Will you, please, help me by signing the petition to Stand With Haiti? Will you pass the word around and forward the link to your friends? I make a special plea to my readers from the Dominican Republic. Haiti is much more important than you can believe. Stand With Haiti is a program of Partners in Health and Paul Farmer. Please sign the petition.
I never heard of Paul Farmer until I arrived in Haiti in 2004. Within moments of my arrival, my destination was challenged because our hosts were not inside the 'terminal' waiting for us. We had no address or hotel information to give. Rule number 1: Have a destination when traveling to the islands. I was escorted outside. It was already dark when I was greeted by a host of 'staring in disbelief' men. I could not find a woman among them. You've seen the same crowds on the video streams from Port au Prince. The immigration officer suggested that I call out to my friends. Trust me, there were no white faces in this crowd. I began calling out "Glenna, Michael, Where are you?" This was repeated for several moments as the crowd murmured and began to slightly imitate me. I wasn't afraid, just perplexed. My itinerary had been forwarded and confirmed. I looked at the immigration officer and we returned inside the terminal.
To call this a terminal is a misnomer. It is a former US milatary building. It has all the glamour of a barracks. All grim and bare. Processing tourists is not big business. Tourists are few. This was the land of missionaries and non-profits plying their trades in communities by providing basic needs inside and outside of the capital city.
By the time I returned inside, my traveling companion had a name of a hotel and a driver. The immigration officer examined my passport, spoke my last name, looked at me and waved me on. We got into a new car and gradually made our way out of the airport area. When we were no longer around the perimeter of the airport, the street lights vanished. It became dark and traffic snarled to a turtle's pace. It was a warm evening and the Haitian people were outside living. It was late but people still plied their market goods on the 'sidewalks'. Women with great bundles walked gracefully along the side of the road. An emaciated dog crossed our path. I felt as if I'd landed on the other side of the moon. This was unlike any mismash of store fronts, street vendors, and shelters I'd ever experienced in a third World Country. This was Fourth World and beyond description.Today it lies in ruin with millions of people homeless with serious injuries. It no longer holds much media attention.
Our driver asked our names or perhaps we volunteered them. It makes no difference. When I said my name, "I was asked if I was related "to the great man, Paul Farmer. He's a doctor from Boston." Now, many years later, he is simply known as Palo in Haiti and is one of the most respected men of the people. He is an Harvard University Medical Professor with a specialty in Infectious Diseases, treating HIV and drug-resistant TB. He, and the other PIH founders Dr. Jim Yong Kim (President of Dartmouth) and Ophelia Dahl, and their sister organizations are experts in creating free medical clinics with world-class technology and pharmaceuticals serving the poorest of the poor. They are the "go to" organization of the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, the Clinton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the UN, etc.
Paul Farmer has been a social justice rock star for some time now. He speaks the truth and doesn't sugar coat it. He fills auditoriums on college campuses and other venues where he is invited to speak. Tracey Kidder wrote a best selling book about Farmer's early years in Haiti when he was proving all the naysayers wrong. It's called Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Heal the World. If you haven't read it yet, it's an easy read. Now it's on high school summer reading lists. Farmer himself is a prolific writer who challenges reader's to rethink their stereotypes and assumptions. He is the human face and soul of Social Justice.
I've heard Paul Farmer speak on three occasions and hope to again. He'd be my hero if I had to chose one. He's the last person to leave an event because he'lll stay and shake everyone's hand and field questions. He is a social justice rock star on US college campuses across the country. There is a rush to the stage after his presentation and the students seek him out clutching his books. I'm not one for crushing crowds, but on this one occasion I knew I had to introduce myself, so I waited in the packed lines. By the time I reached him and asked him to autograph one of his books, we got interrupted. He held my hand for a long time while he responded to an acquaintance. Then he calmly turned to me. I repeated my name and he asked where I was from. "Here", north of Boston."
"Massachusetts. That's where my father's family is from. We must be cousins. My family calls me PJ and so can you. I'll inscribe it that way for you." And he did before the crush moved me on but, not before I told him I'd been to Haiti myself. This seemed to surprise him and he started to hand me off to one of the young Haitian doctors but we got separated. The next thing you know, I'm out the door of Memorial Hall into the sunshine.
If you are on a university campus and many of you are, you may have the chance to hear him speak. Arrive early or get your ticket early because there is standing room only when this man is around. Are we related? Quite possibly for Farmer isn't the most popular last name and certainly doesn't sound Irish. Let's just assume we are.
There is a story in our family that when I did our genealogy, proved to be accurate. That it was told like a legend passed orally from one generation to another, is fitting on this day before St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick, was the Italian, who brought Catholicism to the island of Ireland. In the process, he chased away the indigenous religion of the people and possibly snakes out of Ireland. I don't know about the snakes part but Roman Cathoilicism took root easily enough without any need for warfare. They had been a literate people for eons with their own language and culture that celebrated music and dance and the art of storytelling. It was the English who added the mix of alcohol later on as they did with many civilizations that they conquered. There is an old joke that God gave the Irish the drink to keep them from taking over the world. I believe it's true and it still gets a good laugh.
As the story goes, Mary (maiden name unknown) and Patrick Farmer had 5 sons. They were from the tiny town of Roslea in County Fermanaugh. Today it is a border crossing gateway between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It's located in a remote lakes district of Northern Ireland and it isn't on any tourist itinerary or bus tour. To my knowledge, no modern Farmer has ever been to their ancestral home town though many have journeyed to Ireland. I still dream of going to County Fermanaugh some day because I hear it is a beautiful area of lakes and islands dotted with ancient Celtic-Druid stone work. Perhaps it could make for a mystical setting for a novel....or a blog.
The oldest two sons, Patrick and Michael set sail for New York. They were probably 17 and 18 years old, not unusual at the beginning of the famine. There was no Ellis Island then and immigration though recorded, was less stringent in those days. They made their way to the New York/Massachusetts border area in search of work. The terrain today is still beautiful dotted with small villages, old mills, the rounded mountains of the Catskills and Berkshires and further east the expanding manufacturing towns and cities reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
The brothers worked and saved to pay the passage for their next brother, Terrance (my ancestral branch) to come to the States. He arrived in Boston, joined up with Patrick and they both settled in Lynn. At his point, Michael drops out of the collective consciousness. I suppose he met a striking woman, had employment and settled down to raise a family. I believe Paul Farmer holds the key to this missing link...Michael.
The three brothers then paid for the passage of two younger brothers, James and Edward. The age difference between the older brothers and younger brothers was significant. James and Edward arrived at the tender ages of 14 and 16 in Boston just in time for the beginning of the War Between the States. They enlisted in the Grand Army of the Republic. The Irish like a good fight but are best known for fighting amongst themselves. Michael is listed as serving from New York, as was James. Patrick enlisted later in the war. Terrance did not serve. Census records indicate that he owned a dry goods store and had a young family. I imagine the responsibilities of at least two families were his. Times are not easy during war though you'd be hard pressed to equate or blame the current economic depression to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The casualties of the Civil War, the sheer number of boys that died is staggering as compared to today. We got a glimpse of Civil War era medicine and technology just recently watching the Haitian people dig and amputate in the rubble. An entire capital lies in ruins.
Well, all those Farmer boys made it home safely. That in itself was a miracle. They've settled in Lynn and later the North Shore for the next six generations making them part of today's establishment. Doing the genealogy was easy. All I had to do was go to St. Mary's Cemetery and the City Clerk's office in Lynn. It was the project that kept my mind occupied and body busy when I first became disabled.
On this eve of St. Patrick's Day, my mind drifts to Mary Farmer of Roslea, County Fermanaugh (Fur- Ma) who gave up, surrendered, five sons to unknown fates, knowing that she would never, ever see them again. I suppose the alternative was worse, to have them unnecessarily starve to death. Many will celebrate the Irish tomorrow drinking copious amounts of beer, whiskey and scotch. Some beer will be tinted green. Some will dance, some will sing, they'll be parades, loudness and ballads will permeate the airwaves.
I'll turn my attention to Mary Farmer who sent her sons to Boston via New York. Her's was an act of faith and courage. In a time of war, her veteran sons would be unharmed. They would know employment and become American citizens. They would bring Catholicism with them into a country that professed religious freedom but delivered prejudice. They would take their place as the new immigrants. They had their heyday in politics but that time is now passing away. They distributed their gene pool widely, which I guess, is the reason why everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day. They have prospered and multiplied among the people ensconced in the middle class. As for Mary daughters? We know nothing. That doesn't mean that they didn't exist.
Tomorrow I will give thanks for the great blessings endowed upon us as a clan and for the work of Paul Farmer in particular. I thank you, dear Readers/Leaders, for providing an audience for my words of healing.
Love Always Wins!
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