At the Hospital
She sat down next to me on the hospital bench, colorful beads at the end of each of the twenty something braids on her head. Her five-year-old face was aglow and excited to see a white person. I’ve gotten used to that look in the past nine months. I tried to learn her name, but couldn’t catch all the syllables of the full name she gave me. Later, I asked her what her friends call her, since most people in Haiti have nicknames. The closet thing I can remember is Memi. Memi and I spent the next hour and a half together. She took me to see her mom who was sick with “anemi” . I thought maybe it was anemia. Her mom had been in the hospital for eight days, and had a few more left, she said. Memi took me to several other patient rooms. She took me to see the sick babies. One was a month old, but smaller than the size of a newborn. She took me to see the handicapped people in the next building over. I met a man in a wheelchair who had lived at the hospital for three years. She took me to t