A weekend among the Mountains Beyond Mountains

This weekend I went out to rural Haiti to visit my friend Erica from Cornell who works with the agriculture program of Partners in Health. Not only did I get out of Port-au-Prince and get to see a friendly face, but now I can finally tell people that I have visited Cange, the place made famous by Paul Farmer’s biography Mountains Beyond Mountains.

Partners in Health operates from a human rights perspective –that tout moun se moun “all people are people” and therefore have the right to the same standards of care whether they live in Boston, MA or rural Haiti. Their medical complex in Cange is definitely impressive by Haitian standards – providing everything from c-sections to HIV treatment to chemotherapy for free to Haiti’s rural poor. If they cannot provide a needed medical intervention, they will do all they can to ensure the patient is treated at their partner hospital in Boston.

The PIH approach is not without controversy, especially as Paul Farmers’s voice and influence on how people think about issues of global health inequalities is growing. Is it realistic to assume that all over the world, we can build institutions like Partners in Health? Institutions that require incredible amounts of donated outside funds and depend heavily on foreign staff based in the United States to keep functioning.

I am challenged by and extremely thankful for the people like Paul Farmer in the world – who do radical things that others say are impossible and make them possible. Without groups like Partners in Health who were among those who pioneered bringing HIV therapy and advanced TB treatments to the poor, I don’t think we would see the emerging global successes we see now in these areas.

However, I also think there is a danger when we believe that these exceptional personalities will solve the problems of the world. I meet so many people who seem awe struck by Paul Farmer and his work – but it is really hard for anyone short of someone as exceptional as Paul himself to really carry it out. None of us can plan to follow the path he took for his own life – I doubt that he planned it himself.

Problems will only really be solved when everyday sorts of people become involved within the realm of their everyday capacities.

PS – I had a wonderful time escaping the city and hanging with Erica in rural Haiti - which feels like a different country than Port-au-Prince. We went on a hike in the hills and had a fantastic dinner with the family who she is staying it. They taught us a few Haitian proverbs that I’ll post soon.