Blog issues

Hey guys just to let you know I've had to change the settings on my blog because of some security issues, hope you can all still enjoy reading it!

much love
xx

September 24th and 25th

The last two days have been so incredible!

First thing yesterday morning David, Rick (the visiting prosthetist) and I went to Good Sam to pick up Kelly. After giving out peanut butter and jam cracker sandwiches we started to get him ready to go. Not surprisingly we were held up when we tried to leave but the resistance didn't come from Madame Lucien but from Kelly himself! He didn't want to go alone, so we (happily) brought Widley back with us as well for some company and to check on a fever and fungal infection in his ear as well as do some follow up as he's not been thriving since a near fatal visit to our ER back in July. Neither of them were all too sure about coming along but like any typical kid they happily kipped out on ride back to the compound.

When we arrived at the clinic Kelly was still fast asleep, so I took Widley up to the medical clinic while Rick finished up fitting one of the above knee patients that was due to back to the tent city in the afternoon. The clinic was completely packed but thankfully Andrew (the paramedic from Canada) spotted us and had Widley seen to as soon as a bed was free.

Kenley and Widley

On the way back down from the clinic I ran into Kenley who is one of the kids who comes to Good Sam with me on Saturdays -he's a huge sweetheart and very kindly offered to help watch them for the afternoon. As soon as I got back with Widley we casted Kelly who had just woken up was still not too impressed with the whole thing but with the smell of beans a rice in the air he reluctantly obliged :)

David and Kelly

Category 4 Radial deficiency

At the orphanage Kelly always hid his hand from us and the other children unless he was using it to eat so when we finally got a chance to look at it a little closer we figured out that the apparent contractures in Kelly's wrist were actually due to the absence of a Radius!  This deformity puts the wrist into severe ulnar deviation (you can see it in the x-ray) and accounts for the limited muscle control in his wrist and for his missing thumb.

David filled the cast while Kenley and I fed Widley and Kelly their much anticipated lunch. After a whole plate and a half between the two of them we had to cut them off as their bellies looked like they were going to burst and they were nearly falling asleep after every bite! Then, after a lot of moving about to get comfortable (because they couldn't sleep on their tummies) they both fell asleep on the examination table.

Rick hadn't been out of the compound much all week so I sent him along to drop the patients off at the tent city while I stayed back to finish up with Kelly. The cast didn't need much in the way of modifications as he corrected so well statically but I added a bit of a build up around his ulnar styloid process (so he’ll hopefully not end up with any skin issues there later on) and put a bit of a flare on the proximal end to stop it from pinching when he bends his elbow. After cutting the molding plastic and sorting out the best spot for his new thumb I roughly shaped a thick piece of plastic into a thumb then put them both in the oven. David helped to drape the sheet while I placed the thumb and molded it into a functional position. The power was due to go out within the hour so we hand no choice but to quench it in order to get it ready to fit.

Bribery is not usually my style but the promise of chocolate made the fitting move a whole lot faster and after a little heat out at the distal end and a bit of finishing work on the thumb we embraced the darkened clinic with smiles.

Kelly holding a marker with his fingers and new thumb!

As we cleaned up the clinic and started up the hill a big storm blew in so I made an executive decision that the boys should stay in the spareroom in the guesthouse rather than in the patient dome. Unfortunately that got me into a bit of trouble with the coordinator but with the help of about 20 cooing Texan women who were smothering them with cuddles, I managed to talk her into letting them stay there just for the night. They played and lapped up all the attention from the groups until 6 o'clock rolled around when they got down to business and focused all their energy on stuffing themselves with corn, potatoes and chicken.

After a whole lot more playing and cuddles they finally fell asleep about 10pm... I managed to wriggle my way out of the cuddle puddle for a couple hours so I could made up sandwiches and frozen bananas for today then nestled back in a little while later and didn't hear a peep from either of them til 7 this morning!

The best part was when Kelly asked me to put his brace back on before he went to bed :)

Before yesterday I'd never actually seen Kelly smile to know that he had these amazing dimples!

Once they were finished with breakfast they played soccer and coloured with the teams while Andrew and Eimear got a wound care kit together and I put together some soap, toys and books. All the vehicles were in the shop today so we settled for a the school bus which arrived about 12. The boys said their goodbyes and not long after leaving the compound they were, once again, both asleep on my lap.

When we arrived, all the kids came running out to meet us at the bus and were shouting Kelly's name. He was absolutely beaming and as soon as he had his feet on the ground he was right smack in the middle of the group, proudly showing off his thumb to the other kids :)

Success!

After giving out some frozen bananas (which went down really well) we started up a mini clinic -Eimear worked her way through the line of  kids and managed to clear up a pretty bad ulcer and a few other skin infections while Andrew played with the ones who were waiting to be seen.

Later on, while everyone else was distracted by the sandwiches, I sat down with the older girls and tried my best to talk to them to see if we could do anything to help as they tend to bear the brunt of the work there. I managed to get a few things down on paper but the language barrier is still very much there. My creole is getting better bit by bit but not fast enough, especially for them -at one point Ollie said to me with obvious frustration "ou pa konprann anyen" which means 'you don't understand anything'. So, with a huge smile and what little I know of Creole I said that I understand that she has a big heart and a strong mind and a beautiful smile. The girls burst out into uncontrollable laughter! 

To be honest, I'm still not quite sure if it was because of my terrible attempt at speaking Creole or my ridiculously cheesy choice of words... in any case it got the reaction I wanted :) 

Leaving the orphanage is never easy but today was made even harder as most of the kids were crying when we boarded the bus. Now that Eimaer and Andrew are here I'm going to try starting up a mobile medical clinic for them once a week so that means that there's a good chance I'll be able to pop in to check on them sometime before Saturday. 

Rev dous!

September 16th to 23rd

So sorry for the late post!

I’ve not been feeling like myself this past week but thankfully its no Haitian sensation :) I've just been sleeping more than 15hours a day and have also been having some (occasionally funny) balance issues and some (not so funny) pain in my inner ear. I had it checked out at the clinic yesterday and the doctor suspects that its a virus that’s been making me sleep so much  (which I’ll just have to wait out) and some sneaky microbes from the shower water that got into my ear which I’ve got drops for. 

On that note, we’ve finally got our septic tank and pipes fixed after almost 3 days without showers, sinks and toilets in the staff house. Yay!

This week has been really busy in the clinic so its been pretty tough going trying to keep my energy up but all that training with Nonu and David last week has really paid off and they’ve been doing most of the tech work for the 3 ladies with above knee amputations we have staying with us this week. We also had a little boy come in on Tuesday morning with clubfoot which our visiting prosthetist managed to cast. His foot was pretty easy to correct statically so I took over the modifications for his AFO and got a shiny new brace to him that afternoon :) .... he spent the rest of the afternoon playing soccer outside with Stevensya who is another one of our patients.

She’s 3 and has a congenital below knee amputation which is really long so cosmesis and componentry are pretty hard to get right but we managed pretty well and had her up and walking with a supracondular socket by day 2.

We’ve also had 2 physios in the clinic all week that came as part of one of the teams. It was nice to have them as a couple of the ladies were really struggling with lower back pain and strength issues so they got loads of attention and exercise!

On Saturday I went to the orphanage again from about 10:30 till 6:30, I spoke to Madame Lucien about taking Kelly (the little boy with what we think might be Arthrogryposis or possibly another congenital deformity) with me to the clinic for a couple days so that we can make him a ‘prosthoses’ which will correct his wrist and give him a thumb so he can hold onto things a bit better and be more independent. Thankfully she agreed so I’ll be picking him up first thing tomorrow morning and bringing him back on Saturday which will give me plenty of time to spoil him and feed him heaps of healthy food :)

I also met a couple from Kitchener who are staying for a month and are taking off a year long sabbatical after this all around central and south America then onto NZ. Andrew is a paramedic and Eimear is a nurse so I’ve been seeing a fair bit of them :) it’s nice to have some more fellow Canadians join us!

September 12th to 15th

Since going to the orphanage on Saturday the list of goals I have for my time in Haiti has grown quite a bit.

I’ve decided to focus my time outside of the clinic on finding a way to prevent more children being sold to Madame Lucien (either from families being forced to do this when they can't feed their children or from neighbors selling the local orphans) by going to the areas where they live and seeing that they are fed a good meal a few times a week. Unfortunately, there's an awful lot of red tape to get through and a fair bit of planning involved to make sure it can and will keep going once I’ve left but I’m confident that I’ll find what I need to make it happen :)

I spent a few hours last night gathering toys and making up peanut butter & jam sandwiches so that the mission group going there today could give out some food and spend a bit more time playing with the kids. It seems like that worked out well as I had a few of them come up to me this afternoon saying how moved they were by the children there and how glad they were to have something to give them.

Morgan and I are also looking into ways we can directly help the children at the orphanage by making UNICEF and Amnesty International aware of the issues there but we’ll also need to come up with plan for moving them and a safe place for them to go when its all over. If any of you have any contacts with these organizations please get in touch via email :)


In the meantime, I’ve been reading a really good book called “ The Uses of Haiti” which has a great intro from Naom Chomsky (and is helping me to gain a better understanding of Haiti pre-earthquake) and the mindful travel diary of a Bhante I met while on retreat last summer.
 

Mes étudiants

Training at the clinic has been going very well so far. On Monday we spent the whole day making a pelite liner from start to finish and then today we spent most of the day going over it again, cutting plastic and draping 2 practice sockets. Both David and Nonu are showing great enthusiasm and understanding of everything we’ve covered, the only thing that’s not going so well is my Creole. In two weeks time they’re going to have a test on making a below knee socket from start to finish and I’m going to have a test in Creole :)

Wish me luck!

September 7th to 11th

Sorry for the delay in writing! I've not been able to get to my computer much this week between the temperamental power and working a few late nights at the clinic... but on the bright side there are loads of photos :) 

Morgan and two of our patients at the tent city

David & Sonya with her new leg

On Tuesday we assessed a couple of patients at the tent city that had been having problems with their prostheses. I decided that the work would be better done back at the clinic so that they could stay over with us for a few nights, be fed and leave feeling good in their new limb. It also proved to be a really good experience for both of them as they’re both fairly new amputees have now become friends :) We ran into some problems with the power cutting out but the major issue was the alignment of Maralines socket and due to limited parts we had to settle for remaking her socket so that we could offset the graceplate to compensate for a contracture she had developed while in a cast (the hospital had cast her leg in flexion!) both are due for a check up in a week when we go back to the tent city. 

On Thursday, David, Morgan, Shane, myself and 2 of the sponsor kids joined us for a trip to Port Au Prince so I could pick up some new tools for the workshop as well as print off a manual and have a quick run about the market. It was really busy and heavily guarded everywhere we went -many of the buildings there are still in disrepair and in some parts it almost looks as if the earthquake could have happened just last week. 

This is what I bought at the market (in gourdes of course):

Apples = $24.65

Balsamic vinegar = $37.40 Chickpeas= $14.60

Today a group of us boarded the canter to set off on our day trips. While the staff went to the Indigo white sand beach, Morgan, myself and 4 of our child sponsors spent the day at an orphanage in Marseilles giving out food, toys and lots of love.

There were about 70 kids between the ages of 2 and 14 who’s living in conditions are worse than anything I’d ever seen. They sleep outside in the blistering heat amongst fire ants on the crumbled pavement; use toilets that are covered in feces and maggots and get no more than a bowl of rice and a cup of water a day. Every last one of them had a bloated tummy from malnutrition and was desperate for water and food. Every last one of them was riddled with parasites, ringworm and fleas and were covered in all sorts of rashes, bites, abscesses, welts and scars. Every last one of them cowered at the sound of Madame Lucien’s voice. 

Morgan read them stories when I handed out stickers and did face painting. We did our best to hand out all the toys and make sure everyone was getting a turn but while I was outside an older girl, who is the child of the one of the staff, took a toy from one of the kids. When he started to cry a staff member  snatched the skipping rope out of another girls hand and chased the 5 year old around the yard cracking it against the ground behind him as he cried even harder and screamed with fear. I ran over and stood in the door to block the child in as he ran into the chapel to hide in the group of other kids, she laughed while I stood in front of her and ‘tisked’ me. The child who she was chasing is deaf and is covered head to toe in welts and cuts from being beaten for not following directions (Morgan and I are working to get him moved to a residential school for the disabled in PAP but this will involve “buying” him from Madame Lucien).

One of the other boys who is about 4 has a congenital deformation of his wrist which we think night be Arthrogryposis (a congenital deformity around a joint caused by muscle contractures). He is also missing the thumb on his right hand which makes holding things pretty hard for him.  I’ve requested that we have him come in and stay with us for the next surgery week at our clinic but in the mean time I’ll make up a brace so that he can get a start on some rehbilitation. At one point, I was holding him and another boy around the age of 3. The other boy dropped his toy on the ground and just as I set him down to get it he started to cry.  Before I had a chance to pick him back up one of the staff forcefully grabbed him by the arm and threw him to the ground, then proceeded to hit him across his bloated tummy with a sugar cane before I could get between them. I scooped him up and moved the two of them back with the rest of the group where they both eventually fell asleep in my arms. 

 

Later on we moved into the chapel, (which whey are only allowed in when we visit and is the only bearable place to be in the orphanage because of the heat) and started hand out the food we had made for them. A fight broke out when one of he children spilled his food on the ground because a staff member tried to take it away from him to eat herself. She slapped him hard across the face and stood over him yelling at the top of her lungs raising her hand again. Morgan stepped in and said (in Creole) that there was plenty for everyone and then gave them both more food. The woman snatched it out of her hand, spat at the child, then stormed out of the room. 

Madame Lucien (right)

Madame Lucien and her staff are all very over weight and when they weren’t busy tormenting the children they spent their time drinking bottled water & eating the food donations they received from our mission. (Its common knowledge here that if you leave food or toys behind they will be sold at the market or given to the staff and their children.) The younger children are left to do all of their own washing even though at two years old many of them still cant even walk.  Older kids living there are ordered to bathe the younger ones in the fast moving, murky river behind the orphanage just down stream from their toilets.

It was incredibly difficult to leave the children crying helplessly at my feet and so unsettling to step into the canter to find people who had been drinking and who had just spent the day 5 minutes from us eating more than these kids would ever see in a week. 

Before leaving for the orphanage today I was saying to one of the interns that sometimes I just don’t know how to put what I’m seeing and hearing into words -this whole experience goes far beyond any explanation I can give. I'm glad that I have the opportunity to see this for myself though and I think its a good chance for anyone reading this to also become more aware of what is going on here in Haiti and to hopefully use it to motivate more positive change in their own lives.

The compound I live in is without power for most of the day, has limited water and tons pre-packaged and canned foods. There are water restrictions in place and if you forgot something at home you probably wont find it here. From what I've gathered so far, this is, to many of the mission groups, much like an unconventional camping experience; one where they are giving up their comforts for a week so that they can “help” the people of Haiti by adding more buildings to our compound, popping in to see the cute little kids at the orphanage and then going off to the beach or waterfall to relax and prevent early onset of post traumatic stress.... For the long term staff this involves going to the beach to relax, have a nice meal and a few drinks once a week. I apologise for the disenchanted tone of this post but all this is made even more frsutrating when most of the people living here feel that they are entitled to have what they do. 

Its so disheartening to see teams go from the same orphanage I was at today, where young children are half naked and starving, to lying on a white sand beach while sipping on an icy-cold imported juice and not feeling in any way culpable for the human beings they've just left behind...

They lie under the benches of the chapel to sleep

 
I'm sorry for the rant but I guess what it all boils down to is that none of us got to choose where we were born or what we were born into. So how is it that we can feel good about going back to our well “decorated” homes, to eat our imported food and waste our clean tap water day after day.

Regardless of whether we're doing that after having spent a week here or after another long day at work...

simply knowing that this is the harsh reality for so many should be enough to stop us from wanting anything but for this to be resolved.

September 5th and 6th

Sunday was pretty relaxed, after some (very hot) yoga on the hill I spent the morning talking to one of the other interns about farming in Haiti. He said that about 80% of the land here is not arable anymore because of deforestation from when Haiti sought independence from France.  In order to pay off all their debts they had to use their forestry resources, which has caused much of their land to become infertile and sandy. Shane had also been doing work earlier in the year with Haitian farmers who had moved to the Dominican for work and because many of them are desperate they become trapped in a form of enslavement and are working for next to nothing.  Even after hearing his stories I still find it really hard to fathom but its obvious that living in these small communities has a lot to do with how resilient Haitians are.   

In the afternoon, I managed to tag along on a bus ride to the new property with one of the mission groups. We all piled onto an old school-bus and drove bout 20 minutes north. As soon as we rounded the corner for the driveway kids started coming out of the trees to meet the bus. Three boys not much older than 7 latched onto the back and rode behind us down to the beach and by the time we finally got there, there must have been about 80 kids!  

As soon as I got off the bus two young girls grabbed my hands and rushed me towards the beach. I did my best to speak to them in French but they mainly spoke Creole so we filled in the gaps with hugs and smiles :) One of the girls was particularly hilarious and had obviously been in the middle of getting her hair done when we arrived as she had a comb in her hand and only half of her hair in braids. She was giving two older Haitian boys trouble for trying to talk with me too much and encouraged me to say “sotu” to them which means leave me alone. 

We spent about an hour at the beach playing soccer and other games with the kids, but were rushed back onto the bus as the clouds started rolling in.  It started pouring as soon as we got on the bus and as we drove away the horizontal rain was coming in through the windows on one side of the bus and going back out the ones on other side. The storms here are really something else!  

When we got back to the compound I headed down to the Hope House Orphanage and coloured with the kids for a little while. I also met up with Richardson and Jean Marc again -Julia had introduced me to them on Wednesday and told me that they’re my ticket to fresh fruit and veg so long as I let them use my laptop so that they can keep in touch with the girlfriends they’ve met here on facebook :)   

 

They offered to pick up some groceries at the market for me so I told them to look out for some coconut oil because I was going to make them all chocolates with it later on this week… he came back with 3 coconuts today and laughed hysterically when I said I needed help opening them! 

 

Richardson teaching me how to open a coconut!

The cooks have Sundays off here so for dinner we go down to a local restaurant called Gwapapa Poul for dinner. I cut a sweet deal with Shane to swap my chicken leg for his plantain. (I think we all know who got the better deal there ) Yum!  

The clinic was absolute chaos today! As Nonu and I finished off the below knee socket we are going to deliver to the tent city tomorrow, two patients, who we weren’t expecting, turned up right at 8 so the prosthetist worked with them while I did some a follow up with Kevins who is an above knee earthquake amputee. He’s a pretty buoyant little 10 year old who put up with a lot of time consuming adjustments to his socket as there were some major alignment issues. Thankfully he left very happy and will come back in next Tuesday for a visit and checkup.  

Nonu showing off the BK we made

Thanks to one of the technicians, David, I now have about 20 oranges, 6 avocados (which are the size of papayas), 2 heads of iceberg lettuce, 6 tomatoes, a watermelon, another type of melon, 8 mangos, 6 carrots and about 30 bananas.  Needless to say, dinner tonight was great! :)  

Some of my yummy groceries!

New Page!

I’ve just set up a new page for donations in case anyone would like to help us buy some new stock: http://prostheticsforhaiti.chipin.com/prosthetics-and-orthotics-for-haiti

September 3rd and 4th

I’m happy to say I’ve managed to fend off the “Hatian sensation” :) despite having brushed my teeth with the tap water and deciding not to bleach the lettuce I ate…

After another long sleep on Thursday night I headed for the clinic about 9am. We only had one patient in yesterday which meant that we could spend a little more time on theory and techniques. I finished up modifying the below knee cast we took at the tent city on Thursday then started David off on shaping the cosmetic foam cover one of our older patients Sonya.

The Prosthetics clinic

The covers are absolutely massive, apparently its because they clinic had ordered mainly medium and large sizes from the suppliers without realizing that the American suppliers tend to make them a lot bigger than the ones in the UK or Canada. I’d never used an electric carving knife to cut off the excess foam before but it worked a treat! After going over some anatomy together David and I applied the measurements we took the day before to a design shape that was a bit more true to her other leg. While David worked on the leg shaping, Nonu and I worked on making a pelite liner for the modified cast. Once we were done Nonu, David, Mike and I did our best to align the graceplate on the socket, which was a bit of a challenge without an alignment jig but I think we did pretty well :)

David working on the cosmetic cover

Nonu, David and I went down to the workers kitchen for some “diri ak pwa” (beans and rice) and on the way we were talking about our families. I asked David where he was when the earthquake happened and he told me that he was in his home and that thankfully his wife had gone to pick up their kids at the school but that meant that he was left there all alone. He told me that he had never even heard of an earthquake before and that when he felt it he thought that the whole world was going to end. David told me that he was on the second floor of his house when he felt it and tried to walk down the stairs to get outside until he saw the cement walls crumbling into his path. He decided to go out onto the roof instead so that he could jump off -he told me at that point that he didn’t think he would live either way so jumping seemed like the better option.

Luckily, David only ended up with a sore back and gouge in his elbow but no breaks at all. The next day he went to into Port Au Prince to see the doctor but the hospital had been completely destroyed and all of the doctors were charging hundreds of dollars for treatment. He couldn’t afford to do that so he went to a natural doctor instead who used leaves and herbs to heal him. It was pretty shocking to hear this as many of the NGOs implied in adverts and articles that they had helped make all healthcare free for Haitians for a few months following the Earthquake.

David told me that his house was completely destroyed in the earthquake and that and now he and his family are living with his mother in Cabaret which is north of Titanyen. It takes him at least an hour by taptap (bus) to get to work everyday.

Lunch!!

After lunch (which comes in a bucket) I packed up the extra diri ak pwa for dinner, which usually it goes in the bin, and then started to prepare the socket for molding. By 3:30 David had finished the leg and we had draped the socket and we were ready to go home. On the way out to the road David, Nonu and I were talking about our plans for the weekend and I mentioned my plans to escape to the market for some fresh fruit and veg … they laughed and told me to stay put for now and offered to bring some in with them on Monday I gave them money and am looking forward to a big huge salad :) they’ve also promised to take me out to the markets sometime next week! Yay!!


When I got back to the guesthouse the sky opened up. I was actually writing this post outside when the rain started but within seconds it turned from a light shower into a full-blown thunderstorm complete with horizontal rain and really intense fork lighting. It was amazing to watch from inside and so nice and cool after! 

I feel like I’ve finally managed to adjust to the time and heat which is good :) they don’t do much here on the weekends so I spent most of today reading and practicing my French and Creole. I also managed to do some yoga before everyone got up this morning which was a bit trickier to do on stony ground but I decided I’d better not do it in the grass as there was an awful lot of rustling going on in there…

It seems maniacal to subscribe to the concern that everyone has with the water here, they pay to have it shipped in at least 8 times a day … and that’s just for showers toilets and cooking. For drinking water there are two options here; a water cooler filled with chemically treated water and then there’s bottled water (which comes with a price, they have no waste disposal here so every bit of garbage you make ends up being burned in a big heap just outside the clinic)

I’ve given up on both now and am only using my Steripen and sometimes the filter cap which gets rid of all the floaty bits ....

The turkeys outside our clinic

The horse outside our clinic ...we named her Natasha

A baby was abandoned at the clinic yesterday. Pierre, who is thought to be just under two was left under one of the benches in the triage area. His mum was in to get some support as the doctors say that he is showing signs of muscular dystrophy. Due to the restrictions on childcare here and the fact that our onsite orphanage is over capacity he had to be taken to the mayors home where he spent the night there until they could arrange for a temporary exemption. Pierre was also severely dehydrated and malnourished so our medical team stepped in and spent most of today trying to get him back to normal. They have some baby formula here but were hesitant to use it as its has got more fillers that nutrients (I don’t blame them!) so I offered up some of the wholefood vegan supplement I take when I’m not feeling 100% and they’ve sprinkled a bit in some mashed up banana for him. The mission still isn’t sure if we’ll be able to keep him here but in any case he’ll be staying until he’s a bit more stable.

After the storm last night our generator is in need of some love so we’re running on batteries now and it may take some time to get the up and running again. Our power comes one and off quite often even on a good day but this likely means that we wont have any for a few days so this may be my last post for a bit :) (sorry its so huge!)

much love
xx

The first two days

ah where to start...


Well, I arrived in Port Au Prince yesterday around 930am and the heat hit me pretty much as soon as I left the plane. Everyone piled onto a little bus that took us over to immigration where there were about 5 stations and 50+ people in each line. Total chaos. Thankfully, Ruben found me at the baggage claim before I got myself into too much trouble with my terrible french :)

The compound is about a 30 minute drive from the airport and I quickly found out that there is no specific side of the road to drive on, its really just whichever way has the least amount of potholes (they should try that in Glasgow!) and you only really pick a side when theres oncoming traffic.

I asked Ruben if we could go to a market later on in the week so I could get a bike, after a good long laugh he told me that we could but that I was nuts to want to ride on their roads and that I wouldn't be leaving the compound much to use it... I'll see how the week pans out but it looks like they're pretty strict about leaving the compound at all. Fortunately for me the kitchen staff are doing a market run on Friday so I'll try to tag along with them for some groceries and maybe get a bike then :)

My bed!

Julia (a friend of mine who was just finishing up an internship with NGOs here) met me at the guesthouse where I unloaded my stuff. I has a whirlwind tour of the 72 (ish) acre compound that includes a couple guess houses, a mission house, an orphanage, a school and the medical clinic. Our lab is just off of that and is complete with walking bars, 2 work benches, a router, vacuum bench and an infra oven :) I met Diana the Coordinator, Mike the Prosthetist who will be here for 2 weeks and Nonu & David the 2 Haitian Technicians.

In the clinic with Mike and Diana

After 2 days in transit and sweating like crazy for the past 2 hours I thought I was about ready for bed until I saw how much needed doing in the clinic so I got to work putting a few things away then draped a poly-pro socket for our patient coming in that afternoon and then helped David who was working on a partial foot insole for a patient we would be seeing today.

Overall, I think the clinic is pretty well organised and so long as you're willing to get creative and be resourceful its fairly easy to get-er-done :)

For lunch we went down to the kitchen where the workers, patients and orphans go to get beans and rice, it was SO good! (much better than was was on offer at the guesthouse which was cheese wiz and "snackwells")

We took a couple plates up to the patients we would be seeing in the afternoon and then headed back to the clinic to finish up the legs for the fittings. Diana told me about the 5 year old girl who we met a lunch and how she lost her leg when was stuck under her house for 5 days. Solida had cried nonstop for the first 3 days but on the fourth day she had given up and went silent. On the fifth day her dad came to retrieve the bodies of her and her brother but when they started breaking up the concrete around her she yelled out that she was still there and they they shouldnt hit so hard!

Solida is brilliant. She was so patient and lovely and even though we didn't understand a word of what one another was saying she was happy enough to wrap herself around me for most he the afternoon while I worked on her leg with the other hand :) Thankfully, David, our technician, was originally hired as translator and he helped me to explain what we were doing to her father. Solida's dad was a real sweetheart and was asking a lot about my family and friends back home. When we managed to get around a few problems he said to me that because of what I was doing he believed that god was white, I was pretty quick to reply that every person has something to contribute and to offer one another and that he and his daughter has shown me the incredible power that lies in the human spirit....

thankfully I was hot enough to play off any wetness on my face for sweat :)



When we finally finished it off and got it on her (with a couple of the socks that were donated from Medalin!) I set Solida down on the ground -the look on her face was priceless. She was standing there with both feet on the floor for the first time since the earthquake! After a few steps holding my hands she was off to explore the rest of the clinic and show off her new leg.



We had a few component and alignment issues with both of the patients which were mainly to do with the the parts we were using (the stock we have is pretty limited) but we managed fine and both left to go back to the patient's sleeping area around 5 to practice and get used to their new limbs.

We headed back up to the guesthouse for dinner (nachos with tvp, beans and heaps of veg) then went up and watched then sunset from the hill behind us, it was all pretty romantic until one of the kids staying at the guesthouse said that he'd just caught a huge tarantula up there an hour earlier...

Today, after a 13hour sleep I hurried down to the clinic with my water bottle and sweat-rag in hand where I was met with the van to take our patients back home. We arrived at Love a Child which is a tent city where many of our patients stay about an hour away. They have a rehabilitation tent there where we casted a 17 year old bk patient and fitted the partial foot insert. Everyone there was so lovely and the kids were handing out high-fives left right and center :)

We finished up there are headed back towards our clinic around 12 and bought some plantain chips on the way while we were waiting for some space on the road (yum!) by the time we got back it was too late to get lunch from the kitchen so we headed for the guest house where I had some of my miso soup with oatcakes and the others had mayo-ey tuna sandwiches :)

The afternoon was spent modifying the cast we'd taken earlier that day and starting to shape a foam cover for a lady in the tent city. Nonu, one of our technicians, mainly speaks creole and French but has been learning a bit of English purely for the benefit of the American prothetists coming into the clinic. I'm not a huge fan of the patronizingly-slow-talking-in-English approach so I jumped right in an started with an apology for my terrible French and a feeble attempt at translating what the prothetist was explaining -which got a few laughs :)

Nonu and David "looking busy" :)

I also got a chance to test out some of my natural remedies for dealing with the elements; the bug spray I made up with neem oil, citronella and eucalyptus, which did ok till I ate a bit of dried mango at lunch (I read somewhere that the sweetness leaches out of your skin and attracts them.... which id say is pretty true, oops), a neils yard sunscreen which seemed to do ok considering how much I was in the sun today and how hot it was and Citradal which a citrus extract meant to help your tummy with dodgy food and water....

Seeing as dinner was bbq chicken and creamy potatoes I opted for some of the fresh lettuce instead. Unfortunately, they usually "rinse" it in bleach water then some other chemical stuff.... I sneakily didn't use bleach or the other stuff then drank a glass of my potion after dinner. I'm sure I'll find out pretty soon if it works but so far I've been lucky enough not to experience any of the "Hatian sensation" :)

Bonswa!