Putting Pain in Perspective


Titi me maryajmaryaj la mizerab
Manmanm mouri maladipapam mouri maladi

Mayiango eyamayiango fe woch mache.

Ooo ooo mayiango fe woch mache

 

(This is the wedding, the wedding is miserable.

My mother dies from the sickness,

my dad dies from the sickness.

Mayiango makes the rock move.)


Haitian children’s folk song


Excerpt from Chapter 10: “Resentment, Fear, and Pain” 


Night had fallen and the compound was quiet. The church was locked up, clinic finished for the day, and I was relaxing in the clear Haitian night air with the orphans. We were all together, in the dirt under the illuminated heavens, chanting the grim children’s folk song. The game we played while singing it involved squatting in a circle and passing small stones in cadence with the song’s rhythm, left to right. The objective was to avoid losing control of the circling rocks as they moved ever more quickly while the song’s tempo increased. One by one, players would mess up and get knocked out. The winner of the game was the last one able to maintain control of the final stone. The prize for that night’s winner was my last Clif Bar, which would, for a brief moment, ease one starving child’s hunger pain. 


The trips I have made over the years to Haiti for medical missions have served as a reminder to me of the reality of pain: what pain is, can be, and should be. Living alongside and helping care for Haitian villagers and orphans who live simpy....




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