TERRIER ROUGE, Haiti — Terry Johnston works through her list, using an interpreter to question the 20-year-old woman who is in her last year of classes.
“Is your mother alive? Your father?” she asks the student, Guerda Valmyr. “Mama, papa?”
“Non.”
“Do you have problems with your eyes?”
“Oui.”
“Dizziness?”
“Oui.”
“Have you had typhoid, malaria?”
“Non.”
“Do you hope to go to university?”
“Oui.”
“To study … ?”
“Nursing.”
“We need that now,” Johnston murmurs as she makes a note with her purple Crayola marker.
Johnston, of Jefferson, Maine, has been coming to this rural village about 18 miles from the city of Cap Haitien each year since 2002.
Click the link to read the rest of “Program finds Maine sponsors for Haitian children” by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
My name is Keith Michaud and this is “Letters From Away,” a blog written by a Mainer living outside the comfortable and sane confines of New England. The blog is intended for Mainers, whether they live in the Pine Tree State or beyond, and for anyone who has loved ’em, been baffled by ’em or both. Ayuh, I am “from away.” Worse still, I live on the Left Coast – in California. Enjoy! Or not. Your choice.
Letters From Away 