Haiti continued....

As we are preparing to leave Fond des Blancs, I will take one last internet opportunity.
Four of us came to this town to do some rehab teaching...nursing and therapy for spinal cord injuries. This hospital was designated to receive this type of patient from the US Comfort- the ship hospital sitting out in the bay doing surgeries. At one point they had 678 patients with their family member on board. St. Bonaface was chosen mostly because there just wasn't another hospital bed to put these patients to make room for more.
They have rec'd a total of 9 patients but only 4 are sci.
We will head back to PaP today....

We arrived via the 82nd Airborne to our property in 2 trucks. We had a big tent- 50 x 18 that the guys erected in about an hour. Our temporary clinic was in place. We surveyed the damage with tears in our eyes, greeted staff with even more tears of happiness at seeing our friends.

Seven of the 9 buildings were down and unusable. The guesthouse appeared to be cosmetically damage only, a fact confirmed by at least 9 construction workers and several engineers.

Another small house on the property was undamaged as well and we call it the Mushroom. It is a small round house- ( if it had been available last year when I stayed for 6 months I would have felt like a queen). We now are using it for our pharmacy and depot storage for all of our supplies.
It will be a bit crowded but will work for now.

The building we called the Castle is complete rubble- hard to believe it left such little impression.
The villiage next door sustained damage but not nearly what I would have expected.
We had our first clinic on Saturday and saw about 185 patients...it has trickeled down in number since. Possibly most of our patients are from the neighborhood but with a few of our former patients (pre-quake patients) starting to come in for therapy.

Lars and Cory, construction extrordinerre, was able to get power connected, get temporary water reconnected. The first few nights we slept outside which was very pleasant. We chose to return inside to sleep in the guesthouse to help the staff feel more comfortable about going in.
They will not go into the kitchen- the stove was pulled outdoors and they are cooking outside. Our dining tables are outside -
Not sure when they will feel comfortable about being inside although they at least come in for short stints to clean.

Lars got the grounds keepers and a few others working on the rubble and clearing the road. This has to be done to do proper repair of water pipes.

Kevin the water truck guy came and brought us a tank- 3500 gal of water. It was quite scary as they had to back the truck out of the drive way - no way to turn around at the time. I was afraid they would drive off the bank. Pouchon is good driver though so no problem.

Up until I came to Fond des Blancs we were having rice/ beans and some kind of meat for supper. Since here, we have had our main meal mid day- beans and rice, even some goat. For supper one night we had hard boiled eggs, tomatoes and potato salad and leftover goat/ beans and rice. last night we had potatoe salad and cheese and bread.

For breakfast, corn flakes, raisens and milk. Bon bagay.

Last Sunday we went up to Kenskoff and Fermathe to visit Wings of Hopes new home. A nice big house of several levels. There former home is deemed unsafe for now but they have hopes that it can be repaired. While it was several levels, it was all ramped so moving kids was easier.

After that visit, we went to the hotel Oloffson for lunch. That old hotel held up pretty well, surprisingly. We had sandwiches and hung out for awhile before heading back to the property.

We have had news teams/ reporters coming in off and on- I guess I was on CNN but have not seen it - just have been told i looked fabulous with my dreds and slinky body... well that was my dream, I'm sure reality was more likely a wild crazy woman.

Everyday we see old friends. Everyday we listen to the stories of the day of krazee. It breaks our hearts. But everyday we see the perseverance of these proud people. Their city and palace and government and country might be in rubble now but the people will find a way to survive. Just like they have after the hurricanes. Just as they have after floods. Just as they fought for their independance, they will fight for themselves. They just need a hand up from us.