hot tiring day

Today was a difficult day. Not emotionally but I am just exhausted.

I drove with the Healing Hands for Haiti team to the Project Medishare/University of Miami hospital tents to see their work. It is really very impressive. They have large tents set up with cots and many patients. We have PTs, OTs and Nurses working in them with the crew.

After a quick tour, I went with the Team Leader, Gail Buck and another nurse on the team Angel to visit 3 of the orphanages that we have worked with previously. We drove all around Port-au-Prince in our air conditioningless van, on bumpy roads, with LOTs of traffic and lots of pollution. It was really neat to see the differences between the orphanages but now I am very drained.

Orphanages in Haiti have a very high percentage of children with disabilities because many family give them up for adoption due to not being able to afford their care and also because there is a big stigma attached to disabilities. Haitians believe that if you have a child with disabilities, then there are bad spirits or bad luck on your family. They will often hide the kids or give them to the orphanages. The result is orphanages with staff who don't know how to care for the children and often times do not even go near them.

The first orphanage the kids were pretty clean and well taken care of. The "normal" children are intermingled with the disabled. The kids and staff, like the rest of Haiti are sleeping outside in tents instead of risking going into the buildings. But the kids are stimulated and happy.

The second orphanage had more disabled children than "normal" children. We showed up and saw the kids in the backyard in a tent. They had 6 kids laying on the floor of the tent on blankets with Cerebral Palsy. They were smiley and happy kids and although they have very little at the orphanage, the staff seems to participate and engage the kids. They mentioned that their donor organization is raising money in the US and that they have received A LOT of money but that that money is not making it out of the US down to Haiti. Another reason to make sure your donations are given to good legit people.

The third orphanage would make you want to cry. It was a HUGE orphanage by Haiti standards. They have possibly 50 kids who do not have a disability and about 25 more with disabilities. Saddest sight. These kids are not spoken to, not looked at, not engaged at all. Many had flies all of their faces or mosquito nets that were stuck to their faces. A couple of them just lit up completely when we touched their hands and faces. There was one little girl who was just so happy. She kept holding my hands and laughing. It is making me cry to think of the look on her face as we walked out. The care givers were sitting off to the side drinking a bottle that said alcohol on the side and paid NO attention to the kids. It would literally just kill you.

After a tiring morning I headed to a meeting of the disabilities work group which is a meeting of all organizations working with the disabled population and the Haitian government. The hope is to provide more coordination between and amongst organizations. Nothing much was accomplished at this meeting but there were some valuable connections in networking discussions that followed.

Back to the Guest House where we ate a great dinner of rice and beans, couscous and a meat pie thing. All pretty delicious. Our Haitian Board President Dr. Ben Nau came to the Guest House to meet with me and then participate in a board call later.

It has been a long, hot day. It is very muggy today. I am pretty darn tired. Much much more to do!!!