Mountains Beyond Mountains - Kidder

 The Voodoo of Dr. Paul Farmer

Beyond fear lies more fear.  Beyond prejudice lies more prejudice.  Beyond ignorance lies more ignorance.  Beyond mountains lie more mountains.   From the Haitian proverb, “Beyond Mountains there are Mountains”, Tracy Kidder writes from firsthand experience with Dr. Paul Farmer in his book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World”.  A very ambitious title on a subject even more ambitious – the life of Dr. Farmer who has for the past two decades labored selflessly to provide an answer to this very simple question.  Do you turn your back on the sick just because they are poor? 

 In this spectacular yet poignant account of the founding of “Partners in Health” in Haiti, by Dr. Farmer, Kidder walks us through the biography, philosophy, and theology of a man who simply cannot turn his back on the sick, just because they are poor.  He surfaces the injustice and misery of being born in Haiti, certainly not by choice, and having to live a life where you don’t go out in the rain. Why?  We are left to ponder the reasons, but there can be no doubt that the simplest of illness in Haiti can quickly become life threatening.  And if a simple cold virus can be life threatening, what of the big killers that include Tuberculosis, Malaria, and AIDS.  To face these threats are not lifestyle choices if you don’t choose to live in a dirt floor hut, with a tin roof, no running water (except the rain leaking through the roof), and ten other family members living in the same room with you. 

Dr. Farmer has gained his world renown by taking on the World Health Organization by questioning the very protocol they have recommended for treating tuberculosis (TB) , having discovered in Haiti that the recommended  treatment does not work because most of it has already mutated into a Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) variety. ..And by the way all ten of your family members are living in the same room breathing the same TB strain in the air.  

 Despite winning this battle, Dr. Farmer lives by what he calls, “The Long Defeat”.  Essentially he is on the side of the underdog, those who live in poverty beyond poverty, who though they may win an occasional victory are destined to always be in the struggle for their lives.  Therefore his medical practice doesn’t exist for the small victory he gained fighting TB, it exists to treat every conceivable sickness, medical defect, or injury that walks through this medical facility doors or the illness he finds while trudging through the Haitian mountains, making house calls, leaky hut to leaky hut.

Finally, Dr. Farmer knows all of us will not give up our day jobs to come join him in some third world country providing aid and comfort to those who don’t know the water they are drinking is contaminated with bacteria, but he would like for us to understand that they don’t know either and can’t choose to drink clean water.  This is the ignorance which leads to the social prejudice.

When our kids are sick…Influenza-A strikes and fever sores to 103 degrees.  We have Tylenol, Motrin, and Tamaflu.  We are scared.  We worry.  In a few days the fever drops and life goes back to normal.   In Haiti, there is no morning clinic and CVS Pharmacy on the corner.  There is no understanding of Influenza or even a thermometer to take a child’s temperature.  But there is Voodoo.  When the drums begin, we may hear them and believe what we learn in “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and fear the magic and the supernatural craft.  We may judge it to be bad and perhaps even evil.  But consider this, in Haiti, perhaps 75% of all Voodoo ceremonies are related to healing the sick.  When the drums begin it’s because parents have a sick child and wish them to get better (Tylenol is not in their medicine cabinet).  When Dr. Farmer hears the drums at night he understands this… and when he is in Haiti, he cannot turn his back on these drums.  He makes house calls.