my room on day 2



my bathroom


Yesterday after Ivy and I toured St. Damien’s Pediatric Hospital, Wynn took me through St. Luc’s ER and ICU, St. Philomena’s cholera center and some of the outpatient clinics. We stopped in the small pharmacy that supplies each one, as well as the storage warehouse in Francisville where they keep large quantities of medicines and supplies. It made me realize that this is a huge job and one that is going to take a lot of time to put together. I really need to get my Creole fluent so that I can talk with all of the doctors and nurses about what works best. I think the best plan in this first month or so is to work on Creole for half the day and learning about the pharmacy for the other half.

After the tour, Ivy took me on an eating marathon. First we stopped at 18 Santos, which is a new home setup by Partner’s in Health, Paul Farmer’s organization. They took in many of the orphaned and disabled kids after the earthquake. They have an extremely nice facility with a huge kitchen, a therapy pool and only two children per room. We were given a tour by two Haitian-American kids who were there volunteering for the summer with their mother. Ivy’s friend in the kitchen served us some delicious boullion, rice and avocado. It was stuffed and I barely ate half of it. We said goodbye at 18 Santos and headed for a staff members house. They just moved in and have a very nice house. The staff member’s wife was so generous and fed us again, but I just some fruit because I was so full. They were all speaking Creole, so I read some French books to their two year old girl until she fell asleep. I was very impressed that the family had at least two hundred books for their daughter, but only about ten or so toys. Haitians really place a ton of importance on education. Their daughter is only two, but they are already teaching her French.

Back at the compound, we went to visit Sister Judy and see how her dinner at the US Embassy the previous night was. She said that there were a lot of Americans who live in Haiti running the big NGO’s as well as some Haitian politicians. We talked about my job while I’m here and I’m happy that I’ll have Sister Judy to ask advice because she was the Operations Director of St. Damien’s for many years. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to shadow the pharmacists at St. Damien’s because they are much more established. It’s difficult because St. Luc’s just moved into “more permanent” housing, which means they are out of tents and into prefabricated houses. They have a foundation and a cement wall that comes up about a foot and a half, but then it’s just wood plank up to the tin roof. There are no doors, just sheets that are actually really nice because they let the breeze through the different areas of the room.



Philippe at the FWAL ceremony with my sunglasses

Last night we went back to Mama Raphael’s for dinner and had a drink and plantains with picklies. We came home fairly early though because this morning was the FWAL graduation ceremony. I left with Joanne, an advisor for FWAL, to go to mass at 9am with the children. They were all dolled up in their dress pants and white dress shirts and a bunch even had bow-ties on. They were adorable and loved playing games with me. I was so impressed that they made it through the ceremony without any crying or tantrums, because I was about to have a meltdown in the heat. So many of the kids loved singing and many were drumming against the pews to the more spirited songs. Little Jackson who was next to me got so tired and kept falling asleep in my lap. I let him sleep because he was so little (maybe 3 or 4 years old) and just woke him up for the parts where the kids were supposed to stand. After two hours of mass, there was a half hour break and they started the graduation ceremony. I made it through about a half hour of the ceremony before I had to come back because I was so hot. It was nice because many of the kids had extended family there, all dressed up to watch them graduate. In Haiti they celebrate every grade the kids graduate from, because it isn’t like the US where everyone just moves up, you have to pass the tests, so many kids don’t get to graduate each year.

Not sure what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day, but I need to get my hands on a broom and some bleach to clean up my house!