7:11 a.m.
We were visited yesterday by Dr. Charles who is in charge of overall medical communication and logistics here in Haiti. She is among a group in Haiti who have organized a countrywide scheme to identify facilities with beds and resources available. She commended us on the Double Harvest facility and sent praise to all the volunteers from West Michigan who have left their hearts and in some cases their blood here in Haiti. Along with Dr. Charles came the previous US Ambassador from Swaziland. He has seen the outpouring of volunteers to Haiti from the United States and feels it is unprecedented. We told him we were privileged to be able to help and he was immensely grateful.
We were able to finish 8 cases on Wednesday including an open reduction and internal fixation of two, 5-week-old tibia fractures in a pair of 19-year-olds. We picked them up from the University Hospital downtown sitting next to each other on a bench waiting for x-rays. We brought them back to Double Harvest and the nurses immediately began to play “matchmaker”. The two make a nice couple and provide a degree of normalcy amidst the chaos.
We were blessed with a lull in the afternoon action that allowed us to enjoy a walk to a nearby village. Judging by previous blogs I doubt that our predecessors had much time for such a luxury. One of our translators (Guy) lives 10 minutes away by dirt road through a sugar cane field. You can just imagine the scene; a wall of blue suited doctors, nurses and therapists walking through a small village of Haitians! Many of the children were partially clothed and some not clothed at all. There were collapsed houses all around us and you would expect to see deflated souls. We were greeted with smiles generally with a few stares thrown in for good measure. Our translator showed us his collapsed church and asked us to take a picture of his collapsed church and his family. Once the camera was out many of the children wanted their picture taken. We shared these pictures with them and always received a giggle and a smile. Afterward I mentioned this to our translator and he told me that there are no mirrors for them to use and those images were the first they had seen of themselves in their lifetime!
We finished our evening with the birth of another baby at Double Harvest. Our ER staff and nurses are quickly becoming experts! Rain came to Haiti during the evening; washing over the land and bringing for many, a sense of renewal for their country and perhaps symbolizing the birth of a new Haiti.
Don
