield, CCHT, 2024