Today was a hotter, muggier day than yesterday. It was also the day we planned to be inside at 2 different orphanages and end the day helping out at a wound clinic run by a group of nuns.
The morning started just after 7 a.m. with a home cooked breakfast prepared every day by our houseman, Jean Fils-aime. He’s a wonderful cook although he is helped out by Fournais. Today’s menu was French toast, scrambled eggs with onion and peppers. There was oatmeal and plenty of fresh fruit. The highlight was truly the fresh squeezed lime juice that Fournais prepared for us this morning.
With our bellies full we packed out day bags. Fresh water is an essential while we are out in the heat of the day in Haiti. I filled 2 water bottles from the fresh water container. Then I packed 3 packs of beef jerky donated by Jack Links through our team member Ann Marie who’s ad agency represents them. They are a huge hit with the mission team as well as our local staff.
It was then off to our first stop, an orphanage for the sick and dying children. This orphanage is run by a group of Nuns and was truly an incredible morning. This orphanage cares for infant children who come in very sick as well as serving as a care center and orphanage for children up to about age 10. Our job, either hold the infants and care for them or go upstairs and spend time with the toddlers and young children.
I chickened out on holding the babies and was the first team member to head up the stairs to the toddler floor. The moment I hit the top of the stairs I was barraged by the group of children. It’s hard to describe how the children react to anyone coming in to spend time with them. Not that the Nuns aren’t wonderful with the kids yet they have a huge task to perform each day and more children than any of us could imagine under their watch.
Let me describe the 2nd floor of the orphanage to give you a sense of how this all work. At the top of the stairs was a 12’x12’ landing. Off of the landing were 4 rooms. Each about 16’x16’ feet each with 3 of the 4 rooms with bathrooms attached to them. 3 of the rooms are filled with metal cribs. These 3 rooms are divided by age as to what children are in which cribs. The 4th room is a play room. Here’s the first spot where my heart sunk this morning. The playroom had 2 toys-a small plastic rocking horse and a little sitting bench. That was it for the 20+ children who lived on the 2nd floor.
The first little boy to grab on to me was named Antoine. He was probably 2 ½ years old. He didn’t speak although that wouldn’t have mattered much because my Creole is limited to about 3 words. Antoine clung to me for over 2 hours today. It was a game of rotating toddlers for me this morning. I sat on a bench on the landing and at most points in time there were anywhere from 4-6 children crawling on me in various ways. It was exhausting! And yet I didn’t feel anything but being blessed to see the smiling facing of these wonderful kids! Many had extended stomachs due to malnutrition. Some were here for other reasons.
In fact some of the children are at this orphanage as a means to be treated for sickness where they can’t be otherwise. With these cases, the parents are allowed to visit the children from 9-10 a.m. each morning. At 10 a.m. a bell is rung and the parents have to leave. That’s the 2nd time my heart sank today. As the parents left their children the children cried and cried and cried. In fact the whole building seemed to cry for about 10 minutes---except for the pack of kids hanging on me. I was sitting on a bench in the playroom at this time. Then 1 of the little boys whose parents had just left sat on the end of the bench with the saddest face. He looked up at me and I reach out and pulled him to my side and held him alongside me for about ½ hour. He was the greatest little boy. Very quiet. Very respectful of the nuns. He had quickly learned the routine of the orphanage as well. Here’s what I mean by that.
At about 11:30 the nuns pulled the 3 sitting benches out from the walls and started placing metal plates out filled with rice, beans and some chicken. The nuns filled the plates in 1 station then gave the command and each of the children went to 1 corner and pulled out tiny plastic chairs that were stacked next to the stairwell. There was a girls table, a boys table and the 3rd bench was for the very small children. They all took a seat, the nuns set the plates in front of each of the children and they sat and waited. Once all the children had their plates and a spoon the supervising nun had all the children stand up and they prayed. It was amazing to see how regimented and fairly well behaved these kids were at that moment. With that many kids and 3 Nuns supervising it had to be that type of system.
Part way through the morning the Nuns handed out hard boiled eggs to the children as well. I was front and center for that as she did this in the play room where I was sitting on a bench with my child mob. I watched as the Nun cracked and peeled each egg as the children stood around here. For each child it might be something different some children she gave the entire yolk to, some got ½ of the egg, some got a whole egg. Each child seemed to get precisely what was needed for them based on age, size and health. At the end she even knew which of the 20 plus children hadn’t gotten an egg and made sure they were fed.
Noon came far too quickly although I was wringing wet with sweat for the physicalness of the kids all morning. It was an exhausting, heart-warming morning.
We then traveled to Gertrude’s Orphanage for Special Needs Children. The minute we walked through the gate we were greeted by all the smiling faces of the children in this orphanage as well. We came to the orphanage just before their lunch time so we had the opportunity to help feed the group here as well. This orphanage is for special needs children and the range of needs was vast. Many of the children are incredibly bright, spoke some English as well as Creole.
One little boy who looked to be about 3 grabbed my hand and asked me to push him on the swing set. As I pushed him he started humming. I started to hum with him and then he started to sing. His first song was Creole and as he sang a line I sang it back to him. He smiled with joy! We did the entire song in Creole this way. Then he began to sing “If You’re Happy and You Know It” in English. We sang the song the same way with him singing the first line and then I would repeat it to him. He then sang his “ABC’s” in English for me as well.
Our time ended quickly for us to head back to the mission house for 45 minutes of rest before our last stop of the day—the wound clinic.
The Wound Clinic is open 3 days each week. It’s located in an area near the center of Port-au-Prince. The trip there took us through the most devastation from the earthquake of 2010 we’ve seen so far on this trip. The entire area is crumbled and yet the lives of the Haitian’s continue. Instead of moving the rubble out, they’ve seemed to all set up shop in front of the crumbled buildings inching toward the center of every street. To drive through with our truck during the late afternoon was an adventure. We literally go the truck through the space between the shops set up on both sides of the streets in many sections of the trip.
We arrived at the Wound Clinic and the people were already lined up outside the building down the alley. The clinic is run by the same order who run the Orphanage from the morning. They are very efficient and it’s amazing to see how they dispense care from a little girls with an abscess on her chin, to a women with a C-section that had separated to what looked like a stab wound, they treated it all. Out in the alley a group of French volunteer was redressing bandages for scores of people.
The lead nun, discovering that most of us had no experience dressing wounds decided tonight was not the night to teach us. I was relieved to her that as I wasn’t too sure how I’d be redressing infected and some gangrenous wounds. Instead she put us to work sorting donations to the clinic.
My 1st job was pharmacy technician. There was a big bag of antibiotic capsules where the nun asked me to count out 15 and place them in an envelope folded out of magazine pages. I then placed the envelopes in a tray. Next to me in the back of the clinic is where the nun met with patients at the alley door and heard what was going on with them and then handed out prescriptions for the ailments. Some of the group sorted boxes of donations, trying to match up prescription to each other to create some sort of order for the Nun’s.
The clinic is only open for 2 hours they days they are in operation. They closed it around 5:30 tonight. At that time we loaded up our truck and headed back through the center city towards the mission home.
I can’t speak for the rest of the team but when we arrived home I was dog tired both physically and emotionally, sweaty and covered in dust. The cold water shower felt so good I stood under it for almost 5 minutes just letting the cool water hit me…..
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