Chasing Butterflies

Our paradise, no crowds of tourists

February 4th, 2025: The news coming out of Washington concerning the freezing of USAID is just another brutal blow to the Haitian struggle. Their lawless state, terrorized by 10,000+ gang members, their food scarcity, paralyzed economy, malnutrition, and infectious diseases (like diphtheria) on the comeback, does not need another punch to the gut from clueless narcissists who are commanding our country.

The Julia Heliconian on a calico bush in Marjofre

I'm back here in the "Sudest," or southeastern part of Haiti where our clinic is located, after an 18-month hiatus. I feel like I'm dreaming a homecoming - its aromas of roasting coffee and woodsmoke are as intoxicating as ever and nature is still breathtaking. I remember now that February is the height of butterfly season here and I keep running into swarms of yellow and orange flickering in front of my eyes as I buzz by on the back of a moto, some kind of juju signifying better times to come. 

Centre de Santé Commune de Grand Gosier and our midwifery center, Mezon Nesans Fanmi, is expanding to the rooftop

It has remained peaceful here during the last three years of brutal violence in Haiti. Barely anything has changed, superficially, since I arrived in 2012. Same old rock-ridden roads, thatched roofs, market women riding side saddle on donkeys, unfinished cement structures, hollowed-out trucks and cars waiting for another mantle of dust to bury them forever. However, our clinic and its outreach services have grown enormously, serving almost 30,000 people annually. Our patients, like most Haitians, live in extreme poverty. Some have been displaced from the violence in gang-infested regions and others have been deported from the DR in a copycat Trump move by the Dominican government.

Rosemerlande Pierre and her newborn were recently deported from the DR to our region. We attend to about 550 displaced people a month

The clinic is owned by a local governing body, Centre Social de Développement Union de Grand-Gosier, CSDUG, which has made great gains in its autonomy in the last year. Finding resources in the community and from diaspora members in the US has made them less dependent on HHP. They have expanded our clinic to include office and supply space, as well as an isolation room for contagious diseases like cholera and diphtheria. They have helped execute the complicated supply chain in building potable water stations and latrines funded by Americares, resulting in continued funding for two more projects in 2025.

Members of CSDUG and HHP with community around holding tank for potable water recently constructed

I'll close with a passage from Graham Greene's "The Comedians" that I am finishing for the third time. Reading about Haiti sixty years ago, in the claws of Papa Doc, gives a little cockeyed comfort that we might make it through our present situation. But it is also a lovesong to Haiti that I hum as I chase her butterflies:

    "There might be little food in the land, but there was always color. The deep blue shadows sat permanently on the mountain slopes, the sea was peacock-green. Green was everywhere in all its varieties, the poison-bottle green of sisal slashed with black, the pale green of banana trees beginning to turn yellow at the tip to match the sand at the edge of the flat green sea. The land was stormy with color."

Today's sardine catch

Thanks for tuning in, Louise

Please visit us and donate at: Hispañola Health Partners

Louise Lindenmeyr

Executive Director, Hispañola Health Partners