Happy New Year to everyone! Thank you for your support. We couldn’t do it without you. Your support means a lot to us! Know that you are making a difference in a lot of lives here in the southern mountains of Haiti.
Sorry for the late update. We have been very busy with travel and visitors. We left Haiti on December 7 to spend time with family and friends. We weren’t able to leave through Port au Prince since the roads are blocked by gangs. My understanding was that the border was open to people with American and Canadian passports but not to Haitian registered vehicles. Carlos, our DR contact, met us at the border to help us out. Everything went smooth on the Haitian side. The Dominicans were having problems with their computers but eventually let us through. We came back into Santo Domingo on December 27. We had some difficulty at the border and weren’t able to cross into Haiti until the 29th. My brother and his family came with us. It was good to have them here and show them what we do. Visitors are a good morale boost. My niece Heidi came with us too. She will stay here to teach our son Sebastian who is starting kindergarten. On the 3rd of January we took my brother and his family back to Santo Domingo to the airport. They flew home on the 5th. We also picked up my wife’s cousin Kelson and Keith’s cousin’s daughter Taija. They volunteered separately to come help for several months with whatever we have for them to do. Maybe now I can finally get our supplies better organized and caught up on the many small projects I have been falling behind on.
We came back to Oriani on the 8th. Our staff did a fine job of keeping the clinic open in our absence. The clinic closed December 21 and opened again on January 3. As you can see from the report we are seeing a lot less patients over the last month or two. I am not sure why this is, but I have some ideas. Dry season started in November and this coincides with the drop in patients. As you can see, we are seeing a lot less diarrhea and respiratory conditions. Maybe the dry weather is healthier. Maybe not having so much runoff into cisterns helps them have clean drinking water. Also with the gardens not producing, maybe they have less money and think they can’t come to the clinic. This is what Fre Willy tells me when I ask him. I keep telling him and Fre Roosvelt that if people can’t pay we will help them anyway. But maybe that stops them from coming? I hope not.
In November 2 young doctors from Port au Prince came to the area. They were teaching first aid classes in local schools. They borrowed some supplies from the clinic and we gave them some money to help with expenses. One of them, Dr. Pierre, expressed interest in working at the clinic. He worked in the clinic for 3 weeks on an unofficial basis, overseeing the nurses and helping me rewrite some protocols. After some deliberation we offered him a contract. He returned to Port for Christmas and to discuss it with his family. Unfortunately for us he declined. He said he was interested and wanted to come, but his family didn’t want to move to the mountains and he didn’t want to have to pass the gangs to go see his family. Very understandable. It did open us to the idea of hiring a doctor, but who knows what the future holds. Maybe it is something we should pursue.
P.s. I asked Fre Willy about the baby that was born not breathing the first of December. They live close to him. He says the baby is doing well. Thank God.