Happenings as of Late

This blog turned out to be more a weather report but it's all I can come up with now so here we go:

This week we were fortunate to have 12 students from Naturopaths Without Borders - Bastyr Chapter with us in Haiti!  Their arrival was delayed a day due to the roads being closed in Haiti the day of the elections so they missed out on a clinic day but we still managed to see about 150 patients in 4 days!

Tuesday we went to a local baptist church run by Pastor Laurore and saw over 60 patients including men, women and children.

Wednesday we were at a new site, an orphanage which houses 12 kids and feeds over 100 kids every day!  This is the orphanage that received a bag of rice a week or so ago because they struggle to feed their kids more than once per day.

When we arrived the kids sang us two songs, one in Creole and one in English.  I stood there crying, looking at their malnourished bodies thinking how is it possible that these kids can sing when they have no parents and maybe get some white rice each day with beans 2-3 times a week?  I think if I was in their shoes I wouldn't be singing and am baffled with how strong they are.

After working for a while, the pastor brought us fresh coconuts as a thank you for coming to see the kids there.  After drinking the coconut water out of a hole in the top, he broke them open for us so we could eat the yummy meat inside.  What a treat!

At the end of the day, we discussed coming back later in the week to plant a garden for them.  All in all we saw over 40 kids.  The pastor showed us a spot in his yard that would work well and we promised to return Friday or Saturday.

Thursday we stayed at our clinic to work and saw about 25 kids.  It seems as though we might be getting to a point where we won't have 100 people outside our gate each day which is something we're happy about.  It's very difficult for us to turn people away and it's no fun for our patients either.  Pastor Laurore came to translate so we had three groups of students and were able to work quickly.  Each student got to take turns being primary (under our supervision of course) even though some of them had never taken a case and reported that they had learned a great deal in doing so.

Friday the students wanted to go to the Citadelle so Sean took them since he was sick the last time we went.  I was happy to have a nice calm day to get things done and rest up a bit.  It's hard work to supervise students in a clinic. :)

Saturday was our adult clinic and since adults typically have more complaints and since the students wanted to garden at the orphanage Saturday afternoon, we kept the number to 15 patients (of course two more managed to sneak their way in so it was really 17).

After the clinic everybody changed clothes, got their gardening tools together and headed over to the orphanage.  I wasn't able to go along because I had to go pick up a new group of volunteers from the bus but they had a great time and now the pastor and the kids who live and eat there will have some fresh veggies along with their rice and beans.

The new volunteers are two students from Bastyr (5 more will come today due to some lost baggage) and midwife Kelly who comes to us from Oregon with 8 years of midwifery experience.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast and the students shared the pluses and minuses from their week here so Sean and I can make it better for the students here this week and next.  After breakfast they got in two tap-taps and drove away for the bus station.  We will pick up the other 5 students today and will have a similar schedule this week.

Thanks for reading!

Dokte Sarah