It's 7 am and already over a hundred have gathered. The sun finds its way through the palm trees and illuminates the stretch of grass now serving as a waiting room.
We're in Petite-Goâve, a seaside village unfortunate enough to be near the epicentre of the earthquake that had struck three weeks earlier.
Doctors and nurses from Canada and the States gather to eat breakfast and make plans for the day while helicopters pass overhead. A unit of marines arrive and after arranging their weapons to form a teepee on the ground, start work on building a temporary shelter.
I start to wonder why I didn't follow in my father's footsteps and become a man of medicine when I become aware of a sound. Voices in melody and harmony. The patients, inflicted with broken bones, infected wounds and the void left by lost loved ones, begin to sing. Sing songs of thankfulness.