after the hurricane...

 Bon jou tout moun!!  That means Good Day Everyone :)

Last week was a short week. Monday and Tuesday were the Haitian Holidays of All Saints Day and All Soul's Day.  After Lyndsay and I saw the inpatients we did get to spend some time on the beach.  Swimming in the ocean is wonderful, even though the occasional Styrofoam container or plate floats by!

Hurricane Tomas hit us on Friday, though we personally experienced very little effects here.  We believe maybe Padre Joseph, the many seminarians and the nuns here have something to do with a little bubble that protects St  Charles Seminary.  South of us was damaged badly by flooding and a few places on the coast experience terrible winds.  I guess our beautiful vacation spot near Baharona, Dominican Republic was damaged. We saw the inpatients in the morning and then had some fun in the afternoon.  I taught 2 of them how to put together puzzles.  The Haitian children here don't play with puzzles so none of them even knew what a puzzle was.  In the beginning, I asked what the Creole word for puzzle was and I received some very confused looks.  So now...the Creole word for puzzle is "puzl" :)



After puzzle making, we started on hair braiding.  My hair is very difficult to braid because of the layers so it took several hands to perform the task and we only had enough really, really small rubber bands to do a portion.  The woman on the far left is Elfine.  She is a patient here with an above the knee amputation.  She is currently 6 months pregnant.  We received some great news last week that she will be allowed to move into a home through Love-A-Child organization.  We will help her move into her new house with her mother and 3 year old son next Wednesday.  The other two young ladies are here to assist two of the patients who live here. 

Saturday Lyndsay and I went to Catholic Mass.  It amazed me that I was able to pick out a few words and just with the music and Father Joe's dramatic delivery of a message, I was so moved and didn't really have any idea what was being said!  I guess worship "feels" the same in all languages!

Sunday, we walked the streets around the compound and even tried to get a deal on purchasing some bicycles for the medical and rehab staff at the clinic, but $90 was too much to pay for a mountain bike with flat tires and an unknown braking system!


Today was a very challenging day.  We went to pick up a woman that arrived here last week unable to walk and when we found her in her house, actually on a urine-soaked mattress in the area in front of a partially crumbled home, she was unresponsive.  I did assess her to be breathing but initially was very afraid she would be dead.  We were able to transport her back to our medical compound, give her an IV of fluid and then transport her to a hospital for medical care.  She was in diabetic shock.  Hopefully, she will respond and she can return here for rehabilitation and even return home. 

We have many patients planning for discharge back to their homes this week and a list of many to see as outpatients so tomorrow will be a busy day.  We are also hoping to start a stroke class this week that I am going to set up following the activities that we use in the Neurofit class that I used to help out with in Alexandria.

That's the update for now.  I know these seem to be getting further apart but I will try to be better this week and get more pictures of the patients and share their stories. "Pase bon hwit"