It has been a whirlwind three days...

Sunday was HOT – we were drenched by the time we walked from our house to Kay St. Louis (about 1/3 mile walk) for mass – before 9 am! The air was still and extremely humid. We sat with the children – all of the kids from St. Louis and the older ones from Ste. Anne attend mass, held outside under the awnings at St. Louis. The singing was precious and all of the kids attempted to sing – a large part of the mass is sung. They behaved very well, even the girls who were saturated with sweat in their polyester Sunday best dresses. They were friendly, smiling at me curiously and studying my skin, watch and the ring I wear on my right hand. During the sign of peace, swarms of children rushed to greet the “blans” as we are called, the word for “foreigner” or “light skinned person.” After mass, the day was easy – I did laundry, kept studying Creole, went to the supermarket for more breakfast and dinner food, walked with Sr. Kathleen, and caught up on emails. I am trying to make my corner of the living room neat and tidy, so I organized that better. Then for dinner I was invited to one of the other houses here, Kay Germaine, an outpatient center for children with disabilities, for a goodbye dinner. Sr. Loraine, a long-time volunteer from Canada, was returning there after many years working with the children. It was a wonderful time, with a small group of employees of NPH Haiti, a fun chance to get to know them better and hear stories about their work.

Monday morning was an early one – I was up and to St. Louis by 7:15 am, as Joanne wanted to introduce me to the kids as they ate their breakfast. They greeted me with smiles and excitement, and kept peeking in the door of the clinic as we sat and got started with the monumental task ahead of us. I met one of the nurses, Mis Laurent, who is very kind and eager to learn. I will be able to teach her how to use the computer, as she has no experience with it! The clinic is currently contained in a shipping container, about 20 feet long. It has very basic supplies and medications, and all of the charting is incomplete. This is understandable, as the home has only been in existence for about 19 months, and the staff has had no instruction or familiarity with the policies written by NPH. Lisette, the nurse from St. Helene in Kenscoff, and I spent the morning going over the basics of the policies, required inventory, charting and then playing with the kids as we waited for the clinic computer to arrive. It was vaccination day, so the kids kept asking me if I was going to give them a “picky,” their name for shots. They kept asking me questions in Creole, and I learned a few words...then they asked me the English word for many things – colors, skin, eyes, nose, mouth, clothing. They are extremely interested in me, my hair, my freckles, my clothes, and closely examine everything – ears, toes, (they liked the colored nail polish – have to keep that up and change the color every so often!), fingers, and were very concerned about my mosquito bites. They just plain love to love.

one of the container bedrooms at St. Louis. It sleeps 16 children with a 'Madame' in charge of each room.

The courtyard at St. Louis, surrounded by the container "rooms"

Erline, one of the youngest residents of Ste. Anne

A Sunday dress

Lisette is suffering from a nasty sinus infection, so we came back to the tents (the common area just a few meters from my house) and sat on the computer for a while as she generously shared her many spreadsheets with me and showed me how she has taught the nurses to document things. The Haitian culture is an oral culture; not much is written. So to teach regular documentation and consistency will be a challenge. After lunch, she rested while I took on another monumental task – matching randomly gifted eye glasses with the children that need them! That was an awesome story problem...matching glasses of certain prescriptions with kids based on their eye exams. Some were a perfect match, some were close, but my goodness! The glasses are clearly from a variety of decades, and the lenses have not been replaced. So some of these frames I know are not wearable (try to get a teenage girl to accept a pair of 1980's multicolored HUGE frames, a la Growing Pains or Who's the Boss? Era...not going to happen! Or try to fit a pair of senior men's frames to a tiny little face!) So after 2 ½ hours of going back and forth, the task was almost completed. 18 out of 21 kids were matched with a pair of new glasses! That will be a fun job for me – to meet the kids and see how they react to seeing better. And I am expecting a few headaches as their eyes adjust. We went to Mama Rafael's for chicken and fried plantains again. SO delicious! There is a steady stream of foreign volunteers who comes through. Right now there is an Italian team of doctors here for two weeks, and they sit and talk and have a wonderful time together. Some of them are very social, and have chatted about anything and everything with me.

One of the hardest parts of the day yesterday was my visit to the hospital. I got a tour, which was quite impressive. The hospital is very well-planned, well-built, and has 120 beds. It has expanded drastically since the earthquake, out of necessity, and has a maternity ward (behind which my house is situated) and a NICU. The tour was delightful – the rooms are clean and colorful and the care seems to be good. But the Emergency room was sad, overcrowded, and quiet. There is a lot of death here, and there are funerals every day. Small bodies are carried out of the hospital covered in white sheets, to the back corner of the property, where there is a morgue and a crematorium. Or they are put directly in a casket and a funeral is completed as soon as possible. There is no embalming, so the body must be buried quickly. Funerals are often held in a covered area adjacent to the chapel. Once Fr. Rick, the director of NPH Haiti, returns from the States, we will again have daily mass. Daily mass is almost always a funeral mass, as the bodies from the previous day and night will be annointed and then buried.

The most difficult part of the visit to the hospital was the abandoned babies' room. Children, whose parents leave them at the hospital once an admission is done, are placed in a room together. They are kept there until parents return or until they are placed in a permanent living situation. It takes three months to declare a child officially “abandoned” and then takes longer for an investigation into family and history. So some of these kids have been living in their beds for a LONG time. They get little to no attention from the nurses, so they need loving! We are free to visit the room and be with the children whenever we have free time. So sad and precious – a little boy was there who is only two weeks old, left by his mom. He was clearly hungry, and I was able to hold him and feed him an ounce of formula from a syringe. He has a great suck and would clearly respond to drinking from a bottle – but none was to be found. Some children have been left due to conditions which are debilitating, such as cerebral palsy or a similar condition, or hydrocephalus which was not treated. So those kids await a slow death.

Today, we spent the morning at Ste. Anne, the baby house. You can imagine how adorable they are! We played and played, went through the charting at the house and were not surprised that the lack of paperwork and adequate medical care. Since the FWAL program was created out of urgency, there is much to do to bring things current. Good job security for me!

Lisette is still quite sick, so I spent the afternoon at the warehouses with Dani, sorting through and inventorying supplies. She has a huge job! It was a fun afternoon though, explaining different supplies and items to her and tallying donated medications. I like being busy! A shower was a welcome end to the afternoon. A brisk walk before the thunderstorm arrived, then an evening of ping-pong and reading about the earthquake in the States – a rather ironic twist.