White Gowns in the Rubble

On January 12, 2010, a 7. 0 earthquake leveled much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In the chaotic aftermath, medical teams set up field hospitals in parking lots and churchyards. Survivors arrived covered head to foot in concrete dust and blood — Haitian market vendors, American missionaries, Dominican construction workers, French UN staff. The earthquake had made no distinction among them. Volunteers gently washed the dust from their skin, cleaned their wounds, and dressed each one in identical white hospital gowns.…