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!