Wednesday: Trip to Port Au Prince
Wednesday morning bright and early we met at the prosthetists’ house for our trip to Port Au Prince to do some castings at the Catholic Medical Missions Board Orphanage called New Life. Vern (head prosthetist), Paul, Clair, Evinor (our translator), Jaffar (our driver), and I were off for the three hour ride down the mountain to Port Au Prince. Once in Port Au Prince we wound our way through skinny back roads that resembled muddy alley ways surrounded by high walls. Somehow Jaffar knew exactly where to go. Once we arrived, we learned we would be working under a beautifully full mango tree. It was shady, cool, and lovely. We had the possibility of doing five to seven patient castings but only two patients showed up. I also worked with a small boy who had CP.
I had brought the medical dictionary with me in the off chance that I could find someone going to Medishare to deliver it to my friend Cedieu. Cedieu is the prosthetic technician who works at Medishare. He also works as a PT technician and is so hungry to learn. He had asked me to bring the dictionary down for him. In his down time, Cedieu coaches a soccer team of men who are amputees called the Zaryen or the Tarantulas. Unfortunately, I had no way to get to Medishare. I called him and he asked permission to come to our center to pick up the dictionary but was told he must stay at Medishare to work.
One of the patients we were casting looked vaguely familiar. He was quite an athletic looking young man. As he was being casted Clair told him he must come to Dechapelles to be fit for his leg on a Monday or a Thursday. The patient said he cannot come on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Clair thought this was an odd schedule to have for work. She asked him what kind of work he did on those days. The patient replied that it was not work he was doing but his soccer practice with the Zaryen (Tarantula) Soccer Team! He was NOT going to miss his soccer practice for anything! Aha! I had seen his picture! He knew Cedieu! He agreed to take the medical dictionary to Cedieu. I thought he would do on it Thursday for soccer practice. Within an hour after the patient left our mango tree clinic, I received a call from Cedieu thanking me profusely for the dictionary. Our patient had a mission and had gone directly to Project Medishare to deliver my dictionary to Cedieu! What an amazing coincidence! Being in Haiti can seem so isolated at times and yet we can also feel so connected.
Since we were done early, we were faced with a 3 hour ride back to Dechapelles without lunch. I had mentioned to the group that we are so close to the MINUSTAH Deck Bar & Grill – we should stop there for lunch. Tales of burgers and fries were enticing. We found directions and were off to the UN. The Deck is entirely a different place at noon compared to the more laid back dinner club of my Medishare days. Today the Deck was packed full of people from all over the world in their uniforms, speaking many different languages. It made for great people watching! I began to wonder why everyone was there and what stories they might share. Someday an ethnographic study of the Deck would be so interesting! My Italian friends were busy driving ambulances and were unable to join us for lunch. It was just not the same place without Giulio and Paolo! Then on our way out of Port Au Prince, we stopped at a supermarket to get Clair’s “rhum” - 5 Star – the best in Haiti. We made it back to Dechapelles to jump in the pool just before dinner.
Clair and I visited the prosthetists for her last night in Dechapelles. We did not want to say goodbye, so we resorted to the South African phrase of “I see you just now,” to mean that we hope our paths will cross again! We hope to see each other in Amsterdam for the World Confederation of Physical Therapy conference in June! We spent the night star gazing and then Clair was off in the morning at 4:00 am for her 25 hour journey back to Scotland. I am now living with 6 Haitian nurses in our Kay Dunn #11 house. There will be another physician joining our group tonight. We also have a team of nurses from Mass General Hospital here to assist with the cholera patients. The numbers of patients with cholera are dwindling and the folks from CDC are here investigating possible causes of the outbreak. They have narrowed things down to the possibility of eating seafood from the rivers and the possible bad water source. They will continue to investigate the stories of people with and without cholera to see if they can pinpoint the root cause. Many here simply say, “Don’t eat from the same area where you pee or poop!”
Our translator shared with us that many people from his community thought the cholera outbreak may have been caused by the Blancs. They felt the Blancs may have come and poisoned the water to kill off the Haitian people. The Haitian people had once used that tactic to chase the French colonizers away from Haiti. Now the Haitians feared this cholera outbreak was payback. Our translator told members in his community that the Blancs have come to help not hurt the Haitian people.
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