When I first met Ti Jean, he was a spindly, orange-haired little guy with sad eyes and upper arms skinny enough that he would fall well within the range of the World Health Organization’s classification of moderately to severely malnourished. He initially caught my eye because of the soft whimper that I heard coming from the place where he sat waiting with his aunt to see one of the American doctors who had traveled to Montrouis with us on this occasion. When I approached him to ask what was wrong, he timidly mumbled that he was hungry. His look was clearly not one that had been practiced repeatedly in hopes of tricking some silly “blans” out of their “green money.” Instead, the tears running silently down his cheeks and the swelling belly that hid behind his starched, white shirt were representative of what true hunger must feel like.
Heart strings effectively tugged by Ti Jean’s despair, I grabbed him and his aunt by the hand, leading them to the dining hall where we Americans had feasted on pumpkin stew only hours earlier. Rifling through our food stashes for anything I could find to send them home with, I told them to help themselves to the remaining stew. About 15 minutes later, armed with an arsenal of granola bars and peanuts, they returned to the waiting area with full bellies and with what seemed to be much more serene spirits.
Ti Jean was seen in clinic and doctored for his upper respiratory infection and intestinal worms. He got his vitamins and bags of Akamil (the nutrition-rich mix of grain and beans that is used to nurse children back from malnutrition) and then wandered back to his home with his aunt. Notably, we had written down Ti Jean’s address, so that we could follow up with him down the road.
Over the years, as I have returned to Haiti, I have gotten to know Ti Jean and his family, visiting them regularly at their mud and thatched-roof hut, which sits proudly on a dusty knoll in the outskirts of Montrouis. As it turns out, Ti Jean is an orphan, having been born in a mountain village where his mother and father subsequently died of tuberculosis. He moved into his aunt’s house in Montrouis around the age of 3. He is one of 12 children living there, 3 of the children being his aunt’s biological children. All of the others are nieces, nephews and cousins who have also lost their parents. As best as we can tell, Ti Jean is now 6 or 7 years old, though no one can verify this for certain.
As often as we have been able over the years, my husband, Luxo, a native of Montrouis who lived there until August of 2006, and myself, have taken children’s vitamins, worm medicine and Akamil to Ti Jean and his family. As Ti Jean proudly sang out during a visit in the summer of 2006, “Chak fwa mwen we machin Pa Pouche pase sou wout-la, mwen rele pou fe granme mwen konnen ke tonton mwen ap pase.” In English, “Every time I see Luxo’s car go by on the road, I yell to my grandmother that my uncle is passing by.”
Indeed his family has become an extension of our own. Most recently, on our October medical trip back to Montrouis, I was giddy at the thought of getting to see Ti Jean again, hopeful that he would be doing as well as he had been when we last him. On Tuesday, the day that we held clinic in Ti Jean’s corner of town, I was standing in our makeshift pharmacy, sorting out amoxicillin and skin creams to give to our new patients, when a healthy, handsome boy came bouncing into my arms. His smile was beaming, his hair black and shiny, his belly no longer swollen and though thin, his arms were much more toned than they had been when we first met.
Sitting by my side throughout much of the clinic, eagerly trying to make conversation with the rest of the group, showing me how he could count and say his ABC’s and donning someone’s sunglasses so that he looked extra snazzy, Ti Jean spoke with Luxo (who was in the U.S.) over the phone, ensuring him that he was doing well and acting as if he talked on cell phones all the time. Throughout this encounter, I was rejoicing inside. Here is this one child, ever so miniscule in the global scheme, who has been given a chance at life, healthy development and, perhaps as importantly, the feeling that he is valued and loved.
As I took a deep breath and watched as hundreds of other families cycled through our clinics, interacting with our group members as friends, I thought of how we may be beaming some ray of hope into the lives of families throughout Montrouis, and how simultaneously, they are undoubtedly beaming such enormous rays of hope into our own.
Maggie Lozier-Vital
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Nice post, intresting read. Keep posting and I’ll come back for some more reading! Thanks!