This journey has been a great one. We arrived on Friday afternoon and took a tour of the town. We went to the hospital to see where it was located. This was a government owned hospital and was different than a private hospital. There was no electricity so the patients were not being fanned to cool off nor many medications were being administered. According to Dr. Ottis Haitians are very resilient to pain. All they need after surgery is Tylenol, which surprised us. He did mention, however, that they are intolerant when it comes to the cold... good thing because we've all lost a lot of water weight sweating so much - it is HOT! We ventured to the beach but got distracted by some young guys playing soccer so we joined them in a game on the street. That was a lot of fun! We made a big loop back to the hotel and just debriefed on what we did that day. On Saturday we started off with a detailed tour of the hospital and it was how we expected it to be. Patients are all sharing one large room, it is all concrete and there were flies all over the place. Much of the equipment was malfunctioning including IV tubing, and as a previous group mentioned preterm babies were wrapped in foil. It was hard seeing the patients suffer with out the right supplies needed to care for them. The families are also very involved in patient care. They were the ones providing baths, bringing food and feeding the patients, and they are the ones to go buy medication at the pharmacy... if they have the money to do so. Some students went into the OR and their idea of sterility and scrubbing in is quite different than the states. After that tour we went to an Adventist church service and very much like a service in the U.S. Then we went to the land where the new orphanage is going to be built. It will be life changing for the orphans to experience the ample amount of outdoor space as many of the children have not seen the outdoors since they arrived at the orphanage. It is going to house 100 kids and there will be a school for 200 kids, along with a medical clinic. There will also be land for a farm to grow produce. We also met the new neighbors who we ironically met that morning at the hospital. He helps run Vision for the Children, which helps collect supplies and provide medical care for Haitians in the mountains. He said it was a miracle we met him twice that day and would one day be neighbors. We thought so too. Next we went to the beach and it was nice to swim in the Caribbean. The local Haitians flocked to us wanting to sing and sell us items. There was a fabulous band that played and sang Caribbean beach music with instruments they had made. We danced and had a very relaxing afternoon. We took a tap-tap to and from the hotel and that was interesting to experience. This morning, Sunday, we were able to see our translator's house which does not look like much on the outside but beautiful on the inside. His whole family was there and excited to see us. After that we took the journey back to Port au Prince and when we arrived we swam w`ith some of the orphange children at the hotel pool. Many of the children smiled for the first time while swimming. It was quite a special experience. Can't wait to spend more time with the kids the next two days!
Liza, Jennie, Genevieve, Ruby, and Tiffany
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