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.