Boxes, Orphans and Trees

Wow this week went fast!

I have to say that this was my first week of baby stepping into hospital admin. stuff. I am just starting to figure out how the hospital is currently running so I can start to help make it more efficient while still being culturally relevant.

One of my first tasks is to know what we currently have. As you can see, we have a lot of boxes!! This is the warehouse where I spent a good chunk of the week doing inventory on donated medical supplies. It is mostly surgical supplies that we will be shipping off to other hospitals within Haiti who are already doing surgery. I was so excited to find a few boxes of orthopaedic supplies (my joy of the week). I am currently doing 2 days a week treating patients and today I splinted a fractured wrist. Fun!

We now hold the world record for getting the most things done in Port-Au-Prince in one day...6!! It usually takes a good part of your day to just get groceries but for some reason everything went smoothly and we were able to hit the bank (open an account), Ekco depot (Haitian version of home depot - complete with chicken's running through), paint store (buy paint for our house- it is amazing what a little paint will do), Toyota (to order a truck), lunch (epidor - good bread) and the grocery store!! Unheard of! God (and Herbie our driver) is good!

My mom was asking the other day "how come we haven't seen any pictures of Bridgely yet? Well let me tell you, for those of you that know Bridgely, he is a very busy and outgoing boy. The lack of pictures are usually due to the fact that we can't keep up with him but let me show you a few examples of the life of Bridgely.. (you see what I mean?)

In about 1 week, all the kids from the good Samaritan Orphanage will be going to a new temporary house. It has been fun having so many kids on campus this month and we will be sad to see them go. There is one boy in particular that Teagan will be sad to see go. His name is Johnny. On the first day he saw her, he wanted to be picked up by her. He did not, however, want to be put down by her! The first time she went to put him down he cried and cried. Now every time we see the kids Teagan makes sure she picks him up. He has the cutest smile for her.  When he first got here he looked in pretty rough shape, but after being at the mission for almost a month he is looking a lot healthier. This is Teagan and Johnny in the picture.

Laurens has been very busy at work with his first project which is working with the guys to renovate the old "guest house" which is to be our house. You can see some of his handy work here. Do you think many rats will come in our house?? He has also been busy with the immediate at the mission. i.e. plumbing issues and flooding, electricity inverter problems, problems with no water, water pump problems etc etc etc.

Laurens also has tennis elbow today from sanding the concrete counter for two days straight. As our friend Paul would say "OOOWW" (baby!).

It seems that every week, we have something that strikes our heart. This week it was our little farmer neighbor. We are currently living in the director's house which is a very large house by Haitian standards. It sits a top a hill overlooking parts of the mission complex. Out in front of the house is a farmer's fields. We do not know this farmer but we can see his smoke rising from his cooking fire from our porch every day. This week, we heard the sound of a machete chopping. We looked out and grabbed the camera with the zoom. Sure enough, there was the farmer cutting down his only and last tree. "Nooooo", we felt like screaming, "Don't do it!" All we could do was sit helplessly and watch him cut down the only shade he had left in order to use the wood for fuel or perhaps tools. 

Haiti is 96.2% deforested. 

It is easy for us to think, "how could he do that?" - easy, considering we are standing on the porch of a big house, with the shade of the roof. But what is so devastating is that this man was so desperate to survive, that he would cut down his only and last tree of shade in order to survive. 

I have to admit, even though our living arrangements are not those that we had in Canada, it is still hard to swallow living comfortably here on the mission complex compared to the fields or the village. In the suburbs back home, people feel bad to show someone their home if it is not clean enough or big enough or rich looking enough. Here, when an orphan child from the village orphanage comes up to play on the playground outside our house and asks with wide eyes, "kay la ou?" (is that your house?) I almost feel embarrassed to say, "yes". 

I pray that we may never get complacent.

God Bless