2763 Haiti, S.K.'s Roadwork

Saturday, January 30, 2010

There are better ways to get to the top of a tree than by sitting on an acorn.

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3 degrees F out there today. I hate winter.

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"The Doctors" yesterday had the four doctors in Haiti. The doctors worked in a tent, seeing people with horrific wounds that had gone days without treatment. They didn't have the equipment or medications they needed, had to make do with what was available. Many of the medicines were from other countries, and the labels were in some unknown language, and they had to assume it was whatever someone told them it was.

The camera didn't turn delicately away from injuries. Some were so bad I couldn't believe those people were walking, and many injuries had to be treated without anesthesia. The doctors had to go outside often to regain emotional control.

I'd seen a lot of photos from Haiti, and a lot of video clips, but this show affected me more than anything else. It wasn't a reporter standing on the street talking. It was the trenches.

From another direction, something I'd noticed that amazed me - when you see the Hatian people in the streets, or the tent villages, or even when they were turning up at the medical centers, the people are always wearing clean and neat clothes. Funeral attendees are wearing blinding white, without a smudge. I don't know how they manage that given the conditions - which, by the way, are not in the least exaggerated.

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I'm halfway through Stephen King's Roadwork. It's one of the old "Richard Bachman" non-supernatural books. In the story, Bart and Mary have been married twenty years, I guess (I'm not going to look it up), through the loss of their only child. A highway is being built through their neighborhood, and through the commercial laundry where Bart is a manager. Bart goes a little crazy, refusing to accept the inevitable, and doesn't close on the new laundry building or the new house by the deadline, thereby losing his job, and ensuring that he and Mary will be homeless within a month or so.

When Mary finds out, she leaves him. For me, this was a THUD in the flow of the book.

Duh? There was no indication of problems in the marriage, like that she was unhappy and looking for a way out. I cannot conceive of leaving as a response. I would express shock and anger I suppose, then I'd take over. I'd find a place for us to move to, I'd get a job, and I'd sit down and talk talk talk with my husband to find out what's wrong, why he has done something so very out of character, and get him help dealing with his problems. Obviously, he's really hurting, and I would take care of him.

Mary's response was more like "If you aren't going to feed, house, and clothe me, I'm outta here!" I have no sympathy for her any more.
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