Where do we begin?
The past 2 days have been full of adventure and excitement. On Friday, we started off to the Iron Market which is down town near Cite Solei. We were able to pull inside the market to park our truck off the streets. The poverty in the street was overwhelming but yet the resilience of the people was amazing. They were selling everything you can possible want even the kitchen sink. The rubble from the earthquake was evident everywhere. It is amazing how much repair was done in the new buildings. While several of us have engineers for husbands it would never passed inspections. The Haitians were working as vendors at the base of the crumbling
buildings as if the earthquake never happened. There were two sections inside the Iron Market. One was a tourist market with lots of Haitian artisans and the other sold food. We
were hooked up with a vendor who took us through the market starting with his family’s
booths. We bought paintings, jewelry, wooden boxes and soapstone souvenirs. There
was everything from clothing, drums, and art to large hats, which Kelly could not resist purchasing (She kept telling us she was going to garden in the hat…I guess we will have to wait until spring to see). We checked out the food market. There were many choices of open
beans, rice and spices. Our big purchase there was wooden spoons….they were only 25 gouds. On our way home we hit the Apparent Project again to buy some additional items and supplies for Sandy. We had planned to have a short return visit clinic on Friday after our outing…the short follow-up visits turned into a 30 patient clinic. It was a bit overwhelming because we
still had to organize and pack for our Saturday Adventure clinic. The team came together to make the unknown Adventure Clinic as organized as possible…we made a plan for the most common complaints and pre-packed the meds for treatment. There was a lot of laughter
and singing as we made labels in Creole…not as much fun as cutting out sheep or peanuts. J Saturday morning were going into the mountains to a village called Belo. We met Ann
Farkelson at Frémont and she led the way for our unknown adventure…..
SATURDAY: There are no words to describe our day. The scenery was simply beautiful. From the hills, mountains, the fields plowed into the hills, the Haitians working in their gardens on the side of the mountains, the animals tied up grazing but clinging to the side of the hill. When we met up with Ann she doubled checked if we had 4 wheel drive……we soon found out why. There really were no roads. There were occasional two-track cement sections of road every so often, otherwise it was wet lateritic clay with lots of dolomite/quartz stone road. Big trucks which take the food down the hills from the fields have torn the roads up causing lots of ruts and occasional small ponds (okay slight exaggeration but it seemed that way as we drove through them) . The ruts were HUGE and the cliffs seemed closer since there were no guard rails for most of the road. Add to the mix motorcycles and other vehicles that didn’t seem to care that they had to share the road. Alix did a superb job concentrating on getting the team to their destination safely . Those in the back of the truck bounced their way up the hill. Laura’s laugh was contagious as she thought she was on a Cedar Point ride from all of the bouncing. Housing consists of metal or wooden twig dwellings or small cement shacks. We stopped to let one man know that Ann would check his blood pressure on the way back home. The trip up the mountain from Fremont that we were assured would take only 45 minutes took closer to 1.5 hours. We had a running joke about directions…”it is just there, around this bend over the hill and around the corner” There was a large tent which was their school and church. We were greeted by the local pastor and we quickly unpacked and set up. If you know Deb she doesn’t pack lightly and we were loaded to the brim with army bags on top of the truck….we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. Our first thing on our list was the skit with Jonah and the Whale……They loved it! All of us participated and it was so much fun to see their expressions and they probable watched the first play in their life. We saw about 85 patients in 4 hours with just 3 nurses and one Nurse Practitioner ~ Nancy Knowledge or the Nancenator!!! That is an example of what an awesome team this is.
While we were seeing patients the other half was doing VBS with activities, crafts and handing out flip flops. When we finished we headed back down the hill. The drive back was a little nicer. We were stopped once by the pastor who said our truck was smoking and he pulled out the filter and smashed it on some rocks to clean it out. Apparently he just finished automotive school and wanted to show us some of his talents. We filled the back of Ann’s truck with flip flops and medications to share in Frémont. Our Saturday evening was spent packing up for our trip back
to Michigan. We had the traditional basket on the head race between two teams which had everyone laughing as we competed to carry the “Chico’s” to market and back. As we were packing we heard a Carnival parade pass by in the streets as some Haitians were celebrating Festival early. We watched and danced from Three Angels compound. They had Uluu horn so we were reminded of the Olympics. We were able to pack to the sounds of early Carnival celebrations.
Sunday: We promised Alix that we would go to his church and we were blessed with a Haitian
Service. Part way through the service they had us stand as they thanked us for serving their people. We were then off to the airport. The trip up the mountain provide a different
perspective for our travel on Sunday… it was a comparative breeze to travel. As our trip is coming to an end we realize our friendships will continue and we are already planning our next
trip to Haiti as we have only just begun.
The past 2 days have been full of adventure and excitement. On Friday, we started off to the Iron Market which is down town near Cite Solei. We were able to pull inside the market to park our truck off the streets. The poverty in the street was overwhelming but yet the resilience of the people was amazing. They were selling everything you can possible want even the kitchen sink. The rubble from the earthquake was evident everywhere. It is amazing how much repair was done in the new buildings. While several of us have engineers for husbands it would never passed inspections. The Haitians were working as vendors at the base of the crumbling
buildings as if the earthquake never happened. There were two sections inside the Iron Market. One was a tourist market with lots of Haitian artisans and the other sold food. We
were hooked up with a vendor who took us through the market starting with his family’s
booths. We bought paintings, jewelry, wooden boxes and soapstone souvenirs. There
was everything from clothing, drums, and art to large hats, which Kelly could not resist purchasing (She kept telling us she was going to garden in the hat…I guess we will have to wait until spring to see). We checked out the food market. There were many choices of open
beans, rice and spices. Our big purchase there was wooden spoons….they were only 25 gouds. On our way home we hit the Apparent Project again to buy some additional items and supplies for Sandy. We had planned to have a short return visit clinic on Friday after our outing…the short follow-up visits turned into a 30 patient clinic. It was a bit overwhelming because we
still had to organize and pack for our Saturday Adventure clinic. The team came together to make the unknown Adventure Clinic as organized as possible…we made a plan for the most common complaints and pre-packed the meds for treatment. There was a lot of laughter
and singing as we made labels in Creole…not as much fun as cutting out sheep or peanuts. J Saturday morning were going into the mountains to a village called Belo. We met Ann
Farkelson at Frémont and she led the way for our unknown adventure…..
SATURDAY: There are no words to describe our day. The scenery was simply beautiful. From the hills, mountains, the fields plowed into the hills, the Haitians working in their gardens on the side of the mountains, the animals tied up grazing but clinging to the side of the hill. When we met up with Ann she doubled checked if we had 4 wheel drive……we soon found out why. There really were no roads. There were occasional two-track cement sections of road every so often, otherwise it was wet lateritic clay with lots of dolomite/quartz stone road. Big trucks which take the food down the hills from the fields have torn the roads up causing lots of ruts and occasional small ponds (okay slight exaggeration but it seemed that way as we drove through them) . The ruts were HUGE and the cliffs seemed closer since there were no guard rails for most of the road. Add to the mix motorcycles and other vehicles that didn’t seem to care that they had to share the road. Alix did a superb job concentrating on getting the team to their destination safely . Those in the back of the truck bounced their way up the hill. Laura’s laugh was contagious as she thought she was on a Cedar Point ride from all of the bouncing. Housing consists of metal or wooden twig dwellings or small cement shacks. We stopped to let one man know that Ann would check his blood pressure on the way back home. The trip up the mountain from Fremont that we were assured would take only 45 minutes took closer to 1.5 hours. We had a running joke about directions…”it is just there, around this bend over the hill and around the corner” There was a large tent which was their school and church. We were greeted by the local pastor and we quickly unpacked and set up. If you know Deb she doesn’t pack lightly and we were loaded to the brim with army bags on top of the truck….we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. Our first thing on our list was the skit with Jonah and the Whale……They loved it! All of us participated and it was so much fun to see their expressions and they probable watched the first play in their life. We saw about 85 patients in 4 hours with just 3 nurses and one Nurse Practitioner ~ Nancy Knowledge or the Nancenator!!! That is an example of what an awesome team this is.
While we were seeing patients the other half was doing VBS with activities, crafts and handing out flip flops. When we finished we headed back down the hill. The drive back was a little nicer. We were stopped once by the pastor who said our truck was smoking and he pulled out the filter and smashed it on some rocks to clean it out. Apparently he just finished automotive school and wanted to show us some of his talents. We filled the back of Ann’s truck with flip flops and medications to share in Frémont. Our Saturday evening was spent packing up for our trip back
to Michigan. We had the traditional basket on the head race between two teams which had everyone laughing as we competed to carry the “Chico’s” to market and back. As we were packing we heard a Carnival parade pass by in the streets as some Haitians were celebrating Festival early. We watched and danced from Three Angels compound. They had Uluu horn so we were reminded of the Olympics. We were able to pack to the sounds of early Carnival celebrations.
Sunday: We promised Alix that we would go to his church and we were blessed with a Haitian
Service. Part way through the service they had us stand as they thanked us for serving their people. We were then off to the airport. The trip up the mountain provide a different
perspective for our travel on Sunday… it was a comparative breeze to travel. As our trip is coming to an end we realize our friendships will continue and we are already planning our next
trip to Haiti as we have only just begun.
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