they have faces
it’s hard to believe a whole week has passed. the weekend has been quiet and stormy, brooding, as if nursing some old wound. the lights have gone out several more times since that first blackout. i’m fine enough living alone in the middle of so many unknowns, but being plunged into darkness holding a metal pot under running water and showers of lightening makes me feel like a sitting duck. i tell myself death by electrocution is a low probability event. comfort in statistics. i feel my way upstairs to my stash of candles and matches and am amazed by the amount of light one little candle emits. i sing “this little light of mine” in french because french is home to me and faith is home to me, and it makes me feel better.
i finish washing my pot. i hate dirty dishes. they multiply like gremlins. and besides, i need the pot to soak my beans. i am pleasantly surprised this morning that my boiling sugar beans (white with red spots) smell like red beans (which is what i was looking for in the first place). for a person who does not claim homesickness or loneliness, for the moment, i bring a lot of home to me. few things are more new orleans than red beans and rice. the weather is nasty, but i thrive on the scent of water in the air. it makes me feel alive, like the air is living. it probably is alive, filled with mold and fungus and bacteria, but i’m okay with that.
it makes me think of the branches on the wall in the computer room. it was completely unexpected, but one day last week i said to myself, probably out loud, “they have faces.” suddenly some forgotten, dead, driftwood was alive with eyes and arms and legs, man’s art on top of god’s art. i thought of our clinic babies, how each one is unique, but in essence not so different from babies everywhere. it’s in the eyes. barack obama talks about it in dreams from my father, “the curiosity they displayed toward every new face, seemed the equal of children anywhere.” he’s watching kindergarteners at carver elementary in chicago (actually same name as segregated school some of my family members attended). the principal remarks, “the change comes later. in about five years…when their eyes stop laughing. their throats can still make the sound, but if you look at their eyes, you can see they’ve shut off something inside.”
i guess that here, we’d like to keep that something on, but we’re more preoccupied with simply keeping them alive. the eyes shine alright, despite ophthalmic herpes, despite cutaneous hpv. some thirty to forty percent of screened pregnant mothers here are hiv positive which makes for plenty positive babies. despite our best efforts, so many die. from far away, they may look like something unrecognizeable, but i assure you, they have faces and names and mothers and fathers who want only the best for them.
to generalize further, halfway through residency, i remain appalled by the way some parts of society treat children. i’m sickened by the number of abused children, neglected children, and abandoned children. i don’t understand how our government did not support s-chip when the entire budget for children’s health care comprises the slightest of slivers in the grand scheme of american health care. come to ben taub (county hospital in houston) and look at the faces riddled with eczema gone too long, nostrils flaring with asthma out of control, and runny noses that are honestly best seen in the doctor’s office, a less expensive venue. then tell me that all you see is a system you didn’t create pinning people you don’t know to the wall of indifference.
i finish washing my pot. i hate dirty dishes. they multiply like gremlins. and besides, i need the pot to soak my beans. i am pleasantly surprised this morning that my boiling sugar beans (white with red spots) smell like red beans (which is what i was looking for in the first place). for a person who does not claim homesickness or loneliness, for the moment, i bring a lot of home to me. few things are more new orleans than red beans and rice. the weather is nasty, but i thrive on the scent of water in the air. it makes me feel alive, like the air is living. it probably is alive, filled with mold and fungus and bacteria, but i’m okay with that.
it makes me think of the branches on the wall in the computer room. it was completely unexpected, but one day last week i said to myself, probably out loud, “they have faces.” suddenly some forgotten, dead, driftwood was alive with eyes and arms and legs, man’s art on top of god’s art. i thought of our clinic babies, how each one is unique, but in essence not so different from babies everywhere. it’s in the eyes. barack obama talks about it in dreams from my father, “the curiosity they displayed toward every new face, seemed the equal of children anywhere.” he’s watching kindergarteners at carver elementary in chicago (actually same name as segregated school some of my family members attended). the principal remarks, “the change comes later. in about five years…when their eyes stop laughing. their throats can still make the sound, but if you look at their eyes, you can see they’ve shut off something inside.”
i guess that here, we’d like to keep that something on, but we’re more preoccupied with simply keeping them alive. the eyes shine alright, despite ophthalmic herpes, despite cutaneous hpv. some thirty to forty percent of screened pregnant mothers here are hiv positive which makes for plenty positive babies. despite our best efforts, so many die. from far away, they may look like something unrecognizeable, but i assure you, they have faces and names and mothers and fathers who want only the best for them.
to generalize further, halfway through residency, i remain appalled by the way some parts of society treat children. i’m sickened by the number of abused children, neglected children, and abandoned children. i don’t understand how our government did not support s-chip when the entire budget for children’s health care comprises the slightest of slivers in the grand scheme of american health care. come to ben taub (county hospital in houston) and look at the faces riddled with eczema gone too long, nostrils flaring with asthma out of control, and runny noses that are honestly best seen in the doctor’s office, a less expensive venue. then tell me that all you see is a system you didn’t create pinning people you don’t know to the wall of indifference.
posted by shaunistar @ 1:43 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Man, that saddened me just now. I want to do something to help, but I don't know how...I feel soooo small.Faces...so I know you're referring to the wooden art with "faces" on them, but did you mean to lend this title to the faces of the little children also? I mean, the faces that laugh but have lost their youthful happiness? Or the faces of those less fortunate children covered in eczema (hope I spelled it correctly)? Or could it be the faces you want remembered of those who have just been plain forgotten by the government? This makes for a really good political commentary if so.You should consider submitting it into a writing contest of some sort.
i mean the babies' faces most of all, but it's everything you said. it makes me furious and i didn't want it to sound so angry in the end, but some things can't be helped. it's gogo's face too; that's how they say grandma. it's the saddest thing to see gogo saddled with this deathly ill hiv-infected baby and all the baby junk, having walked god knows how long in church shoes. baby's make (mom) died last week of aids and babe (dad) is nowhere to be found. i am encouraged though, and i hope you will be, too, by the food aid being shipped in and by the number of people who care who are here to help for the long haul.
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