WARNING: This is not a pleasant post.

I was talking with Tagó after Mass on Sunday when a couple of the altar boys came up to ask about getting fitted for new albs (they’ve been growing lately). I told them to ask Fr. Gee if we could go ahead and take care of it right then. While I was waiting for them by the rectory gate, I noticed a Haitian family (father, mother, and a little girl about 2) who were also waiting to speak with Fr. Gee. This was not at all unusual – many Haitians come by the parish office looking for help to get into the capital for medical treatment. It used to be the case that with the written permission of the parish priest, they could make the trip without any hassle from the guardia, but now things are quite a bit stricter and they usually need to have all their official papers. That doesn’t seem to have cut down on the traffic through the rectory, though, and Sundays are no different, even though the office is always closed. So, I really didn’t give the situation a second thought, until I noticed that Tagó was speaking with the family, and that she was crying. She said, “María, come see this, I’ve never seen anything like it. What are they going to do?” I walked over and finally saw the face of the little girl for the first time. Her left eye was no longer recognizable as an eye. She had a huge growth (a tumor?), larger than a baseball, growing out of her eye socket, pushing her eye out of her head. The whole thing was nasty and infected, and the mother was constantly fanning her with a towel to keep the bugs away. It was a horrible sight.
The good part is that Fr. Gee was able to send them in to the capital. Hopefully the little girl will get the treatment that she needs. Please pray for her and her parents.