Some tidbits

A few interesting things from the last few days:

I went back to the orphanage being run by Mother Teresa nuns and spent some quality time there. As happens everywhere in Haiti, the kids stared at me and giggled as I walked around, asking questions. A chubby little toddler (good news that she is chubby) came up to me and slipped her hand into mine. As we walked into the next building, she turned around, and with the born right of every child in the world, she raised her arms so that I would pick her up. Children here, who have so little known the loving arms of a parent, just need a little holding. As she and I walked, another little girl slipped her hand into mine. This little one had AIDS and no parents (most likely dead from AIDS). What a shitty inheritance. But kids here are well taken care of – she is on meds and she seems full of life.

Part of our organization’s duty is to help manage a medical depot here. This warehouse is stocked full of meds and peripherals, a lot of good donations, but unfortunately still in the warehouse for some reason. We have been doing our best to give stuff out to people who have the need (for some reason, the people that are really in charge of the depot don’t seem to be as willing to part with stuff). There was a man in our minivan on the way back from PAP who randomly asked if we knew anyone with tents to spare. He asked the right people – I was able to get him one the next day for his family of 13.

We went to the depot the other day and noticed some expired meds sitting outside the depot doors, where anyone could have taken them. This is dangerous in a few ways: 1) someone could steal them and ingest them without knowing what they are for or 2) people could take them and sell them on the black market....and selling expired meds is never a good idea. So we had a little adventure: we loaded up all the meds in the back of the truck and took them by the river and burned them. The river is a messy place, where people are wading in and washing their cars, their clothes, animals are tramping through it....Tiffany, Haiti Village Health’s founder, nearly stepped onto a GIANT (but immobile) pig. There was a house-like structure nearby, complete except for a 4th wall, with a big billy goat lying inside (horns and little beard and all) chewing lazily. Good times.

One night, as we were finishing dinner, Tiffany got a call from a doctor she was helping. This doc had found a baby in Pinchinat, the refugee camp, who had hydrocephalus (a build up of fluid inside the skull, leading to barin swelling). Tiffany was helping this doc fund the baby’s travel to the Dominican to have surgery. We had to go to Pinchinat at 8pm to give them the money. A few of us volunteered to go with her, and as I had been there and knew the players involved, she asked me to come (though I had already volunteered). The original plan was to meet the doctor outside the pinchinat gate, because no one wants to go in there at night. But as we drove up, we noticed big flood lights had been installed at either end of the soccer field, which at least lit the extremities of the camp. We went to the baby’s tent, and yes, she does have hydrocephaly. Her tiny body had a big head attached. She was sleeping in her mom’s arms and they told us that even when awake, all she can do is lie there. The worry now is that she will have developmental problems because it has gone untreated for so long. Her surgery is going to end up costing more than anticipated, so a few of us from the guesthouse pitched in the rest of the money.
Tiffany left the tent to go talk to the doctor, and the baby’s mom asked me to sit with them. They didn’t speak French, but eventually we were surrounded by a few people who did. I chatted with them and somehow (as it happens) it ended up as a sing-along! One of the guys told me he had written a song about Haiti (the chorus: you took my mom and you took my dad, but I am still here, and this is my destiny), so I asked him to sing it. By this time the group had grown, we were in the dark (as the lights didn’t fully reach us) and little babies were holding our hands and rubbing our arms. It was a nice send off for the little girl who was going to have a big surgery. Of course, after he finished singing, he insisted we sing and after a lot of giggling, the two other volunteer girls and I sang “Oh Canada”. There are big fans of Canada in this camp. After all this singing business, the guys told me I now had to speak in Creole with them, to which I said “Mwen?!” (“me” in Creole). That got a big laugh out of them, which felt nice. Life is not easy there. Warning: some sad stories ahead.
As we left the camp that night, we met with Charlotte, one of the camp managers. She reminded us that there is no security control or medical service there at night. The night before we were there, a 16-year-old girl was raped by a 43-year-old man. She then tried to kill herself by slitting her own throat. She is now living in Charlotte’s tent. Tiffany and I went back to Pinchinat the next day to give the two sides of the camp some first aid stuff to see them through the night. Maxido, the other camp manager, was talking to us about the months ahead. The camp ground is dried earth and even with a little rain, the mud gets inches thick. The tents are already falling down a bit. They have no vehicle to take really sick people to the hospital 3-4kms away. He is very worried about the impending rainy season if things are already so bad. The Venezuelan doctors that run the daytime clinic there gave us a list of meds they are running low on. Today, we went back to deliver these meds, and heard that a little 8 month old baby died during the night because of malnutrition. There are piles of baby formula in the depot that belongs to another organization. This should never have happened. Tomorrow morning, at 7am, I am off to the depot to get baby formula, and then off to Pinchinat to give it to these people that badly need it. People know me there now (little kids know my name and follow me around). They know I will help take care of them.

There are some fun moments here too: on our way home from Pinchinat that night, our truck blew a tire. We managed to make it home, where Jo, the only man, promptly took himself off to bed. For the next 20 minutes, four of us women stood around with tools in our hands, looking at the tire and looking at each other and eventually doubling over with laughter because we had no idea what we were doing. It was hilarious. As the 4 of us clutched each other from laughing so hard, one of the other house guests quietly walked between us with her headlamp already on, a mat tucked under her arm, and she got under the truck and changed the tire. She was in the US military for 23 years and she saved our butts (and laughed at us). It was great.

There are other good moments too.....I have a (semi) date tomorrow night!