Dance Fever

You’ve survived one of the most devastating earthquakes in human history. After being buried in the rubble, you are rescued, placed in a helicopter, and flown 100 miles from home to a city you’ve never seen. Due to the extent of your injuries, you undergo multiple surgeries, eventually require an amputation, and live in a tent with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees. It’s now two months later, your home in Port au Prince is destroyed, you don’t yet have prosthesis, it hurts to move….and you’re 7 years old. What would you do?
If you’re a patient in the earthquake ward at the Sacre Coeur Hospital in Milot, and it’s 3pm, you have a dance party.
I’ve sent you pictures of the tents set up across the road from the main hospital. Each holds 30-40 patients, and some family members. Tent 2 is dedicated to pediatrics. Additional patients are in the pediatric nutrition center next door.
A company has donated an interlocking plastic floor to place over the rocks and mud. They have fashioned a patio, complete with lounge chairs, outside of tent 5. A covered DJ booth sits at the entrance. Patients and their families congregate, and enjoy the breeze that will filter through the compound. Around 2:30, the music starts, complete with Milot’s own version of Tupac. Rap, creole music, and the occasional American tune fill the air. Benches are set up, and adults in wheelchairs jockey for position. Because it’s Haiti, the party never starts right at three. But the children begin their parade – those on crutches, a few on stretchers, a good number that can move on their own. They gather to dance. Nurses and physicians join in, family members clap, and for a brief and wonderful moment, there is no pain, no concerns about the future, just the universal experience of being caught up in the music. Kids who grimaced during physical therapy, moved their extremities.
What I saw today was the human spirit. It would easy to say that as Americans, we are spoiled, and expect life to be fair and easy. We all experience adversity differently. I recognized that the human condition transcends color, money, status, or even life expectancy. To find the joy in the face of sorrow, to dance when it hurts to move, to smile when you should be crying; that is what we call resilience. And in my eyes, if you looked up resilience in the dictionary, you would see a picture of the Haitian people.