Back in the US

It was great to come home and see new volunteers working in the office. I stopped by the warehouse to drop off my suitcases and was excited to see all the work volunteers had done in sorts and bagging
new donations. The packing team has been patiently waiting for the return of bags because there were so many team members traveling in March to both Haiti and Guatemala there were no suitcases available to pack for the big team leaving for Guatemala in April. I am happy to see so many people willing to donate their time .

Great teams,great staff, great donors & great news

I have been traveling since March 7th and had the great opportunity to see 3 of the 4 teams traveling during that time at work. As I said good bye in Guatemala I realized how exciting it was to have so many of our past Haiti team travelers visit us in Guatemala. Both countries are so different and even though the programs are the same the results have a different flavor. THANK YOU  TEAMS!!

As I traveled to Haiti, the trip that should have taken one day turned into three days with two overnights. I was looking forward to visiting Dr Tamara and the UMass Darmouth team. Tamara left the day I arrived. So we didn't even get to say hello but I was happy to see the U Mass team that is always a delight. They had worked very hard and saw over 250 patients during their week in Haiti. At the meeting last night one of the team members said, " On the first day I arrived I was so afraid because I didn't think I could make it with the cold showers, the bunkhouse and the different food. Here I am six days later and I know I will be back. " GREAT TEAMS!!

I thought- this is amazing our donors have kept the all the programs going and kept two clinics running, bringing free medical care to over 30,000 people a year even while the US economy has not been that strong. We don't get big grants or have huge donors but we have many,many donors who give the best that they can and with their whole heart. THANK YOU DONORS!!

I received the happiest news while in Haiti. Sometimes you have a vision of what you want your program to be like. Since the earthquake in Haiti the medical program has been invented and reinvented many times. It has been not always been easy and there are times when we haven't had enough medicine or supplies but we
continue to stand firm in our decision to deliver free care and medicine to the extreme poor.  Sometimes when I think maybe we won't make it some great news comes along and gives us the courage to go on. We decided last year that our goal was to have the best clinic in all of Haiti. This week brought GREAT NEWS in reaching that goal. Here it is.

The department of Public Health made two surprise site visits during the past week. They are visiting all clinics and hospitals all over Haiti. Although we were not suppose to receive any kind of report at this time, Guetchin knew one of the people and asked  if they could tell her anything. They said our clinic runs better than most hospitals and clinics in Haiti.  They spent two days, all day long, interviewing both the Haitian staff and the visiting teams, they were so impressed with everyone. They had no criticism of the clinic at all. They loved the posters that Umass Darmouth made for the clinic last year. The one request they had was to make some posters for the diabetics and hypertension clinics and what do you think UMASS Dartmouth did as part of their project this year, made posters for our diabetic and hypertensive clinic, all translated into Creole. We just hadn't hung them yet.  Guetchin was beaming  as she told me how great the staff did. She was so proud of them. Marcy told me all the questions they asked her and how she answered them. It was a very happy and proud moment for me. THANK YOU Staff !

So many people have been helped through our sponsorship program, business program, housing program and the medical program.  When I left today , there was Wislain, a little downs baby in our program. He had come to the clinic last fall in very  poor condition. Now he sat on his mom's lap , she brought him to the feeding program today. She wanted to make sure that I saw him because of how chubby he is now. She thought I wouldn't recognize him .I almost didn't.  He is growing big and strong. Wislain sits there today, alive because we have  a great staff, great teams and great donors all working together to make a huge difference in the lives of the extreme poor in Haiti and Guatemala. THANK YOU!!

Last days for UMass team

Gale finally arrived in Haiti yesterday after lots of plane delays, only to leave this morning. She was able to meet the team, who summarized their week and told her about their experiences during last night's debrief meeting.

The UMass team enjoyed a relaxing day at the beach and had the opportunity to see another side of Haiti. While at the beach, they got some good news about one of our patients. We happened to recognize some of the staff they had met at St. Damien's, where they had brought a young boy who was having seizures after a head trauma. We had assumed the boy wouldn't make it, but we were all exremely to hear that he was doing well and discharged from the hospital and walked out the next day.

Mr. Genois closed out the week with the team by speaking to them about PID and thanking them for the work they have done. The team was very curious about the sponsorship program and he spent a lot of time explaining how it works and answering the students' questions. The team members who are sponsoring children were so happy to have the opportunity to spend time with their sponsored children this week.

Although the team is leaving tomorrow, they are not done working yet. They are all up late bagging 450 vitamins for the sponsorship kids.

Recent PID Houses

The finished house for Blanca Estela and her family which was started by the team in February

Progess being made on Vanessa's house. The first march team started the foundation.

Thursday in Haiti

The UMass team continues to work hard, both at the PID clinic and at the mobile clinic. Today's clinic was in Bon Repos, and they saw a lot of patients. Before work today, Jim held a class for all our clinic staff about muscular skeletal assessments. The staff was very interested and learned a lot.

Fat Baby Thursday

So apparently today was fat baby day at the clinic. Many of the kids that were brought in were just BIG! Not obese - just big babies. It was a bit of a shock to Kelly and the rest of the clinic staff. The day also brought other interesting cases - a woman who possibly had a stroke two days ago, a boy who hurt his pinky really badly while swinging in a hammock, and a little girl with severe conjunctivitis. The morning was really busy and we saw more than 50 patients. As usual the afternoon was a bit slow.

Andy and Daniela went over to Marcelina's house to help her cook lunch and came back with a better appreciation of all the conveniences that they are used to in the U.S. And they learned that neither of them are very good at making tortillas.

The water filter crew got to install some filters and work on the building process.

Tomorrow will be their last day working in the clinic.

Wednesday in Haiti

Today the UMass team continues to work hard in the PID clinic, the mobile clinic, and the construction site. The education center is almost finished- they are putting the final coat of smooth cement on the outside. We are already planning where to hang the beautiful educational posters the students made on healthy diets for diabetes, hypertension, GERD, and and interactive make your own balanced food plate poster.

At today's mobile clinic at a school in Damien, the nurses and students saw lots of patients and did teaching for some of the local children about hand washing, tooth brushing, and covering their mouth while they cough. The children were very enthusiastic and enjoyed interacting with the students.

Back at PID, the team also saw lots of patients. The burned girl came back and Jim taught Sultane and Suze, our two Haitian nurses here how to dress the girl's burns. After work, Jim and Tamara each did some teaching with the UMass students.  Jim did a talk about muscular skeletal assessments, specifically the shoulder, and Tamara did a talk about sickle cell.

UMass team's second day

Today the team had a great second day of work. The students rotated places so those who went on the mobile clinic yesterday were able to work at PID, those who stayed at PID went on the mobile clinic, and 3 different students worked construction. Today's mobile clinic was at Bigarade. Several of the nurses had been there last year and noticed that the church where we worked used to be made of tarps and sticks but is now a concrete structure. The pastor of the church invited them all to eat at his house when everyone breaked for lunch. The team members were moved by his kindness and generosity. Back at PID we had a calmer day than yesterday and we finished on time. We did have one emergency patient carried in screaming, clenching her teeth, crying out, and complaining of neck pain. The nurses were stumped for a while, but it ended up the patient had just put on an attention-getting act, as when no attention was on her, she stopped acting. She was seen laughing and joking outside the clinic afterwards. The students continue to learn so much from the great doctors and nurses they are working with, and getting so much experience from the great variety of patients that they have been seeing.

Babies , Babies and a lot of kids

Today the team continued to work in the clinic and on water filters and doing a children's program.

Because we have an NP who specializes in women's health we have many ladies showing up who are worry about their health. But we have found in general the Guatemala ladies are a strong bunch. For me the most exciting thing was to work in the lab and see may of the village ladies who when we tested their hemoglobin in 2008 it fell below 8 and each year it climbed and today the hemogloblin of the same ladies are well above 11. It was fun to be able to show them their charts and explain it to them. Then to see the huge smiles as they understood.

Kelly is very excited because we have so many babies. It is her first time to Guatemala after many trips to Haiti and she is finally getting her head wrapped around it. When people ask me what the difference is between the two programs it is very difficult to explain because each country has it's own flavor and cultural influences.

Out in back of the clinic the kids loved the crafts that the crafts that Maddie and Megan brought.
There were suppose to be 25 kids in each session but when I looked out in the afternoon I think I saw about 50 all concentrating on there beading project. The kids loved it. It was so good to see all their smiling faces.

Come to Guatemala next December!

UMass team's first day of work

Today was the UMass team's first day of work. The team split up, half of the group stayed here at PID's clinic in Blanchard, and the other half went out to a mobile clinic in Sarthe. Three students also tried out their hands at the construction site, sifting and shovelling for the education center and the new office. The rest of the students were paired up with the nurses as they saw patients. Everyone had a very busy day. The mobile clinic saw about 70 patients, and at PID we saw over 120 patients. We usually close at 3:00, but when we saw how many patients were left, we decided we weren't going to send anyone home, so everyone stayed and saw all the patients. We ended up finishing around 6:00.

 Dr. Jim spent a lot of time with a little girl with third degree burns over her whole body. She had fallen into a fire during a seizure. He patiently dressed the wounds, while feeling the frustration of knowing how much a skin graft would be the best for her but how unaccessible that is. There was another little boy who was brought in, seizing after he had fallen off a set of stairs. We rushed him to Petit Freres et Soeurs, but were dissapointed in the way they recieved us and the lack of services that they were able to provide to him.

Today we had a surprise visit from the MSPP. They are going to add our clinic to the list of health centers that are giving good services. They came to collect information and questioned all the staff and even Dr. Tamara. All of our staff responded very well to all of their questions and they were impressed by our services.

The changing of the groups

After a great day exploring Antigua the team went to Guatemala City and left early this morning to fly back to the states. We took a bus tour of the city, had lunch, and got to do some shopping in the colonial city of Antigua. We took three girls from the village with us for the day. Marta, Keily and Aura all worked very hard helping out in the clinic last week so we decided to take them with us. It was their first time visiting Antigua. They really enjoyed themselves. Sometimes I forget that not everyone in Guatemala has the opportunity to visit places in their own country - I get to travel around a lot with teams. It was nice to bring these girls along and have them learn more about the history of Guatemala.

A new team arrived this afternoon and we are ready to start work in the morning.

Endicott nursing students and others arrive in Guatemala

The Endicott team arrived safely at the hotel tonight around 6:00PM. They are joined by Kelly , Gerry, Andy, Meagan and Maddie. After dinner we had a short orientation and then it was off to bed. They have to be up early so they can be on the bus by 7:45 AM.  Most of them had been up since 4:00AM. We are looking forward to a great day tomorrow as the team works in the clinic, installs water filters and runs a children's program.

UMass Nursing team arrives

This morning we said good-bye to Sue, Holly, Karin, and Angie who spent a great week with us working hard.

Soon after they left, the UMass Dartmouth team arrived. This team consists of 7 nurses, 1 doctor, and 11 nursing students. We took a walk around the neighborhood to see the PID houses in Blanchard, then unpacked and inventoried all the medical supplies that they brought down. After dinner, I led the introductory meeting and Mary the medical orientation. The team all went to bed early after a long day of travel. We are all looking forward to a great week, providing medical care to so many people both at our PID clinic and out at many mobile sites. The students are eager to get started in a week full of new experiences and lots of learning.

Dr. Sem's last day

Friday was an emotional day as it was Dr. Sem's last day with PID. He has worked for us for 3 great years providing excellent medical service to all our patients who come from not only the Blanchard community, but all over Haiti, some very far. He requested that we don't have a party for him, so we just had a small ceremony for him with all the staff. Each of the directors said a few words, thanking Dr. Sem for all his hard work and care for the patients and dedication to PID, while officially welcoming Dr. Paul. Dr. Sem said a few final words to everyone and ceremonially passed the stethescope to Dr. Paul, symbolising the passing on of his responsibilities to him. We will miss Dr. Sem, but we are looking forward to moving forward and growing together with Dr. Paul.

The team had a great last day of work on Friday, and were able to enjoy a day of relaxation at the beach today. Mr. Genois came this evening for tonight's last meeting with the team and thanked everyone for all of their hard work. We will be saying good-bye to some of the team members tomorrow, while others will be staying one more week.

Great teams

The teams continue to amaze me. This year we have had a large amount of people traveling to both Haiti and Guatemala. As is usual our teams are made up of outstanding people who are willing to give of their time , money and energy to help others. 

Our first teams in 2000 usually were made up of any one I could find to come on a team.  

Sometimes the teams were very small and other times they were a little larger. This year we have had very large teams and I am amazed at how well they work and how much we are able to get done. 

Today  another great team left for Guatemala City tonight and will fly home tomorrow. They accomplished so much. They did it with such grace ,love and joy it was wonderful to watch. Tonight we rest and tomorrow we will prepare for what I know will be another great team. 

Friday walk to the river and procession

Today was the last day of work for the team. We had many people rushing in at the last minute with fecal exams or wanting to get teeth pulled. Dr. Ben had to stop seeing patients when he ran out of gloves! We learned that Dr. Ben's fame has spread and that people were eager to come to him because it "didn't hurt at all" according to the other patients. 

Dr. Ben pulling a tooth from Marcelina - the woman who makes our lunches

The team stopped work early and was able to take a walk around the village. After that some of the children took them on a walk to see the river. The kids love showing off the Ixtacapa river and it is a very scenic walk so the team enjoys it as well. Unfortunately Daniela, our newest intern, came back a little more wet than she had planned. I'm still not sure exactly how that happened.

After that we went out to dinner at Sergio's restaurant. The food was really yummy and everyone especially liked the fried plantains and yucca. After the procession we headed to downtown San Antonio to see the procession. Each Friday during lent their is a procession that leaves from one of the small catholic churches and makes its way through the streets of San Antonio to the main church in central park. There were lots of people dressed up with masks and costumes. We even got to see a "rug" made out of sawdust that the procession later walked over.

the "rug"

Tomorrow we head to Antigua to take in the sights!

The team in Haiti is having a great week. Dr. Tamara is holding classes for her sickle cell patients, and she is teaching Samuel 2 about sickle cell as well he is able to continue the classes with the patients every month. The program is growing and very successful. She and the nurses continue to see over 100 patients each day. Karin has worked construction, and also did a beautiful job cleaning the meds depot. She began the top shelf today and it already looks beautiful!

Continuing in Guatemala

We saw many patients in the clinic. Dr Ben, the dentist continues to be very popular in spite of all the teeth he is pulling.  The construction team continued to work on Vanessa's house and poured the floor for Blanca's house. The clinic in Desierto continued seeing many patients. Six filters have been installed , some on Concepcion and some in Desierto. This morning we are back to the same stations. I am sad because the microbiologist who was volunteering in the lab is not here today. I will miss her, she did a great job.

Photo Update from Guatemala

Lidia Paola after getting some teeth pulled by Dr. Ben

Smiling faces outside of the clinic

Dr. Ben with the best teeth he's seen all week! Congratulations Yoselin!! (in the pink)

Karen and Nancy running our pharmacy at the mobile clinic in Desierto

Gale and Meli sterilizing dental instruments with the autoclave

Tuesday in Haiti

Today was another great day of work for the team. Everyone worked hard, both at the construction site and at the clinic. Just at 3:00 when we thought we were finished seeing all the patients, an emergency pulled up on a moto, a young woman bleeding severely with n extremely low blood pressure and low hemoglobin. We gave her an IV and rushed her to Medishare, where they did not accept her, then to Chancerelle, where they accepted her and told us they would give her a transfusion.
At tonight's meeting Mme Pavelus came and spoke to the group about her experiences and ideas about the history of Haiti, as well as PID and what PID has done for her and her family.

Team's first day of work

The team had a great first day of work. Dr. Tamara and the nurses saw 120 patients in the clinic, in addition to helping out in triage, emergency room, wound care, pharmacy, and discharge. Karin spent the day doing construction at PID, sifting and shovelling for the various construction projects that are going on at PID including the new office building and education center. Everyone has a full and productive work day. After work, I took the team for a walk around the neighborhood to see all the PID houses in the Blanchard area. The team members who've been here before were surprised and happy to see how many more houses have been built since they were last here.

First day on the job

The team arrived safely in Guatemala late last night, with the latest group arriving at 2:30 in the morning. They were up and ready to work at 8:30. This team did a great job on the first day. We ran two clinics and
had a dentist pulled teeth all day . We are very happy to the the first dentist be able to work in our clinic.

Several people worked on the water filters and another group worked on construction. The day went very smoothly for a first day with tired volunteers.

The most exciting part of the day for me was working in the lab and teaching Keily and Marta how to fill out the results of the labs in the file folder and the log book. They learned how to call the patients in and how to bring the patients and the results back to the doctors.  I learned to use the autoclave and taught Keily how to do it in the afternoon. She learned to clean and wrap the tools and how to run the autoclave. Marta learned how to clean peoples fingers for the blood sticks and how to put bandaids on after they were finished. By the end of the day both girls were doing glucose tests. They learned how to identify the tests that were written in the files. You can't imagine  how big the smiles on each of their faces were with each new task they learned. You can't imagine how big the smile on my face is after working with these two girls, both of whom had to drop out of school last year to help their families. They are now both back in school because of great PID sponsors. They are excited to come back tomorrow to practice their new skills. In addition to what they learned today, I have a whole  list of new things for them tomorrow. Somehow I know they will be up to the task.

We ended the night with a short meeting as most of the team, including our new intern, Daniella, were exhausted.

More arrivals in Haiti

Today the rest of the team arrived in Haiti, two nurses and a construction volunteer. The team was able to take a tour of downtown Port-au-Prince, visit the museum, and go to Epidor for dinner. This evening, Tamara led the medical orientation for the group, and everyone is ready and excited to get to work tomorrow.

Update from Haiti

It's been a great couple weeks in Haiti. We gave the most recently finished house in Blanchard to Michelda's family from the tent camp in Damien. We helped the family move in all their stuff and gave them some food as a housewarming gift to help them as they move. They are so happy and love their new house.

Dr. Paul has joined our team, and he has been working alongside Dr. Sem in his last two weeks with PID. We will miss Dr. Sem, but we are very happy to welcome Dr. Paul, who will be taking over Sem's  place as the full-time Haitian doctor here.

Today Dr. Tamara and three nurses arrived in Haiti. The rest of the team will be coming tomorrow. We unpacked and organized all the medical supplies they brought and had an introductory meeting. We are looking forward to a great week together.

Moving Forward

Yesterday during our time at the clinic in Guatemala ,a local lab owner and microbiologist came in for a visit. It was the first time she had come to the clinic. She came with Maria. I had a great talk with her. I am very excited because she will come to volunteer this week to help in the lab . She also is very interested in diabetes and so while we work in the lab together we will go over diabetes and how it presents itself in Guatemala and the work of our current diabetic program. Two of our graduated leaders have expressed a desire to work in the lab and so they will work with me and learn the instant tests. The microbiologist will work with them on the microscope. For all of you who know the leaders it is Marta and Keily( the older one).

Today we continued to shop for supplies and get everything ready for the team. We will have a mobile clinic in a church in Desierto next week in addition to our home clinic. Tomorrow we will set up the clinic with the help of women from Desierto who have offered to come and clean for us. I hope we will be able to get everything done tomorrow. I am looking forward to a great week. 

The first team member has arrived in Haiti. They are looking forward to a great week too. 

Saturday at the clinic

our dental suite all ready for Monday!!!

sorting medicine and supplies to use in our mobile clinic in the village of Desierto

The dentist is coming and we are ready

Last night I arrived home from the airport at 3:30 in the morning. Abby, Shelby and Miguel all came to pick me up, so they also arrive home early in the morning. Normally you get stuck in traffic because a sugar cane truck flipped over . But what we found out made us laugh. Apparently some of the truck drivers were tired and so they parked in the middle of the road in a town on our route and just went to sleep. So we sat in a huge line of traffic for 3 hours .

In spite of our delayed arrive we got to the clinic around 8:30 AM. The Guatemalan dentist we work with came with all the tools and supplies . The technician showed up later. It was great fun to see all the new tools and see the water connected to the drill . We tested the evacuator, got a new light for the dental chair and we are ready to go. Monday will be the first time we can do fillings in our clinic. This
took so much work I thought it would never happen. Watch for pictures soon.

Off again

Being home for two weeks has been great. We had a great Annual Celebration with over 100 people in attendance . We added new shelves in our warehouse, compliments of Gordon College and a great team of workers. I interviewed new interns for Haiti and Guatemala. We also welcomed many new volunteers at the office.

I met with Senior students from Bradford Christian Academy to talk about the work of PID. This week we had our first meeting of the Research and Development Committee ( more exciting news about this later) .

Now I am off to Guatemala to work with a new medical team and to have our first dentist work in our clinic dental suite, sponsored by the
Kennebunk Rotary Club with clean, useable water from the tap with help from Poland Springs. Next week brings our first nursing students from Endicott College to the Guatemalan program.

Next week I will fly to Haiti to have a brief
Visit with Dr Tamara, our sickle cell specialist and to see the nursing team from U Mass Darmouth. I will also get
To welcome Dr Paul , our new doctor at the clinic who started training this week with Dr. Sem , who will be leaving PID after 3 great years.

At home, Michele will speak at the Manchester High School . Sadly, I will
miss the Suzuki Concert in Ipswich. Most years I am here to attend but this year I will be in Guatemala. This year marks
The 20th year of this benefit concert
Which sponsors 3 children from Haiti.
It is a great concert if you can attend.

You could say we are very busy at
PID but mostly we are happy and blessed to be able to do this work!

Annual Celebration

Had a great Annual Celebration!