Medical Relief, Vaccination, Malnutrition, and Concrete

Medical Relief

Ti-Louis was in an accident. As he was getting on a tap/tap, someone blocked the doorway. As he was half on and half off, the tap/tap took off. In the process, Ti-Louis was knocked unconscious and broke his leg. The tap/tap diver took Ti-Louis to the temporary Cuban hospital in Croix-des-Bouquet. They took good care of him.
Now Ti-Louis needs to get his cast taken off, have the leg cleaned, and possibly put another cast on. Due to political pressure, the Cubans had to shut down their temporary hospital. They referred him to Hospital La Paix (Delma 33). There are some Cuban doctors working in this hospital. Unfortunately, on Thursday, when Ray took him to Hospital La Paix, the doctors did not have the equipment to remove the cast, or casting materials to recast it.
Ti-Louis has a wife and 5 children. He did not have money saved up to take him through a crisis like this. He does not have health insurance. This is a situation that IFM can help with. We gave the family a package of food. We will be taking Ti-Louis to his appointments, and paying for his medical care. If you would like to help Ti-Louis or situations similar to this, please specify that your donations are for "Medical Relief".


Vaccinations, Health Teachings, and Malnutrition:
Yesterday, our nurses and community health agents went to the little village across the lake. Many of these people are very poor, and do not realize the importance of vaccinations, and good health practices. We were able to provide health teachings and vaccinations for these people. Our staff also weighed the children, looking for malnutrition. There are a number of severally malnourished children in this little village. We are planning to provide special nutritional products for these children. If you would like to help us with the costs of disease prevention and community health teachings, or would like to help the malnurished children, please indicate this on your donation.


Concrete


By the school, there is a concrete pad where the children play basketball and practice soccer. A couple weeks ago, a couple of the young guys came to me, asking for cement to fix a few holes in the pad and enlarge the pad. I agreed, and for the past 2 Saturdays, they have been working at it. I do not think that any of them have much experince with concrete. It is interesting watching them learn. In the above picture, my wife allowed Silveson to make spaggetti for the boys to eat. These boys are from very poor homes, and they cannot count on finding food at their house.

Nan Plezi going away party for Johns

The people from the Nan Plezi Bible Study had a going away party for John.

John giving his final sermon.

I took Josiah and Nic back on the motorcycle. I do not think that the Nan Plezi children have seen much of white children. Notice the crowd that came to check them out.

Special Singing.

Lots of people came to the party.

Here we are leaving to back to Nan Plezi.

July 6, 2010

The 'Little' Things

The morning starts as usual. Eating breakfast... dishes... feeding hungry boys... and laundry! Then... Joanna sees another lady coming down the lane carrying a little baby!
"Hmm...wonder what she needs!" we both think. Joanna greets the lady and peeks into the blankets.
"Look" she gasps "She is so tiny!" I go to investigate and expect to see a newborn, but am shocked to see a premie. The lady says the baby is 3 days old, but is 3months early! I have never seen such a tiny head


This little red outfit would fit a newborn quite well... but this tiny girl is lost in it!

Hot Day... Cold Shakes... Happy Boys!!!

After these two boys carried out the trash... I surprised them with a cold banana shake! Their happy smiles are so worth it!

And i am reminded that it is the little things that make the day beautiful!

Monday morning at the mission

This morning, along with everything else to do, we had 5 women come asking for help.

Sandren has 7 children, and her husband died. She is from Thomazeau. Her house by the lake has been flooded and she has no place to live. For now, we were able to give her some food and some used clothes. Her story didn't quite fit together, but she is obviously very needy.

Derimen and her 4 year old boy Edward are from Nan Plezi. Deriman says that her husband is handicapped and can't work. She has been talking to us for quite some time, asking us to put her boy in the children's home. We are not exactly sure if her husband is actually handicapped, because once when I was making an appointment to go to her house, he wouldn't have been home because he was out tending the animals. This morning though, Edward was sick, so we sent him to see the doctor for free.

Lifet Fanfan lives in the poor village across the lake. She has 5 children and the children's dad was killed (gunshot). She was living in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake. Her house collasped in the one of the major aftershocks from the earthquake. She lost all of her belongings. One of her children was was injured and sent to the hospital in Jimani, DR. It was there that she met Yaya who is originally from Peyi Pouri. Yaya is letting Lifet and her children stay with her in her thatch hut. Even though Lifet has lots of needs, her main concern is to redo the children's birth certificate's that were lost in the earthquake.

Sonita Neristan has 2 children. She says that the children's dad was killed in the earthquake. Unfortanely she was unable to give me any names and phone numbers of friends that could verify that her children's dad had died in the earthquake.

Mirlande is 20 years old and 7 months pregnant. Her family from Fond Verrettes sent her to Port-au-Prince to go to school. One of the other classmates got her pregnant and then died in the earthquake. The person with whom she was living here in Fond Parisien, has kicked her out. Either she is ashamed to go back to her family, or her family doesn't have resources to take care of her. Most likely her family won't take her back because she wasted her education by getting pregnant.

The most difficult aspect of listening to these stories, is that I have no idea if there is any truth to any of them, but at the same time knowing that they are very needy.Ideally we would verify there stories to see if they qualify for help. And then the question is, "How do you really help?" We don't have the desire or funds to put them on a welfare type program. But really, "How can a single mom provide for her children in a country where there is very few jobs?"

July 3, 2010

This is Clint and Brenda's house.

Today Shea took Kris, Melanie, Julie, and Janelle on a bumpy ride up to Solyet to visit Clint and Brenda. It was about an hour ride up in the mountains. Along the way we spotted many people washing their clothes in the river. It was inspiring to see how great Clint & Brenda's attitudes were considering how little they had to live with.

A day in Haiti

Today we worked at the hospital, Shea and some of the girls were painting, I laid some tile, and Ray worked with a Haitian crew putting in a foundation for the containers that we bought.

Blue Ridge worked at putting in a hand pump in the well at Nan Plezi.

At 5:45pm, John called to tell me that the road is blocked and they can't come home. The Yutzy had been in Port-au-Prince buying groceries, food to distribute, and picking up Matt and Alicia at the airport (Matt and Alicia Newcomer are coming to take the Yutzy place at the children's home).

In the middle of a land dispute, in which the local people of Ganthier have already burned a road grader, a bulldozer, a tractor-trailer, and a payloader; they now blocked the main international highway from DR to Haiti. At gunpoint they had several truckers park their semis cross ways in the road and then unhook, leaving the trailors blocking the road. They also piled a huge pile of rocks across too, completely blocking the roadway.

There is some land in Ganthier that does not have papers, but has been claimed and squatted on by local people. Apparently some rich people are claiming it; or either they bought it from a government official. The community is upset, because they believe that they, the local population, should get the land, not some rich business man.

Flash Flood in Balizaj, Pays Pourri, Haiti

On June 2, 2010, torrential rains in Mare Roseau and Pays Pourri, Haiti caused flash flooding in the Pays Pourri village of Balizaj. Due to deforestation and lack of terracing, the massive amounts of run off flowed down a normally dry riverbed. Catastrophically, the flooded river changed course and flowed through the small mountain village of Balizaj. Thankfully no one was hurt or killed, but many gardens and animals were lost. 103 families are victims of the flood.

More seriously, since the river changed its course to flow right through the little village, it could happen again any time. Because of this, people are scared (rightfully so) to sleep in their houses, for fear that a flash flood could happen at night and wash them away. They go up on the sides of the mountain at night to sleep without any protection.

There are several ways that these people need help. They need food, since their gardens were destroyed. They need building materials to relocate their houses to the mountainsides. They need the river to be canalized to keep it from flowing through the village. And the mountains in the watershed area need to be terraced and have trees planted on them to hold the rain water, thus eliminating rapid runoff.