Today we unpacked and restocked the pharmacy. Some of the team toured the earthquake damage. Some choose to stay and work. I still have a hard time taking the tour. I cried again.

I think that I am getting use to sleeping in a tent.

New team has arrived safely in port au prince

Woman with baby lost everything, getting lessons by the group on how to assemble her new tent.

Just thought I would add an update from Guatemala since everything has been about Haiti lately. Our last team scheduled was canceled because a snow storm delayed the flight for 4 days. The next team leaves on March 7th from Governors Academy. Lisa will be traveling with them as I will be in Haiti again. Our parasite study continues to go well and our new Doc at the clinic is very excited about it.

I left for the US today to catch up on some work then it is back to Haiti. When I left the team, the medical people were organizing for the clinic tomorrow. The construction part of the team was on fire , they were working on the clinic wall, learning how to use the solar water filter and building shelves and tables in the clinic. It was like one of those home shows with people building all over the place. Tali is taking my place as team leader in Haiti and will be updating the twitter from there so you can tell how the team is and what they are doing.

Rick feeds a malnorished baby with an eyedropper while the crowd outside gets noisy
While waiting to hear if they will receive food.

The new team is all here!!

Tali and Kwan are the first ones to make it into the PAP airport.

Tomorrow Tali , the Guatemalan field director will come to Haiti for the first time in 5 years. I think she will have the same reaction as I did. What on earth can they do to fix this place. So broken.

Today was a funny day with sad things in between. The traffic was bad. Had a meeting to aquire vaccines but ended up but was referred to the wrong office. We went to buy medicine and got locked out of the car. Found out the next teams flight got cancelled. Which means a lot more work. But in the clinics they saw many more people.

A rumor went out today that there was an earthquake in the northern part of Haiti far from were we are . Some of the Haitian workers would not go in the clinic building in Bon repos so Dr Rick had to hold the clinic outside under the mango tree. Tomorrow we will travel to
Martissant to hold a clinic. We were invited there because no medical care is available. We will also give out clean water. This is the most exhausting and yet fulfilling time for me. The teams have been absolutely fabulous.

Today as I drove back from the pharmacy after buying every bottle of amoxicillin they had, I saw a new tent city being built. I wonder if port au prince will ever be able to rebuild or it will be a city of tents. For all the people that died and this who have relocated there does seem to be any
Less people around .

Today we had the day off. We went to downtown so the team could see the earthquake results. Again for me it was so hard to see. We then saw many parades of people singing and marching. It was the last day of the three day celebration for those who are alive. It seemed like a good healing tool for the people of Haiti. Afterwards, we went to the beach and had lunch. I was happy because I didn’t have to cook today. Tomorrow we will continue with our water distribution.

The new team is holding up really well. They are seeing alot of people at both clinics . Tomorrow will be the first official day off since I arrived. We will go to a small church in Achia and then go to the beach.

Today was a very hard but good day. Construction team started working with the Haitian team on the clinic wall. We ran a clinic in Bon repos and saw over 100 people. Today we drove by the downtown again and it was so hard to look at. Today a lot of Haitians cried at the clinic. I think they are coming out of shock and realizing how bad this really is. The Haitian government declared this day a day of prayer and celebration for those left alive. The churches were packed and then the streets were packed with people dancing and singing because they were still alive.

Today the new team gave out water produced by a solar filter brought by a tr member. The people of Blanchard are so afraid to drink water, so today was a break through. They also took water samples from wells, so we’ll know if the water is good. Hope we can eliminate one of the fears.

Last night it rained for the first time. A lot of the team got wet. I wonder what happened to all the people in the make shift tents. Thinking we will see a lot of sick kids from this. Today we will distribute food to the village.

Team 1 has arrived in the US and team 2 has arrived on Haiti. The Guatemalan team had to be cancelled because their flight was cancelled and rescheduled for 5 days later when no one can go.

Tomorrow the next team will arrive. Right now beside me is a plumber, a retired emergency room doc, a prep med student from the Netherlands who is delivering fuel to hospitals and orphanages, and Tom who found and delivered clean water to a village that had no clean water since the earthquake. They were so happy.

We also ran a clinic today. We got so much done. We missed the team that left though.

Today the team left and it was sad. They worked very hard. One of the Doctors is here for a month. I am so tired today I can’t wait to go to sleep

Today we had a clinic at Blanchard but saw the people who asked for help from a village down the street. Today we felt we were seeing secondary diseases related to the earthquake. Many very sick children.

Tomorrow is the last work day of the 1st work team. They’ve done a huge amount of work. As of tonight, they have seen about 1250 patients. Tomorrow they will see the village patients. Rob went to an orphanage for handicapped kids and saw 20 of the 37. I think all of us agree that it has been great to have Jim cook for us. Appetizers every night followed by a delicious dinner. Got to go to sleep!

Still not doing well on taking pictures. As hard as it is living in a tent I am surprised at how much easier it is than when we first started. Between the three clinic we have seen over 1000 people since we arrived. The clinic wall and front doors are being fixed so we will have good security when we finally do our food distribution.

Today was a good day . We have a great cook and he spends the day making fabulous food and we love it.
We ran a clinic in Blanchard and one in
Carrefour . There will be work for a long time to come. As we left the clinic today we were pulled over by an elder man who asked us to come see the area he was in. Looks like most of the team is giving up the day off to run an extra clinic in that village on Sunday .
This team is excellent.

I realized today how terrible I am at taking pictures. I will try to take more photos but it is difficult to take pictures of people in the midst of their struggles.
We had a new team arrive and they set up 2 clinics -one in Bon Repos and one in Carrefour seeing 256 people. It is a great team. A Haitian dentist let us borrow space and will let us use it anytime. Clearly our long term recovery plan is coming into shape. More news tomorrow . I need to get leave at 6 :15 AM.

The new team arrived last night . Today we will run a clinic in
Bon Repos and our first in Carrefour. They brought antibiotics and supplies.

To tired to tweet

We received a donation of clothes too large for Haitian to wear so we called for a couple of people with machines and two people to cut up the clothes and we turned them into much needed blankets