3 Ways MamaBaby Haiti is Working to Combat Hunger

I promised you I would update you with Joe's answer to the question "Why are people in Haiti are always asking us for more money?".  He replied that it's because they live for today, don't usually plan for more than a week in advance at a time and because of this, they want to ensure that they will get as much from us as they can because they don't know when we might pick up and leave.  It made me stop to think that it's not a bad way of living.  In the US we are taught from a young age to save for a car, save for college, save for a wedding, save for kids, save for kids' college, work hard, work harder and it goes on and on.  It's exhausting and we so often forget to just live in the moment.  I'm not saying don't save your money for a rainy day or retirement but there is something to living each day to its fullest and know that tomorrow will take care of itself.

I have been so impressed and inspired by these three guys, Joe, Jamie and Ron.  They are some of the most humble human beings I have ever met.  They have been getting up at 5AM each day, working until breakfast, going back to work until lunch, taking a siesta in the hottest part of the day and then working until dinner.  This is the result of their hard work:

From Left to Right: Nancy, Ron, Jamie & Joe put the finishing touches on one of two shade houses they've built for us.

Thanks to their hard work, we now have two shade houses in our yard which provide a climate 15 degrees cooler than the outside air where we can grow delicate things like lettuce and other greens!  The cover for the shade houses allows 40% sunlight through and has holes big enough to let the rain in.  We are so excited to see what we can get to grow in them and I'll do my best to keep you updated with pictures.  The next step is to have classes with some folks in our area to teach them how to take what we are doing home with them to grow their own food for their families.  We envision providing them with seeds and tools and offering our help as problems arise.  This is one way we are working to combat hunger in our patients.

Another way we plan to combat hunger is by fundraising to buy Medika Mamba, a fortified peanut butter made by Meds and Food for Kids here in Cap-Haitien (www.mfkhaiti.org) designed to provide adequate nutrition for kids suffering from Kwashiorkor, Marasmus and other malnutrition diseases.  Currently we are able to send kids to the Justinian Hospital in Cap, but it's difficult for some of our patients to make the 90minute round trip trek once a week, especially if they can't afford the tap-tap fare (about 75 cents).  So to solve that problem we're going to receive training next week from Eyleen, a woman who works for MFK in proper re-feeding protocols and procedures.  Then we'll be able to take care of our patients right here without having to send them away.  We have the vision, we'll be receiving the training but we can still use some more money so if you'd like to make a donation towards this project, please do so here and earmark it for Medika Mamba.  Each container is 1.1kg and costs $2.50US.  We will most-likely be buying 20kg at a time for $100US.  Here are some facts from the MFK website:

What's in Medika Mamba? Medika Mamba is a RUTF (Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food) made of ground roasted peanuts, powdered milk, cooking oil, sugar, vitamins and minerals.

How long does treatment take? A typical treatment program for one child lasts 6-8 weeks and takes 25 pounds of Medika Mamba.

How effective is Medika Mamba? Within six weeks of starting treatment, 85% of children on Medika Mamba recover, far better than the 25% survival rate with older milk-based treatments.

How much does treatment cost? $65 covers the cost of a full Medika Mamba treatment, saving the life of one child.

No amount is too great or too small to get some nourishment inside the bellies of some of our most vulnerable patients.  Please consider giving what you can today.

The third way we are trying to combat hunger among our patients is through Operation "Happy Meal" or "Manje Kontan" in Creole.  This idea was born when MBH volunteers Nancy Becker and Susan Moray saw how awful it was for our patients to sit and wait for appointments all day without having a nutritious meal.  The obvious answer was for us to provide them with food but as we have learned free food often causes riots in Haiti or at a minimum patients with fake symptoms just wanting to be fed so their solution was to provide the seed money for a woman from the community to sell healthy food inside our yard while patients are waiting so they can get healthy, safe, reasonably-priced, protein-rich food instead of eating cookies and sugary juice.  They hired Santo to be the manager and Jason (our guard)'s girlfriend (I don't know her name yet) to make and sell the food.  Yesterday was our pilot day and she sold out of everything by mid-day!  She offered rice, saucepois (bean sauce), chicken, salad, juice with NO sugar added (a very rare thing in Haiti) and bags of potable water.  We are so excited for this because it provides more money for Santo, a job for Jason's girlfriend and a good opportunity for our patients to get nutritious meals while they wait to see us.

Thanks for reading!

Dokte Sarah