Bridgette is back from Haiti
Bridgette and her crew of amateur medical missionaries made it back from Haiti on Monday. Bridgette, my sister-in-law, is a card carrying member of the Irish Women's Martyr's Society. We like to call her Saint Bridgette. Her day job is clinical director of a long-term care facility for people with chronic debilitative diseases. It's the kind of job where you can schedule heartbreaks on a regular basis. So what is a nice Irish girl do to take a break from such a stressful job... go to Haiti during a friggin revolution, what else.
Her son, Patrick, who just finished up a two year stint with a DC based quasi-NGO warned her not to go. He was a junior policy wonk and part time "election observer" in hot spots through out South and Central America. He did not work in Haiti but his immediate supervisor did. His take on Haiti was simple - FUBAR. Patrick's touching farewell to his mother as she headed off to Port-Au-Prince was something like... "Hey, Ma! If your crazy enough to go to Haiti at least put a couple of quarters in that airport life insurance Vend-o-matic machine so we can have a nice Irish wake when the rebels decide to use you for target practice."
Well the team of four (see previous story) did make it back alive, although there were some tense moments when they fell off the radar screen. Bridgette's take on the situation in Haiti was that the majority of the people do in fact support Aristide. These folks are not naive. They know Aristide has his weaknesses but consider him to be the lesser of two evils compared to some of the whack jobs in the rebel groups.
There is a "wealthy" class in Haiti, if you can believe that. They own the car dealerships, gas stations, telecoms and the "tourist" businesses. Yes, there is a small (very small) section of Haiti that is quite nice. Bridgette said that most of the businesses in Haiti revolve around illegal drugs and/or money laundering. The drug dealers are the only guys who can afford cars, cells phones and the nice (read adequate) houses.
The really weird set of circumstances, according to the locals (via Bridgette), is that most of the rebels are ex military, para military or police that Aristide supposedly routed out of the government during some of his anti corruption campaigns.
I can't wait for Patrick's assessment of the situation. He's usually very analytical. Unfortunately, I will have to wait about a month. He is currently in Africa on yet another NGO project to help local tribes get high speed telecommunication access. The technology is actually quite interesting.
And finally, another big awakening for Bridgette. The Haitians don't need medicine as much as they need food. Almost all the disease they encountered at the clinic could be attributed to chronic malnutrition. As she said..."These people don't need Zantac, they need oatmeal and yogurt."
9:56:10 AM 
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