Haiti: Limbe

Sitting in our room after a long, long day Sandey and I are reading about Haiti. It turns out that Cap Haitian is where Christopher Columbus landed in 1742… what he thought was the New World (the first time) was actually Haiti. It also happened to be considered the richest of the French colonies up until the late 1880s. Some of the beautiful French arches and ironwork can still be seen. It is really strange. When you are driving through town, the roads are so full of potholes that the pavement is nonexistent. The buildings look as if they were just abandoned and then simple reinhabited after a hundred years with tin siding added as modern improvements. Civil war has really stopped this country from moving forward. One of our security guards said today that the President is afraid to even leave his compound and that he expects another civil war again soon. (Of course we all replied that soon should wait at least five more days.) The army is nonexistent and the National Police are corrupt. Living in a constant state of civil unrest… mind-boggling.

Back to the medical trip... Before we started our trip today, Dr. Beyda asked us to look in the mirror and "believe." Believe in who we are, believe in why we are here, believe that we have something deeper to give, believe in god, or create our definition of belief. It was an inspirational way to start the day. Sandey and I talked about what it means to be on a mission. Humanitarian mission? What does that mean... a mission to discover our common fate? Maybe more later in the week as I discover (again, as I do each time) what that means.

Today we traveled about 2 hours (45 minutes on a good road) to Limbe. This was a very remote village across two mountain ranges. If anyone wants to read a very interesting book about humanitarian work in Haiti, read Mountains Beyond Mountains (just finished it but now I know where the title came from). As we arrived in the area for our clinic, my first thought was that the rural areas seemed cleaner. Well, there was less visible garbage everywhere but the living conditions were even worse. Mud huts, small shacks, abandoned buildings. We set up clinic in a very small church and hit the ground running. By the end of the day, we saw over 350 patients. All of them sicker than yesterday. Not much apparent malnutrition but serious problems with hygiene, malaria, scabies, pneumonia, dengue and more. Some memorable patients include a beautiful 82 year old woman with an incredible smile (Sandey got a great picture of her), a blind man to whom I had to dispense 5 different medications (try doing Braille pharmacy tags in the middle of the Haitian jungle), and a gorgeous set of 2 year old twin girls. At some point in the middle of the day, we went outside and taught the “chicken dance” and the Hokey Pokey to around 140 young kids… yes, in English. They loved it!! It is incredible to sit in laugh with these amazing children with huge expressive brown eyes, surrounded by poverty and filth, and feel their wonder and love and zest for life.

A striking moment for me today was when Dr. Beyda taught the local doctor and pastor how to take a bucket of filthy water and filter it clean with a $60 filter from the US. Water is a huge problem for these people. All the water projects that we hear about back in the States have never even touched these remote villages. Why can’t we find a way to get these filters for every family and every school that needs them? Digging a well is so much more expensive and may (or may not) happen for years. But a $50 filter that can change their lives and give them good hygiene and a healthy body…? This is definitely something I am going to need to sit on for a while longer.

As always I am humbled by this experience. The resiliency of these children, the curiosity in their eyes, and the knowledge that we all really do have a common fate because we are really all just human, regardless of our skin color.

Bon nui from Haiti.

Please also visit tenutophotoblog.com to see pictures and medicalmercy.blogspot.com to see comments from Dr. Beyda.

Haiti: Trou du Nord

Good morning from Haiti! It is just after 5 in the morning but I couldn’t sleep. Yesterday was our first day of clinic. We traveled to a remote area about an hour from Cap Haitian called Trou du Nord, meaning “hole of the north” in Creole. From the name you can imagine what we saw… poverty beyond imagination. I am still trying to digest the sights, smells, sounds of such pure hardship. The buildings were falling down… remnants of a civil war that tore this country apart. Trash was everywhere, sometimes being burned in streets right next to “shacks” made from old concrete and tin roofs. But in the middle of all this destitution was a small church. We turned a corner in our bus and were greated by over 200 children wearing their Sunday best and singing to us in English. There faces were beautiful and the sounds of their voices are still ringing in my head. No matter what belief or religion, I find it hard to believe that there is not a human being out there that would not be touch by such an incredible scene. The children were curious to see our white (very) faces. The rest of the day was a blur as we hit the ground running. We limited our clinic on this first day to only 220 children (and their families). We got a bit of a late start so we didn’t finish up until around 6pm. Headed back to town for dinner at Hotellaire Roi Christophe, a quaint, old French Colonial hotel near Hotel Mont Joli.

Today we are headed to a more remote village for another day of clinics. Please go to tenutophotoblog.com to see pictures from yesterday and bios of some of team. Also go to medicalmercy.blogspot.com to see comments from Dr. Beyda.

Haiti: In Cap Hatian on Halloween

The trip into Haiti was tough. Three hours from Santiago to the border on bumpy, sometimes unpaved roads. We had minimal trouble crossing the actual border. We crossed Massacre River (very sombering). Then we spent some time sitting in customs as our UN guard was reassigned elsewhere. Dr. Beyda pulled some strings though and was able to get us two undercover policemen to travel into Cap Haitian with us. Good thing he did because we ended up getting stopped by a renegade customs agent on the isolated drive. We didn’t know he was renegade at the time but who knows what would have happened without the guards. After questioning us, we moved on to another checkpoint where we were stopped by the Haitian National Police. Two hours later, we arrived in Cap Haitian. The town is an interesting dichotomy of beauty and sadness. The slums are worse than any other slum I have ever seen but town is nestled between beautiful lush mountains and expansive blue ocean. Our hotel is basic but clean. We had a quick lunch and then settled down for hours of counting and packing meds. We finally finished at ten last night. But we are up early and ready to go. For photos, check out tenutophotoblog.com. I haven't had a chance to upload mine! But Sandy got some great shots. First clinic today… more to come later.