Die with dignity

In Jacmel there is a Mother Teresa camp. While visiting the PortauPrince Mother Teresa I was told of a sisters home. I finally am able to visit them during visitation hours the following day. We have passed by here before, it is right across from the doctors without borders hospital. We walk up and through to the back. A Indian sister Nun comes up to us. She is happy to see us, I tell her I’m from Texas and originally from Pakistan. She introduces me to the other ladies. They all are nurses and caretakers. They have a room for mentally challenged adults. Another for babies sick or malnourished, where they care for them temporarily. The last is a home for mentally challenged and sick elders who have mainly been abandoned and have nowhere to go. The mood doesn’t ring bells of hospice environment to me.
I continue to talk to her after. She tells me she’s always wanted to go to Pakistan, they have homes there too. She has been serving for fifteen years and has travelled all over to South America, a few other places and now the Caribbean. She speaks many languages.

She speaks about the earthquake. One of their buildings in the front has been destroyed. And so has the home where the sisters live. They want to build something sustainable and study she tells me. They have been there for 20 something years. They are living in a huge tent. She talks about the earthquake. She says how many people died on the street. She says how they dug graves and buried so many. She says at least here they die with dignity, the elders. I am enchanted. She says everyone should at least die with dignity.

I’m not the typical foreign volunteer. I have a feeling she will remember me.