Tap-Taps

Here are some more pictures of the Tap-Taps:

The Camp Basics

The lovely green tent to the left is the tent Sarah brought with her. I now have a minor obsession with owning a NICE tent like this LL Bean one I lived in for two weeks. I am saving up some money and at the end of the summer when the tents go on sale, I plan to buy one. Hopefully I will be sleeping better by then, despite the fact that I no longer have a tent-mate and a mosquito net over me. I really did love my time in this tent. Home sweet home!

This is me after I first tasted the water at camp. There were large amounts of chlorine added to the water. It was warm and tasted like pool water. My lips burned after drinking it. Refreshing eh? Sarah was lucky to catch this moment on camera... I did adjust however!
We were so incredibly fortunate to have laundry service at camp. I would hand these beautiful women my clothes in the morning and they would return them to me at night. I often had a nice little pile of clothes waiting for me on my sleeping back in the evening. They worked so hard. They carried water from the sinks in huge tubs to their washing area. They used metal washboards and scrubbed everything with bleach. I can't believe how lucky I was to have this service while I was there!

The clothes dried quickly in the hot, hot weather!

Sarah and I lucked out because we inherited these two lovely buckets from a guy who left the day after we arrived. Buckets are a highly coveted commodity at camp. We used them to shower when the makeshift showers weren't working. It was actually quite refreshing to have the bucket dumped on you. My co-worker Kellie insisted I take rainboots to Haiti and I was so grateful for those pink boots when the rains hit at night. I left them with the Haitian nurses and I hope they are lasting well!

These are the tarp showers that were used with the buckets. We were lucky enough to not have to use these often because some very smart people set up a shower system with wooden doors and everything! But the view from these showers was nice- it overlooked the mountains.

This is the cafeteria. Meals were served twice a day. Breakfast was served around 9am- about 2 hours after work started. Lunch was served somewhere around 2:30. There was also "dinner" which consisted of warm milk- I never participated in this meal. The people who worked here were so friendly and if you gave them an extra smile you could usually get a few extra fried potatoes on the special days where we had them.
Soda was a welcome relief for most of the workers here. I had not had any soda for 12 years until coming here. It was so hot and that was the only option of a cool drink so I gave in an had a sip from time to time. I remembered why I didn't like soda in the first place and I am back to no soda ever. But it was nice to have a refreshing drink in the heat!
A typical dinner... rice, bean, and some sort of vegetable/sardine/tuna mix on top... It helped if you put tabasco sauce on it...
Breakfast: A rice meal that was supposed to have lots of vitamins and protein.
The other thing we had for breakfast: a course cornmeal mix with a few shredded carrots in it. It congealed as it got cool. Again, hot sauce helped. All in all though, I felt very lucky to have as good as food as we did.
My dear friend! She would ask me every day if I had eaten and give me heaping platefuls of food. I always had to tell her to stop piling the food on. She is a sweet girl and never ceased to have a smile. I miss her!
Life was good at the camp. I really miss being there. It was so nice to focus on the basics of life rather than be caught up with so many distractions like I am now that I am back. I think I would have been ready to go back the day after I got home as long as I could have had a shower, a good night's sleep with a pillow (I didn't have one the whole two weeks), a salad, fruit, and a guacamole burger. Yep I am already itching to get back there!

Love-a-Child Disaster Recovery Center

A view of the front of our camp. The camp was very safe. The medical director would often tell us that we were living in a bubble at Love-a-Child. This was so true. We were quite safe there- something that is not enjoyed by most people living in the area. The camp was built on land donated by Bob and Sherry Burnette who started an orphanage in Fond Parisien in 1991. Along with the Harvard Humanitarian Intiative, the University of Chicago was very involved with volunteers during my time at the camp.

The people lived in tents donated from all parts of the world. The tents with the big red crosses were donated from Taiwan. The blue and tan tents were donated by a very generous man from the USA. We had computers donated from Ecuador and a lab room (though not functioning due to a lack of lab techs) donated from El Salvador. It was amazing to see how so many countries were giving to Haiti without any ulterior motives. There is no oil, diamonds, or major trade agreements that would result from goodwill as a result of donating. People really were giving out of compassion for their fellow brothers and sisters who are in desperate need.
The tents were arranged in rows. The patients and their attendants (family members, spoues, children, etc) were living with others whom they had never met. 6 people or more would live in one tent- so up to 3 unrelated families were sometimes living in the same one room tent. I was continually humbled at the reality that the people were living.
I was also continually touched at the ways the children found joy and happiness. I am always amazed at how children just want to play and live life to the fullest- no matter the circumstances.
Close living quarters don't allow for much privacy. And although the tents look sturdy, they leak terribly in the torrential rains and two rows were washed away in one storm. However, the people were grateful for what shelter they had.

Port-au-Prince to Fond Parisien

The poverty present in Haiti is everywhere. There are children naked in the streets. The animals are all emaciated. This is the view from the airport exit.

The field hospital that I worked with is located in Fond Parisien, Haiti. Fond Parisien is located 28 miles east of Port-au-Prince. Here is a link with more information about the field hospital: http://hhi.harvard.edu/programs-and-research/earthquake-in-haiti/188-the-hhi-fond-parisien-rehabilitation-project

As I drove from the airport to the camp, these are a few of the images that I was able to capture...
The number of tent communities there were was astounding. Any land that was free had been turned in to a tent community. It was humbling to realize that this is how millions were now living.

The United Nations has a strong presence in Haiti at this time. Hopefully they can make sure that things actually get done. Hopefully.
These brightly painted buses are called tap-taps. They are the cabs/buses of Haiti. One tap-taps to get on to one and then tap-taps when he/she wishes to be off. They are everywhere. People cram on to them and are literally holding on to the sides of them. Each tap-tap seems to have its own theme.
A few miles from the camp we saw this tap-tap accident. There were no fatalities, but all of the victims came to our field hospital and multiple sutures were required. The field hospital not only served as a rehabilitation, orthopedic, and wound center, but a a community hospital as well.

Sarah- My own angel!

I need to write about my dear friend Sarah before I go much further. Meeting Sarah was a very tender mercy that the Lord gave to me. I am the type of person that gets to the airport early and goes straight through security. I have never varied from this routine. When I got to the airport in Miami, however, I felt like I just wanted to walk around for a little bit before going through security. I walked up and down the main hall and then got a feeling that it was time to go to security. I got in line and was soon joined by other people. I looked at the girl next to me and smiled. She was also dressed in scrubs and a t-shirt. She spoke up and asked "Are you going to Haiti?" I told her I was. She then asked where in Haiti I was going. When I told her I was going to the Love-a-Child disaster recovery center she was ecstatic and replied that she was too. We became instant friends.

We both spoke of this meeting many times throughout our trip and both know that the Lord brought us together. Sarah had been praying for two weeks to meet someone to use the "buddy system" with and I had done the same. The trip would have been utterly difficult had it not been for me meeting this wonderful woman. We had many experiences together and I know that we are friends for life. I love you Sarah! I am also eternally grateful to Heavenly Father for knowing me well enough to bring such a blessing in to my life. Meeting Sarah again confirmed my knowledge that God lives and that He is intimately involved in the details of my life. I love how God uses others to show His love for us.

This is Sarah and me about 8 hours after we met. We just set up her wonderful tent using rocks for hammers. I still miss nights in that tent. Strange, but oh so true.