I need a doctor

It was a month before my 16th birthday. My mom was taking me to Haiti to meet my siblings who were currently living in a Haitian orphanage. I wasn't a stranger to poverty. I grew up serving meals at the local homeless shelter. My parents had taken in foster children in the middle of the night who were malnourished and scared and ate the warm food past the pain of their rotting teeth. I had gone to Costa Rica. There I saw regions of people displaced from other countries trying to make by in small huts and tents. I wasn't a completely naive, young American girl.

However, I had never seen anything like Haiti and I wasn't yet desensitized to the shocking reality of poverty. The local homeless mission is vastly different from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. As I gazed out of the back of a truck, wide-eyed and nervous, down my first bumpy Haitian road, I had no idea how this little country would impact me. I had no idea that it would be here that I would hold a little one as AIDS took his life. I had no idea that I would learn enough of the language to argue with nurses and advocate for babies in Haitian hospitals. I had no idea that it would be this place that helped to decide on a career in nursing. At just 15 years old, I had no idea that I would wrap a stillborn baby up in a blanket and hand it to a man with a wheelbarrow to take for disposal. As I road in that truck, with the smog in the air sticking to my pale but freckled face, I had no idea that someday I would live in this country.

In fact, it wouldn't take long before I decided that I really wanted to go home. My mom stayed with me the first week of my trip. I stayed behind another three weeks to help around the orphanage and learn a thing or two about humility. In the process, I contracted a parasitic infection and lost 11 pounds in the month that I stayed there. By the end of the month, I was exhausted, ill, and homesick. I couldn't wait to get as far away from Haiti as possible and into a warm American shower. I happily packed my bags and was dropped off at the airport in Port au Prince. I had never been so excited at the thought of getting on a plane.

When I arrived at the airport, I had to first make a stop at the bathroom, a frequent necessity when harboring a parasite. As soon as I exited the restroom, I noticed it looked a lot busier than I expected. I got in line and began to wait. The line wasn't moving, but it was growing and growing until there was no more room in the small Caribbean airport. I began to grow incredibly anxious. I had arrived at the airport two hours before my flight, yet I wasn't even checked in yet. As I began to realize that I wasn't going to make my flight as I had been waiting in line for two hours, the crowd began to rumble. Angry protests, pushing, and yelling began. Any sense of personal space I once had was completely gone. An American man told me that the power had gone out in the airport and all of the computers and other equipment was down, and the backup generator was apparently not working.

The airport staff eventually set up tables to manually check each bag since they had no x-ray machine. Other staff members were trying to handwrite boarding passes and communicate without telephones or overhead speakers. It was the most chaotic thing I have ever experienced. My bag was in front of me. The shoving began to get so intense that I flipped right over my bag onto the floor. That's when I decided I had had enough and could no longer just stand in line while other people shoved me. I observed the baggage checking process. When the staff members were done combing through everyone's bags, they put a sticker on the bag to signify it was clear. A lover of rules and order, I have no idea what overcame me, but I have a feeling it had something to do with holding in diarrhea for the last three hours while getting shoved to the floor. I crawled on the ground in the middle of the Port au Prince airport and found a sticker. I put that sticker on my bag and went to the people guarding the ticket counter. They asked if my bags had been checked. I pointed to my "tactically-acquired" red sticker on my bag. They let me through.

The agent at the counter informed me that my plane had left an hour ago. I forcefully said that I didn't care where they sent me, JUST GET ME TO AMERICA. She told me all flights were booked. I gave her a death stare. She wrote out a standby ticket for a flight to Fort Lauderdale and checked my bag. She told me to go to the gate and find the person working there and tell them I am on standby. I did just that. The woman told me to just stand here and wait for her. I didn't. I followed that woman everywhere she went, even to the bathroom. I told her that I will get on a flight. I stared her down as she began the boarding process for the flight I was on standby for. After everyone was boarded, she turned to me and said, "There's a seat available. Go." "Which one?" I asked. There were no jetways. There were several planes on the tarmac with passengers boarding via large ladders. She pointed to one and told me to hurry. I ran and waved and screamed at the people getting ready to close up the plane and remove the ladder. They waited for me.

The flight attendant was completely confused at my handwritten ticket that simply said "standby" and my name. She found me the last seat on the plane. I sat down and cried. A young Haitian boy was sitting next to me eating crackers and offered me one. I smiled, ate a cracker, and collapsed into a deep sleep. I woke up as the attendants were preparing for final decent. "American Airlines welcomes you to Miami." Miami?! I was supposed to be on a plane to Fort Lauderdale! I checked my bags to Fort Lauderdale! I got off the plane, and through customs, and finally called my mom. In a weary voice, I tried to explain all that had just happened. I had no connecting flight, since my original one was long gone, and the only thing the Port au Prince agent booked me for was a flight to Fort Lauderdale, but I ended up in Miami. While my mom was trying to figure out getting me a ticket home from her end, I went to the American Airlines desk. I explained everything to the agent. She was my angel and found me a flight to Dallas with a connecting flight to Sacramento. But she looked at me and said, "They already started boarding. Can you run?"

And run I did. I called my mom out of breath to tell her I was getting on a flight and that I would be home soon. As I came down the escalator of the Sacramento airport, I saw my family at the bottom. My lip began to quiver. I walked straight into my dad's chest and began to sob. My dad took my backpack off of me as I just stood there. My mom kissed me. I looked at both of them, wiping away my cleansing tears, and said, "Hi. I need a doctor. And a bathroom."