The Nobodies

I picked up this great book about 7 months ago called Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. It is written by Dr. Paul Farmer, who is a Professor of Medical Anthropology at Havard. He has worked in Haiti for over 20 years providing medical care at a hospital in a remote area of the Central Plateau located in Cange, Haiti. It is a 35 mile drive from Port-au-Prince, but is known to take almost three hours to get there. Dr. Farmer spends most of the year working at his clinic called Zamni Lasante, which means Partners in Health in Creole. The book I am reading focuses on several of the most impoverished places in the world: Cange Haiti, Chiapas Mexico, Lima Peru, and one of the prisons in Kemerovo Russia.

He argues, that the real problem is not neccesarily the illness, but they are a bi-product of their poverty. They not only treat patients for their diseases, but they provided food, money, and much much more.

I admit, it is hard to read. It is difficult to understand. But moreover, it is hard to read, because each page turned breaks my heart. I am profoundly disturbed by how the Haitians are treated. It is as if the world has forgotten all about this country. It's people are not humans, but faceless nobodies.

This poem below is the introduction to the book. I have spent a total of about a day in Haiti, but reading this not only confirmed my love for the "nobodies," but impresses on my mind the importance of the spreading the Gospel to this country. The importance of loving another person. The importance of reaching out, to the needy, to the homeless, to the prisoners, to the sick children, to the people we won't let come near our kids, to those who don't share our language... to the world. May we have compassion for the nobodies in the world... Compassion is not pity... It is love in action.

The Nobodies, by Eduardo Galeano

The Nobodies:
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream
of escaping poverty; that one magical day good luck will
will suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets.
But good luck doesn't rain down yesterday, today, or tomorrow, or ever.
Good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter
how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is
tickling, or if they start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing.
The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits,
dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.