From Haiti To Henley

After winning gold at the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta and before pursuing gold at the Women’s Henley Regatta, Purdue’s Maggie Busse contributed to Haiti’s immense rebuilding efforts

Henley-on-Thames, England — Bouncing down an all-dirt road near Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince, Maggie Busse absorbed her surroundings.  

Sprawling cot-filled “tent cities” peaked up around the entire area.  Trash lined the streets.  Piles of rubble from buckled buildings laid seemingly everywhere.  An unspeakable smell permeated the air.

While most students hurry to the beach or the comforts of home once summer vacation begins, this is where Maggie Busse (above, smiling) chose to visit: Post-earthquake Haiti — a place so devastated by destruction that many of the locals have simply stopped trying to rebuild.  The wreckage and agony left by the January 2010 earthquake that killed at least 230,000 people no longer resonates in the national news cycle.

But Maggie Busse’s conscience is not the national news cycle.

“I’ve always had the sense that there’s more out there for me,” Busse said on Friday.  “I’ve just felt that I need to go do that.”

A member of Purdue’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Busse joined the organization’s service trip to a village outside Port-au-Prince soon after her crew — the Purdue women’s varsity eight — won gold at the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta in mid-May.  She leapt at the opportunity to partake.  The mission took the group to Double Harvest — a complex consisting of a school, a church and a clinic that employs Haitians and trains them how to harvest crops. 

Having traveled on two previous trips as part of the Appalachia Service Project, Busse was familiar with the unique impact a service trip can have on an individual.  Visiting Haiti, though, took her mission to a new level.

“These trips change your life,” said the Purdue sophomore.  “It’s made me realize that we can deal with whatever comes our way.  People are resilient.  We have such an opportunity to make the best of everything.  To just sit in America and have my everyday life just seems so plain to me.”

As the No. 6 seat in Purdue’s varsity eight, Busse is once again on foreign land.  Today she will embark with her crew in the Women’s Henley Regatta semifinals and, potentially, the finals of the G.P. Jeffries Cup in Henley-on-Thames, England.  

Haiti and Henley — two very different trips — two very different collections of memories.  Even while in England, Haiti isn’t far from Busse’s mind.

“You wonder why no one there is doing anything about (the still widespread problems facing Haiti),” she said.  “But then you realize that they don’t know how.  They don’t know what to do about it.  That’s what killed me.”

At Double Harvest, Busse and 20 or so other students worked tirelessly.  They laid gravel around a house that had become surrounded by mud due to the heavy Haitian rains that fall daily.  They painted another house.  They planted trees to help combat disastrous government-initiated deforestation that has crippled portions of the area.  They built tables and chairs for an orphanage filled wall-to-wall with 55 children ranging from a 9-month-old infant who was found abandoned in a riverbed to a few 16-year-old girls.

Many small things led to making a big difference.  Busse blissfully remembers the children at the orphanage rushing to sit around their new tables.  They showed their gratitude the only way they knew how — singing songs of thanks in Creole.  

“They were so genuinely happy to just have tables and chairs,” Busse said.  “We ended up staying there the whole day to play with them.  That was probably the best experience.  You’d pick up little kids and they would latch onto you.  They would hold on tighter once they got used to you.  They were the sweetest little kids you could ever imagine.”

At another orphanage on another day, Busse noticed a girl on crutches standing alone in the corner.  She was 12; the victim of an amputee after breaking her leg in the earthquake.  Busse calmly approached to ask her name.

The girl shyly whispered.  Busse leaned closer, turning her ear toward her.  Instead of getting her name, Maggie Busse received a kiss on the cheek.

“She was the most precious thing I’ve ever seen,” Busse said.  

It turns out the girls name was Ruth.  Busse will remember her forever.

“I just wanted to bring her home with me,” she said.

A conversation with Maggie Busse can pull the heartstrings taut.  She vividly remembers not the work she did, but the people she met.  She thinks about the children running toward her yelling “Dlo!  Dlo!” — “Water!  Water!” — and how helpless she felt not being able to fulfill their every need.  She reflects on the family she met that were too scared to sleep in their concrete house for fear of another earthquake.  Instead, they sleep in a tent sitting directly next to their own home.

“You want to be able to give them everything,” Busse lamented.  “But you can’t.”

In the future, however, Busse plans to do everything she can.  She’s a pre-med biological engineering major at Purdue.  Ideally, she hopes to go directly to medical school after graduation and plans, ultimately, to specialize in pediatric oncology.  If med school doesn’t happen, she’ll look to enter the environmental field to work for a clean water initiative and help bring safe drinking water to underdeveloped countries. 

“Service trips have taught me that I can impact so many people’s lives and see my life change as well,” said Busse, who has organized an Appalachia Service Project from her home church in Ludlow Falls, Ohio, that begins this summer.  “It’s so rewarding both ways.  Why would I ever want to stay and not go do something bigger?  I could never be satisfied just sitting here and missing out on meeting all these incredible people and hearing their stories.”

This afternoon, Busse will have the opportunity to have her dreams come true at Henley.  Regardless of the outcome, she’ll then go back to trying to answer the dreams of the needy.

“There are people in this world that wake up and battle every day,” she concluded.  “I just want to help.  It’s inspirational.”

And so is Maggie Busse.

STORY: Brendan F. Quinn

PHOTO: Courtesy of Greg Rohlfing