By Cindy Strodel McCall
At low, long tables in the inner room the little ones are getting their “small” meal – a soup of maize and rice – in the morning as I arrive. Newly made cholera beds (to be used at the hospital proper) line the entrance to the Nutrition Center. A noisy utility plant next door makes it difficult to hear at times.
Inside the Center, tiny children are dressed with care in clean clothes, the little girls’ hair tied up in ribbons or colorful barrettes. One little boy, dark skinned, very thin, and taller than the others sits listlessly at his bowl, his eyes on the table. I notice he has no spoon, as I watch the other children lap up their soup.
A spoon is brought, and the boy eats slowly and deliberately, with no sign of animation. When he is done, he puts down the spoon and waits.
All the other children have mothers or grandmothers in attendance. Pads and blankets line the floor where children can nap. There are no diapers, so one holds a baby carefully, with a small towel under the little bottom, a towel that each mother keeps in place as she hands you her baby. Still, accidents happen. Most days I left the Nutrition Center with a damp spot somewhere on my scrubs.
Set up to feed malnourished children, the HSC Nutrition Center provides preschool children in Milot with two meals a day, and gives out nutritional snacks.
A Haitian pediatric healthcare team gives out immunizations there. On Fridays, families are sent home with food for their children for the weekend.
Mid-morning I help Sister Ann Crawley give out protein bars that supplement the meals provided to the children. The very thin boy is new, she says. The Haitian staff doesn’t know him either. A six-year old cousin had brought him in, and promptly departed.
The main meal is served, a rich chicken stew with yams, carrots and rice. Many of the young mothers look as if they could use a bowl themselves – most of them eat every other day – but the funding for the program provides only for children. The mothers watch to make sure their little ones eat every morsel. I find Edouard a spoon, and I hold him on my lap when he is given immunization shots. He is very brave, and doesn’t shed a tear. Families were recently given sets of new shoes, Sister Ann told me. One young mother, however, kept insisting to me that she needed shoes, and she wanted mine. She also wanted my watch and my bag. I told her in Creole, in one of my few survival phrases – “No, sorry, I need them.” After my first day in Milot, I learned to say my own name in Creole and ask for another’s name. Most people called me “bland (white person)”anyway.
The young mom was 19. She had a baby boy and a 3-year-old, and she was one of the few parents at the Nutrition Center that called me by name.
The last day I was there, she asked me to put on her little girl’s shoes while she changed her baby. The shoes were plastic sandals with plastic ankle straps, and they were inflexible. I measured the little girl’s foot against the bottom of the shoe – it fit inside the sole. But the ankle straps were hard and tight, and I was afraid I was hurting the little one as I tried to squeeze the first shoe on. Trop Petit, too small, I told her mom. She gave me her baby and then got to work putting on those shoes. Gently, she maneuvered her daughter’s small foot through the ankle straps. Once past the straps, she set the heel down into the shoe, and then tenderly massaged the little girl’s foot into every corner of the shoe. It took a full five minutes per shoe but the shoes went on, while the little girl watched. Then the family waved goodbye, the little girl walking proudly, and comfortably, in her shoes. The grace and patience, the persistence and tenderness of this young woman who had to make do with so little for her children was thoroughly humbling to me. I was ready to tell her to toss those shoes – how little I knew of the lives and the sacrifices of these young mothers I’d spent the week with.
A new HSC Family Center is being built, a compound with goats and a vegetable garden. It will be a great move for the Center and will help them reach more children; as well as allow them to grow the food they serve. When last we spoke, Sister Ann was working to get Edouard into an orphanage. Up in the mountains, she says, life is very difficult.
Cindy Strodel McCall is a writer and teacher who lives in Cazenovia, NY. She served as a volunteer on Dr. Brendan Brady’s surgical team in April 2012. Her work experience includes teaching at Cazenovia College, and doing freelance writing for local newspapers. She is currently employed by Cazenovia Public Library where she co-coordinates an adult literacy program that brings volunteer tutors to rural Madison County through partnerships with local area libraries and community food.
