Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, I just want to say that I am thankful for my wonderful and supportive family and friends.  I miss you all! 

I am thankful that I was born in a country that is full of opportunities, and that I have the ability to make choices about my life, my education, and my career. 

I am thankful that I have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a bed to sleep in, because there are many, many people that don't even have these things. 

Also, today, I am very thankful that I am here in Haiti doing what it is that I've wanted to do for so long.  I am thankful that I have been given this opportunity to give of my self and share my skills with those in need.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Meet Gregory Constant

I'd like to introduce you to Gregory Constant.  He is a 22 year old boy who lives here at St. Helene.  Gregory sees the world from a slightly different perspective than the rest of us because he lives his life in a wheelchair.  When Gregory was seven years old, he remembers walking home from school when all of a sudden he fell down and could no longer feel his legs.  He was paralyzed from his diaphragm down, which means that he had no control of his muscles in his legs, abdomen, bowel, or bladder.  His father did his best to care for Gregory for three long months.  Because Gregory could not walk he quickly developed bedsores, and Gregory's father sought out treatment for him.  By the time he brought Gregory to St. Damien Children's Hospital, it was too late to determine the cause of the paralysis.  Possibly it was caused by an infection in his spinal cord?  We will never know.  Gregory received care at St. Damien Hospital for some time where they treated his wounds.  He was then released back into the care of his father.  After several more years and multiple hospitalizations, Gregory's father determined that he just could not care for him due to the limited resources available here in Haiti.  So Gregory came to live at St. Helene in 1999 when he was eleven years old.  Due to Gregory's condition, he is incontinent of bowel and bladder.  Over the years, he has had several wounds and bedsores, and currently has a colostomy. 

This doesn't stop Gregory.  He is an amazing person.  He is always happy and smiling.  He greets me everyday with a smile and a wave and asks how my day is going.  Gregory has a very strong spirit.  He has big dreams for himself.  Gregory loves to sing and make music.  His biggest aspiration in life would be to go to the United States (or anywhere abroad) where he could finish his education and become a singer.  Unfortunately there are really no opportunities for Gregory here in Haiti.  That is the problem.  Here at St. Helene, we offer schooling up to the ninth grade.  After the kids finish their schooling here, they are moved down to the city where they finish high school and have the opportunity to attend university.  A few years ago, when all Gregory's peers were moved down, Gregory was forced to stay here.  He is very smart, studies hard, and speaks English very well.  He is unable to go to school in the city because there is nowhere that is really handicapped accessible.  Therefore, Gregory would love to go to the United States.  But that is extremely difficult as well.  Just obtaining a visa to travel to the States or attend school there is EXTREMELY difficult, especially if you are Haitian or have any kind of disability.  Then, even if he was to obtain a visa, where would he live?  How would he attend school?  Who would help to pay for it?  It is just not an easy feat.  But everyday Gregory keeps his head up and he holds onto the hope that someday, somehow, his dream will come true.  He is an inspiration to all who have the opportunity to get to know him. 

Cholera and a Hurricane....What next?

My apologies for not writing sooner!  The internet has been down here in Kenscoff for more than two weeks, so I have not had the opportunity to go online.  I know you are all probably wondering about Hurricane Tomas that hit Haiti a couple weeks ago.  Well, we got news of the hurricane about five days before it was scheduled to hit Haiti.  We thought we were going to have a massive hurricane, and everyone was preparing for it.  Down in Tabarre, at St. Damien, they had a whole hurricane plan in place which involoved stocking up on food, cutting plywood to fit over the windows in the hospital, filling sandbags in case of flooding, and much, much more.  We were preparing here in Kenscoff as well.   We stocked up on extra food for the retreat house, duct taped the big windows so the rain wouldn’t come in, and moved all of the outside furniture into the house.  The hurricane hit late on Thursday night (Nov. 4th).  We were expecting the worse, and conteplating all week what it was going to be like to actually be in a hurricane.  What if it turned out like the Wizard of Oz: Haiti style?  What if we all went to sleep in the retreat house on the top of the mountain, and got blown away and woke up in a valley in the middle of a Voodoo village somewhere far, far away?  It didn't exactly happen like that though.  I woke up Friday morning and it was raining like crazy!  We had torrential downpours Friday, Saturday, and part of the day on Sunday.  Friday was the worst though because int addition to all the rain, we had high winds.  Flooding is not really a concern here in Kenscoff because we are up on the mountain and all the water runs down to the valley.  It was pretty windy too.  One tree fell on the property, but other than that there was no damage. 

On Tuesday of that week, I had placed PPDs (TB tests) on 50 of our children.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the test, it involves giving the kids a small shot it their forearm, and then checking the site for a reaction in 48-72 hours.  So, it just so happened that Friday marked the 72^nd hour, and my last chance to check the kids before the test expired and I would end up having to do it again.  Due to the weather, we could not depend on the kids coming to the clinic to get checked like they were originally supposed to.  So Jan and I put on our rain jackets and took off to check the kids.  We went house to house and checked the arms of all the kids we had placed the PPDs on.  It took hours because all of the kids live in different houses all spread throughout the property.  We would go to a house, check to see if any of the kids who lived there had a shot on Tuesday, check the kids if they were there, wait until the rain let up a little, then run to the next house.  But, we achieved our goal because all of the kids got checked!!  

As for the retreat house: Our duct tape on the big window in the kitchen didn’t do a very good job of keeping out the rain, and the kitchen had a lot of water that leaked in.  The floor was really wet, and we had to move the kitchen table because the water was leaking in through the ceiling as well.  Liz rigged up a water-catching contraption.  A metal pan, balanced on a shelf, on top of a chair. 

Then, in the afternoon, the rain let up a little and we all went up to the roof to try and mop up some of the water.  It was quite a site to see.  All of the blans (the Haitian word for foreigner), on the roof, with mops and brooms, trying to get rid of the water.  Then, we discovered that the gutters were blocked, so Jan got a ladder and tried to clean out the gutters. 

So, if nothing else, the "hurricane" was definitely exciting!!  Forutnately, they didn't have any hurricane damage or flooding in Tabarre either, but there was some flooding in some other surrounding villages.  Ultimately though, it could have been much, much worse. 

Cholera.  The major problem Haiti is facing at the moment.  The cholera outbreak started in the Artibonite region located north of Port-au-Prince.  At first, it appeared the the outbreak was pretty isolated, but like everything in Haiti, it has escalated into a huge problem.  The cholera is spreading and now there are many cases in and around Port-au-Prince.  The original source of the cholera is not known.  Many Haitians are blaming the foreigners and UN soldiers for bringing it into the country because Haiti has not had a cholera outbreak in almost a century! Cholera is a terrible sickness.  It is caused by a parasite and is spread by drinking contaminated water, or by fecal-oral contact from someone who has an active infection.  Cholera causes a person to have huge quantities of diarrhea and sometimes vomiting.  The diarrhea is so severe that a person can get dehydrated in a matter of hours, and even die in less than 24 hours without treatment.  The treatment includes rehydration solutions, oral or IV, depending on how sick the person is.  In Tabarre, they have set up a cholera tent hospital on the grounds located behind St. Damien Hospital.  The idea is that all people with diarrhea will have to first report to the cholera clinic where they will be checked for cholera and treated if it determined that they have cholera.  The idea is to keep the cholera patients isolated from the hospital and other programs in Tabarre to help prevent the spread of the illness.  Doctors Without Borders has a cholera clinic in Port-au-Prince, but they are unable to care for the large quantity of patients that is arriving.  Therefore, the tent hospital in Tabarre is taking overflow patients from Doctors Without Borders as well as the patients that are showing up at the gate everyday seeking treatment.  I am being told that the peak of the cholera outbreak hasn't occurred yet and the worst is yet to come.

I had the pleasure of seeing the whole operation in Tabarre on Monday.  There was a little girl here at the orphanage that showed up at the clinic early Monday morning and told the Haitian nurse that she was having diarrhea, and it was white (which just so happens to be a classic sign of cholera: white diarrhea).  Of course everyone was a nervous wreck.  The nurse gave her oral rehydration solution and then we spoke with the caretaker in the house to be sure that she was cleaning the bathroom with bleach and that all of the kids were washing their hands.  After discussing amongst ourselves, we decided it would be best to take her to Tabarre to get checked out.  Just in case.  She lives in a house with 15 other girls.  Plus we have an orphanage of 400 kids to worry about.  I was pretty sure that it was not cholera, because theoretically there was no way she could have contracted it.  Luckily, we are pretty isolated here in Kenscoff and we have a reliable water source.  But, if the cholera was to spread to the orphanage, it would be a HUGE disaster.  So I was the appointed person to take her down to Tabarre.  I brought her to the cholera tents where she was seen and examined by a doctor.  Afterwards, the nurses gave her a lot of oral rehydration solution and told us that we had to stay until she could provide a stool sample to be sure it wasn't cholera.  So we waited, and waited, and waited.  I kept asking if she needed to go to the bathroom, but she kept saying no.  That's when I figured my gut feeling was correct and she probably did NOT have cholera.  If she had cholera, she would be on the toilet constantly, but she hadn't gone in hours.  Finally, she said she had to go.  She provided a sample, but as it turned out, it was not white.  And it was not cholera.  Thank God.  So, she was released and we went back up to Kenscoff.  Unfortunately, while we were gone, word had spread like wildfire and everyone was convinced that the little girl had cholera.  She was so upset.  The nurse and I had to speak to the other kids and staff and explain to them that it was just diarrhea and that sometimes people get diarrhea but that does not mean they have cholera.  A few days have gone by now and the hype has died down.  But the number of cholera patients in Tabarre is growing everyday.  I will probably go there soon to help out because from what I've heard, they are still trying to organize a system and they need all the help they can get.