I am heading to bed for my last night in Haiti it makes me want to cry. Its a hard here but the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I love the people here in Haiti and it has felt so good to help heal them. This trip is something I will never forget. I will be leaving a little part of myself here when I leave.. so that means I will just have to come back soon. I am coming home a changed person after this experience.
Danise
I can’t help but think how much I’m going to miss this place. Its been quite the adventure here the last few weeks and while I was reflecting on my last night here, I couldn’t help but get a little emotional and teary-eyed. Its been a journey. I will miss these wonderful people, my friends. They are so sweet and hard working. They smile constantly though, It has to be so hard for them. They have made quite the impression on me and I hope I will keep that positive change and “pay it forward” so to speak. The world can be so sad and depressing, and the people here in Haiti have had more than their fair share of grief, yet smiles and song are everywhere and they are so positive, joyful and even hopeful. We each of us can help. Small things are still things and with small steps, great things can be accomplished, this I truly believe now. This journey has renewed my zest for life and people and what is really important in life and I hope in some way any and all who read this will be motivated to help make the world a little better. We need you all, for all your talents and strengths. Fear is crippling and yet with faith and love, fear can be overcome and there is a true freedom in that feeling. It free’s us to help and to give, not thinking of ourselves, but of others first. What an even greater place this would could be if we could abandon selfishness. Bless you all and thank you friends, family and workers here and abroad. Thank you for your dedication and service to the wonderful people here in Haiti. I will be back soon. Sending love from beautiful Haiti!!
Heather
Our trip has been great! We are all sad to leave but at the same time anxious to come home and see our families. Tonight we went for dinner at the local bar with the other volunteers from Bernard Mevs. While we were at dinner a British woman came over to our table asking for help for her boyfriend. She had noticed that we were wearing hospital scrubs and hadn’t been able to find transportation to a local hospital. They have been traveling in Haiti and her boyfriend has been sick for the past two days with vomiting and GI problems. His symptoms sounded similar to typhoid so we loaded 19 medical volunteers, one driver and two British travelers into our 12 passenger van to help get them back to the hospital. Thank god it’s only a 10 minute drive home.
We will be leaving tomorrow at 1230 from the hospital for the airport to head home. Hope to see you all soon.
Danise
Hello Friends!!
Just another day here in Paradise!! We are working another shift at Bernard Mevs Hospital today, pretty much because we are still here (yup….still here…) and they didn’t get the new shipment in of new recruits to the island. They say “nothing in, nothing out” which is pretty much right! We went to dinner at the United Nations again last night, knowing we could spend a little money, because we actually have a flight back home (yeehhaawww!!)
Its muggy as heck here today, probably like 90% and I have to say my skin loves it, but I sure don’t! The AC in our room is the only thing that works, ironically, and I didn’t bring a blanket to Haiti (who brings a blanket with 90 deg weather and 90% humidity???!! right??). Anyways, I shiver at night a bit and sweat all the day long. I love Haiti! Really its overall been a great experience and I would absolutely do it again (maybe in a few months though.. 
)
We had a little 4 year old boy that finally passed away last night d/t a severe asthma attack. He was so bad off, nobody could get an IV in him after literally like 25 attempts. These are some of the very sad things we all have seen and heard of here. I’ve never seen quite so many people die in such a short amount of time. Its interesting, because the family pretty much has to arrange transport of their dead loved ones. And actually one time they weren’t very careful and in the middle of this huge open unit where all the patients beds are pushed up against the wall (there is zero privacy, literally) they were loading an elderly lady who had passed and dropped her right on the ground while trying to put her onto the stretcher. THAT was an awkward moment…and the Haitian nurse went over after to the guys and you could tell she just reamed them in french/creole!! My love for America and the cleanliness and amazing healthcare we have has definately grown and Im so grateful for all of our medical teams who train and go to school for so long to treat us. We are truly blessed to be in America. I also strongly feel when we are so blessed that we are obligated to bless those less fortunate as well. It keeps us humble and in check, so to speak, of our pride. Education is a novel idea here and costs so much. we have free schooling and I can’t stress how much more of it we all need and don’t take enough advantage of.
A group of us got into a political debate the other night at dinner and Jamie made a good point by saying “I love that this can happen. That we can argue and disagree and have our own individual opinions and we won’t get shot for saying what we believe, even if other people don’t believe it”. Its so true. Women here are very subservient to men and its strange when men don’t address you here, but the male in the group you are with. Quite obnoxious I have to say and how frustrating it must be for women who get beat for speaking their mind. We had a young girl, @ 18 years old who was actually “whipped” with a leather whip and came in for treatment after her husband assaulted her. she had bruises from head to toe and open lash marks on her arms and face. I was so mad. Was a good thing that guy didn’t come in after her, because who knows what I would’ve done. The violence in Haiti is high and disturbing. Retaliation is very common and they are quite brutal. Sometimes children are the innocent victims and it is truly upsetting.
The good things are when you meet the honestly good and sweet and humble people like our little “rastafarian friend”. We met him when he brought his wife in for abd pain, found she was anemic and pregnant and probably had a tubal pregnancy. He was so sweet, devoted and absolutely loved his wife, you could see it in his eyes how much. He had no money, but spoke pretty good English and said he had worked for the US military translating before. He was there a few days after his wife had surgery and would always come up to us saying “sista, sista”. He couldn’t pay, but when trucks with supplies came into the compound, he helped unload them, sweating heavily but complaining of nothing. He was always smiles and hope and so excited his wife was okay and that they could still have more babies later. He tried offering us 10 haitian dollars which we refused to take, but was so upset because he wanted to thank us somehow. I could never take this man’s money and only made him promise to keep being the lovely person he was and to take very good care of his wife and that is all the thanks we need. We were able to put him in touch with the translation group that works for the hospital and good luck, my rasta friend, for getting that job!!
We love the people here, all of them. They are a strong, resilient people who have lost so much, yet are so grateful for life. WE have on film a few of our Haitian co workers who sing. They have such beautiful voices and it is very powerful to hear them sing. They gather in the hospital in groups everyday to sing to the patients and their families and it always gives me goosebumps. We will post some on facebook when we return…
I’ve chatted too much, sorry for the long diatribe, but I better get back to work now…Take care and thank you all for your posts and chatter! Its been great hearing from home too. Janelle, good luck with school, you’re going to be the best teacher those kids could have! TO my work girls, you rock and we’ve created quite the reputation for the UCDMC staff here. We are told we are legends already!! I love working in the ER and I swear, team work makes all the difference. thanks friends for all you do. I love you all!! Flying home tomorrow, but will try to post a little. Viva Haiti and Viva America!!
Heather
Sorry for not posting everyday our internet and power have been off intermittently throughout the past few days. Today I am in the ER and taking care of a 9 month old little girl that was brought in by her mother for dehydration and diarrhea, the Haitian doctor here thinks she has cholera. Life in Haiti is hard on children and it’s astonishing to see how many children suffer from dehydration and malnutrition. This child will need long term treatment for her malnutrition/dehydration if she survives. Her mother cried today and begged us to not let her baby die… Life is so difficult and tragic for these people here and there is no way out of this.
On a slightly happier note last night we had a great rainstorm. The rain here is so warm it feels great. I am sad to be leaving and at the same time ready for a warm shower and some sushi. I miss my nephews terribly. During this trip I have learned to be more appreciative of what we have living in America, we have freedom, our children can attend schools, we have healthcare that is efficient and for the most part we don’t die from hunger and treatable disease.
We were able to find flights home so we will be leaving tomorrow afternoon and heading to Panama then Mexico and to our final destination San Francisco. We will then rent a car and drive back to Sacramento. Thanks to Frances’ sisters for helping us book flights home. We have taken tons of pictures and can’t wait to see everyone back home.
Miss you – Danise
We will be here a little longer than expected due to the tropical storm heading for Florida and earthquake on the east coast. So how about a good story…two days ago Heather and I did conscious sedation in the triage hut this would never happen in the US. An American volunteer from Tennessee fell out of a tree while attempting to build houses for the local Haitians. He dislocated and fractured his left foot, they drove around for 4 hours and went to 4 other hospitals before coming to Bernard Mevs. They had stopped at another hospital prior to coming to ours where they had attempted to fix the dislocation but was unsuccessful. When he arrived here we were initially contemplating having him transported back to the US via medi-vac, however our ortho Dr was willing to try one more time to reduce the dislocation. In the end we were successful is fixing the dislocation and he was able to be casted and had the blood supply restored to his foot. He got a flight back to Tennessee on Monday. It has been awesome taking care of the locals and volunteers here. We will keep you all updated on any progress on flights home.
Soooo, here’s the scoop. We were scheduled to leave our dear Haiti today, however d/t tropical storm Irene, we are very cancelled and delayed inevitably. They’ve cancelled all flights from Haiti period. Therefore, all of us may not make it back to work our scheduled shifts starting thursday….We are desperately trying very hard to get any flight to anywhere in the U.S. We have a lady in Florida trying to actually book a flight, but it won’t be until thursday or friday and its about a 22 hour flight with multiple stops along the way. We are very safe and sound and kind of excited that the actual storm is passing Haiti by with just some strong winds and rain so far. Sorry for any inconvenience we’ve caused thus far. PS, thinking brightly and naively ahead, we did manage to give away all of our food and extra little things to our wonderful and very deserving friends here in Haiti and we are down to our last pair of clean underthings….Hope to see everyone sooner than later, but for now we are stuck. We intend to hunker down, keep reading some great books and stay dry..(it just began to pour outside) Viva Haiti!!!
PS-We’ve managed to meet a few American friends here in Haiti! We met a nice gentleman from Tennessee who’s 4th attempt to get some medical attention was here at Bernard Mevs with a very dislocated and broken ankle from falling 11feet off of a house he was here building with his Baptist organization. Luckily, we had awesome orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Larry, here to fix him right up!! Lucky guy got his ankle relocated to the right spot on his foot, casted and sent onto the next flight back to Miami…maybe we shoulda gone with him then!!! LOL Take care, our Tennessee friend!!
Love you all, and thanks for your love and support!!
Heather and the other 3 ladies of Haiti
We are having to get creative due to our limited supplies. Today I created a home made a manual breast pump for a 4 day postpartum mother with a 60 cc syringe. Our creativity is endless! Frances has managed to memorize our entire inventory of medical supplies, she is awesome and handy to have around. Jamie has been busy today caring for 12 year old stab wound to the chest. This morning we took one of our patinets an 11 year old with a recent spinal cord injury outside for the first time. Frances would push her up the er ramp to make her smile, It was awesome to see her happy. Heather is adopting children left and right. She has become a wonderful white haitian mother to Dierry one of our orphans. We are enjoying our trip. Tonight we are going to have a farkle tournament (a dice game) the winner will win snacks! We officially have a suitcase filled with food that we share with our friends here, we tease that we are eating dinner from a suitcase. I am enjoying Haitian beer in the evenings better than I expected! All in all I can’t complain it has been great here in Haiti. Miss you all.
Danise
Sorry for worrying anyone too much, for some reason your posts weren’t readable from our end of things until today. Thanks for all of your lovely comments and for keeping us continually in our thoughts and prayers, we need every single one!! I’ve been sized up a few times as a haitian evangelical wife with now 2 proposals. Kinda scary…but they are a great people. I”m the music guru, because I brought a small docking station and my r&b and rap are constantly requested. I swear they know more about these rap stars than I do!! PS, we smuggled pizza in last night and it was maybe the best freaking pizza I’ve ever had. we worked a little extra for some night shift girls in pediatrics last night and they rewarded us for it! My little Dierry baby is still excited for a home in America….any takers???? AND, one of our translators here happens to be an awesome painter! he paints portraits and I actually thought they were photographs. He has good fees if anyone wants something very authentic and beautiful. We’ve had a couple great warm weather storms, the first one I was out in triage and almost drowned…j/k, but it was like a little river running down the middle of our compound here and all I could think was “sick, whats really in that brown water??!!” We got completely drenched within seconds, but honestly smelled so good and felt so wonderful I forgot about what I was actually standing in….Hope we get a few more before we leave. I can’t believe we have less than a week left. Its a good thing we brought so many bags, we are gathering babies like shells on a beach!! I’m pretty sure customs won’t mind….I mean we write our own prescriptions for narcotics here, its sweet…Oh the power….anyways, I gotta get back to work. We are taking lots of pics, as this is nothing I could have imagined it being like until I got here to see it. Love you all, be safe and know I miss you tons and tons!!! (thanks Janelle for all your posts, sorry I didn’t get back sooner! I feel for you now even more than when you were in panama!! its so sticky here!!)
Heather
