MERCY & SHARING FOUNDATION
TRANSLATION OF STERN MAGAZINE VOL. 13 of 1998
Photograph Page 6 - A Playmate in the vestibule of hell. In the past, Susan Scott
was featured on the front page of Playboy magazine. At that time she lived the life of
a well-situated homemaker until she saw the documentary about the children.
Today she helps the poorest of the poor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Too often help
arrives too late.
Two Page Photograph on Page 24 - From Luxury Into Hell - The White Mama of
Port Au Prince.
A TV documentary about the misery of children changed Susan Scott’s life five years
ago. Today the former Playmate takes care of the abandoned children of Haiti’s
capital. Often, when help arrives too late, the American has to look for her dead
children in the morgue.
Photograph Page 26 - She gives them nourishment and love. Most of the time the
children arrive at Susan’s in a pitiful state. Many times her tender care does not help
these children to survive.
Photographs Page 27 - Susan’s help came too late for these two. Many
handicapped children die on the street.
First a warm bath and then something to eat, and clothes. Susan Scott with her
children in the abandoned clinic in a different part of the state run hospital.
Photograph Page 28 - The dark side of Sun City. Susan Scott with a child from the
slums that has been abandoned and then died.
Photograph Page 29 - A pitiful death: A morgue helper with dead infants.
Photograph Page 30 - Happy times with Mama Blanche. Today, Susan spends half
of her time in Haiti.
TEXT OF ARTICLE
There is an earthly outpost of hell. It is the morgue of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Human
cadavers, naked or covered in rags, in all states of decay, are stacked up like sacks
of sand. There is no refrigeration despite the tropical heat; the stench is unbearable.
The wardens show no sign of sympathy towards these bundles of bone and flesh
that are decaying children’s bodies. In the middle of this horrible still life stands a
woman with blonde hair and an expression of bewilderment. She is looking for a very
specific corpse of a baby. The baby that she has been able to keep alive for four
weeks in the state hospital and then died. The hospital personnel disposed of this
body in customary fashion: it was taken to the human dump C the morgue nearby.
A year ago Susan Scott Krabacher furnished a room in the state hospital for
abandoned children with her own money. Since then she comes to the morgue
once a week to look for a child’s body.
Many of the little ones are so sick that their chances of recovery, even with the great
care that they receive, are slim.
Although the hospital provided the room for the 20-25 children that she tries to nurse
back to health, parents leave their sick, disabled and hungry (one mouth too many to
feed) at the door. The staff looks at this American as idealistic and totally unrealistic.
Why give so much of yourself for those that have very little chance of surviving in
Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. It is difficult enough to raise the
healthy children. That is why the caregivers and nurses are unmoved and
unaffected, and take the bodies and dump them in the morgue when the American is
not watching or is not present at the moment.
The attendants have made a business out of this. They hide my children under a
mountain of corpses, so when they see me coming I have to pay a fee of $75.00 to
find the little bodies again, so that I can give them a decent burial.
In Haiti, $75.00 is the income for half the year. When Susan shows the pictures of
despair from Port-au-Prince in the civilized world of Aspen, Colorado -- where she
lives when she is not in Haiti -- it becomes almost surreal. The cozy wood house on
the hill, the snow covered Rocky Mountain behind big picture windows. Soft music
from the stereo. Flowers everywhere. On the table are two Playboy magazines
displayed from 1983 and 1984. Susan Scott is the Playmate on the cover. She said
before her Haiti engagement she was a housewife with a husband (a lawyer and
businessman in the high tech sector) and great income with an antique shop and a
sushi bar for the chic people in chic Aspen. For the most part my life existed of
shopping and traveling around the world.
Then one evening five years ago, by chance she watched a TV program about street
children that lived in the sewers of Ulan Bator, Mongolia. That changed my life; I
knew instantly that I had to do something for these children. With tickets in hand
and ready to go to Asia, an old acquaintance asked her after a church service why
she wanted to go all the way to Mongolia when we have a much greater need right
here in our own back yard - Haiti. Susan Scott changed her plans.
The first day in Port-au-Prince she asked to see the poorest part of the city. Cite
Soliel or Sun City is the out-of-control slum area for about half a million people. No
electricity, no running water, no sanitation, the ditches full of excrement and stench
run between the cardboard and tin shelters. The police do not dare set foot in this
hot spot of hungry, misery and sickness.
Ex-Playmate Susie dared, not speaking of understanding that colloquial language of
Haiti C Creole. The light skinned beautiful blonde was greeted with insults and
hurling rocks. Distressed, she called out in English “don’t hurt me, I want to help
you” and as she fled, she told them: “I will be back”.
Susan says: That’s when I swore to be there for the children of Haiti, the rest of my
life. A big part in this decision was probably was that as a little girl she grew up in a
foster home and was sexually abused. The ex-model with still a dream figure told
her husband: “Soon we will have lots of children, and the best part is that I will not
gain a pound!”
She sold her share in the sushi bar in Aspen, canceled the world travel plans and
started the Foundation for Worldwide Mercy and Sharing. Together with her
husband they contributed and asked their wealthy friends to contribute. With the
money, they bought a run down warehouse in Cite Soliel and renovated it to be the
Nutrition Center for Children. Every morning 50 or 60 boys and girls show up at the
daycare. First each gets a shower and their rags get exchanged for clean
institutional clothes. The clothes have to be left behind before going home. Susan
said: “The parents would steal them right away”.
The foods that the children receive are rice, beans, and vegetables and even
sometimes salted meats, especially plenty of it. Understandably, the rush at the
nutrition center is alarming. I have hired a big strong Haitian with a big heart to sort
out the most needy of the children. I could never do this she said.
When Susan is in Cite Soliel to see that everything runs well, she also spends the
night with eleven other people, on a cot, in a hut. She relieves herself like everyone
else C behind the shack, and eats what the children eat. Sometimes she can hear
the shooting of the rival gangs.
Today I am well respected in Cite Soliel, she says, “they call me Mamma Blanche”.
The white mama that has no children of her own, goes back home to her husband
every four weeks. Joe is behind me 100%. But he will not come back to Haiti with
me. He has tried it, but cannot endure all that misery. Every time it takes her three
days to acclimate to Aspen before she starts raising more funds for her personal
mission in Haiti.
Susan had planned for more daily activities for the children of Cite Soliel to reach the
poorest of the poor. That plan has been shelved for now, since she came upon the
problem of the abandoned children in Port-au-Prince, a year and a half ago almost
by accident. The American tries with all of her might, and a handful of local helpers,
to make life for the helpless creatures a little more bearable.
She has arranged for the clinic’s emergency care. For the first time in their lives they
are treated with dignity. For many of them, help arrives too late C Susan makes sure
that the dignity of those she cares for is preserved in death. This is the main reason
she wants to relocate from the state run hospital to her own house (institution). No
one should ever take another baby to the morgue, where rotting bodies are stacked
up high and every few weeks the decaying human flesh is shoved into a trash truck
and carted away.
Susan bought property and plans to make a private cemetery of it. That’s where the
little bodies will be buried in the future. In every one of the simple coffins will be a
note that makes it clear the poor little one found a few moments of safety by Mama
Blanche. In his life he was loved.