The Rest of the Story

We've now been in our respective homes for the last 10 days, which gives one a little perspective on the experience. We are always amazed at the numbers of patients that we see in a short period of time. This trip, we saw more than 800 medical and dental patients over 3 days. As in the past, the last day of clinics was the busiest with the sickest patients who walked the farthest - 4 hours one way- to see us.

We feel that we are making some progress toward our goal of sustained, and sustainable, healthcare for our communities. We succeeded in hiring a nurse - Evins Joicin, who is the director of clinical programs at the Episcopal Nursing School in Leogane. Evins will consult with Dr. Alex and Dr. Patrick, our Haitian physician team members, as necessary. He will travel up the mountain every two weeks to provide patient care and additional meds as needed.

Before we left for Haiti, we checked the weather to see whether a storm was brewing in the Atlantic, since this is hurricane season. There was nothing there. Every night, it rained ard and then would clear by 8am. One morning, Tuesday or Wednesday, I walked into the courtyard in front of the hospital and chatted with a couple of our interpreters while we waited for others to come down. There was a beautiful rainbow in front of the hospital entrance. I commented that in the United States, rainbows are good luck. Mario, one of the translators, told me that in Haiti, rainbows are bad luck. I expressed my surprise and then Valeri, the other translator, explained that rainbows in that direction mean a hurricane is coming and that rainbows behind the hospital are good luck. I assured them that no hurricane was coming since we had checked the weather before leaving the States.

A few days after we returned to the US, Hurricane Sandy hit Haiti. There was massive devastation and more than 30 deaths. Leogane was flooded waist deep. Then Sandy proceeded to the US and hit the northeast. The last few days, we've heard of hundreds of thousands of people without power and homes being destroyed. What we don't hear from the US is the news we heard from Haiti - the gardens are destroyed and there is no food. The people are hungry. There is no reliable electricity in Haiti, so lack of power is not a hardship. Lack of food is.

Please pray for the people in Haiti and in the US as they recover from Sandy.