Magic Haiti

When  you arrive at  the Port  au Prince  airport, you immediately see posters of the Ministry of  Tourism's current  campaign, Magic Haiti. The Ministry even publishes a magazine, Magic Haiti. We always pick up a copy as we leave  the airport and read it from cover to cover during our week. We joke that we  never see the places in the magazine during our trip, except of  Friday when we travel to Jacmel. Jacmel is located on the southwest coast in the "Southeast Department" and is the center of Carnivale, Jacmel has an amazing art community, and is especially well known for its papier mache masks and figures for Carnivale. Jacmel was a popular tourist destination for many years and is making a comeback as part of the government's concerted effort to attract tourists to Haiti.

We had a wonderful day at Hotel Cyvadier, where we had gone a few years ago. (fyi, the hotel gets a 4.5 rating on Trip Advisor!)

Since our last venture there, the  hotel has installed additional stairs so  that it is easier to get down to the nicer beach on a beautiful cove.

The water was wonderfully warm and refreshing. We had a great lunch of some Haiti favorites, including grilled fish  and lambi (conch).

Pere Kerwin relaxing on his day playing with us.

Our Jacmel trip is the perfect ending to a wonderful week.

We hope you all come  join us on  our next trip, October 24-November 1.

A Three Hour Tour of Leogane and Cutting and Stitching at Cinic

What a week of clinics! There was more cutting and stitching during this trip than in all our prior trips combined. The culmination was Wednesday at Jasmin, when Drs. David and Rudolph treated a young man who had a machete wound on his arm, which resulted in Pere Kerwin making an emergency trip down the mountain with this young man and another woman  with a head injury loaded into the back of his pick up truck. It was quite exciting and a wonderful learning experience for our nursing students. While all this was going on, Drs. Dianne and Dennis continued seeing patients outside. Dr. Alex assisted  and observed the treatments . After this event, Drs. Rudolph and David stitched up a woman's head. Luckily, David spent much of Sunday night repacking our wound kit, so we were well prepared for all these emergencies. My little friend Sofini came to see me after school today. What a relief to know that she is fine.

Sofini with the dark shoes is to my left.

Our entire team at the end  of the clinics.

Today was organization day, inventorying the meds and supplies, and re-packing for our next trip. Then, some of us went up to St. Phillippe and St. Jacques to see the schoolkids. Sadly, they were in the middle of exams, so we only got to see the  little ones. Of course, they are incredibly cute.

 Pere Kerwin shared with us that the congregation has managed to raise about $4000 of the needed $10,000 to purchase the land which is adjacent to the school so that a new  church can  be built. The old church crashed down  in the earthquake shortly after it was completed. The new school building is situated on the land where the old church was located. If anyone reading  this is moved to help with this project, please send your tax deductible donations payable to St. John's Episcopal  Church, marked St. Phillippe and St. Jacques Building Fund, to St. John's at 4201 Sheraton Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55410.

Madame LeBorde prepared a delicious soup for us to sustain us on our way back to the guesthouse where we had second lunch, also soup jamou  (pumpkin).

Following lunch, we set out with one of our interpretors, Marco, to the Episcopal nursing school (FSIL) and then  to Obama Beach where we saw the boats coming from LaGonave filled with charcoal.

This is always one of my favorite parts of the trip. The walk through town, and then out into the country and to the beach gives a beautiful snapshot of this area.

 

Tomorrow,  we are  off to Jacmel for  our last full day in Haiti, which we will spend at the beach.

This has been an amazing  trip, as usual. The amount of new construction in Leogane is really something to see. The  old spirit seems to be back.  Today, a young man took a video of us on his  phone as we walked  up the road through Leogane. What a turnabout!

Clinics and Church

This is the first I've been able to connect to the internet since Saturday night and lots has happened.

We attended church at St. Philippe and St. Jacques on Sunday morning.

 

Pere Kerwin was attending a Rotary conference in Cap Haitian, so the service was led by Samuel, a 4th year seminarian. He did a wonderful job. The choir, Gruppe  Lumiere, sang two songs for us, one of which I will try to upload - the Kreyol version of "Shout to the Lord". It was beautiful and inspiring. As in the past, Madame LaBorde cooked a wonderful lunch for us. Then, we returned to the guesthouse and spent the day (and night)  preparing meds for the clinics.

Monday, we  traveled back to St. Phillippe and St. Jacques for our first clinic, which was held on the porch of the newly finished school building.

We had the pharmacy kind of out in the yard by the pump and well housing. That was a little weird. Dick and David displayed their spiderman skills by securing a tarp to some  piping on the  buildings  for us.

 The medical providers were lined up sequentially on the porch, triage, docs, optometrist, and then dentists. It seemed to work well. We saw about 250 medical patients and an unknown number of dental patients. Drs. Rudolph and David were happy to get to cut and stitch with three surgeries of various types. The nursing students were thrilled at the opportunity to observe. We ended the day with pouring more liquids for Tuesday's clinic.

Today, we traveled up the mountain to St. Joseph. Dianne and I have been  a little concerned about the drive up the mountain. Pere Kerwin has not been  with us since he has been  occupied at the Diocese this week with his duties as Archdeacon. So, he was not with us to drive one of the vehicles. With 31 team members, we  needed three four-wheel drive vehicles. That in itself is a trick, since it is difficult for us to have that many four wheel drive vehicles assigned to us. Two of our drivers, Wilner and Jean  Claude, have driven to Jasmin many times, but one  of our drivers had never made the trek before. Our worries were for naught. We had three vehicles, with three fabulous drivers, and arrived to St. Joseph's and back to the guesthouse without mishap.

 

 

I don't know how many patients we saw today in either the medical or dental side. We all worked steadily all day. One concern for me was that I did not see Sofini or her family, whom I have  seen the last several clinics. If they are not there tomorrow, I'll ask  someone about them. One of the special treats for me  today was when a group of schoolgirls spontaneously sang a song in English for me. I had them sing it again and recorded it.

With our large group, we are so prepared for tomorrow, that we do not have to prepare more meds tonight. Rudolph, Myrline, and LeGarre just left with Jeanine to attend Jeanine's church. Rudolph is going to sing. The rest of us were too pooped to go. Of course, Dianne is lobbying for ice cream at Masage across the street.

I almost forgot! This is rara time. This is an event, which is particularly big in Leogane during Lent. Rara consists of crowds of people dancing through the streets behind brass bands  and drums. The procession is led by a whip cracking gentleman. Since these events occurred at 1:30, 3:30 and 5:30 on  Saturday night (really Sunday morning) and then Sunday night  for a short while, I could not get a picture in the dark. Oh, well! It was fun to see and hear anyway. I expect we will be serenaded again on Friday night.

Saturday in Leogane

After a  long day, of travel on Friday, the northern and southern components of our team came  together this morning in Port au Prince. The Minnesotans, Iowans, and South Dakotans spent Friday night in Miami; while the Georgians stayed  in Port au Prince at a new hotel, the Palm Inn Hotel. It was quite comfortable and had fabulous food, so I expect we will stay there again.

 

 

 

Our  travel out to Leogane was uneventful. After getting our room  assignments, we enjoyed a delicious spaghetti, salad, and mango lunch while David Paige, the guesthouse manager, provided a brief orientation for us. Then, we commenced our work, which is continuing tonight. Dianne, Cynthia, and Jane are hard at work labeling meds in this picture.

It is always so wonderful to see the same guesthouse staff each  trip and to renew our friendships. Both Evens, our nurse, and Emmanuel, our dentist, stopped by for a short visit today, and to start planning for the clinics. Others will be joining us tomorrow. Now, back  to work!