Haiti trip

Below is an account of my trip to Haiti last week with two other medical students over Spring Break. The writer is Jeriah Mast, a believer working in Haiti with Christian Aid Ministries who graciously served as our translator, driver and Haitian consultant...he's been down there two years and is considered to be Haitian by the locals. ;-) I hope to post photos and some details in the next week, but my camera quit working while we were down there so I'll have to get the photos from the other guys. Until then, here's a foretaste...

Blessings to you! I wanted to write a small update about a project I was privileged to be involved with last week. There was a group of medical students from a University in Memphis, TN that has picked up a vision for helping a group of people in the south (near Jacmel) that have goiters. This area is a 2 hour walk from a very remote and almost impassable road, the closest main road would be a 4 hour walk from this area. We left Monday morning and headed out that direction. First we went to T-Goave and dropped some things off that we wouldn’t be needing until later. Secondly, we were supposed to meet another Brother that would be going with us in his own vehicle. Well, his vehicle broke down so we ended up piling his stuff and all the people that were with him, into our vehicle, this made for 16 people plus all our things and medicine in one vehicle! Thankfully, we had a good 4 wheel drive truck that could handle the weight and we were able to get within 2 hours of our destination, from there we huffed and sweated our way up the mountain trails. The natives very kindly carried our many supplies and medicines on their heads.
As we climbed, we started to climb into the shadow of “Mon La Selle” the highest mountain range in Haiti, topping over 8000’ high. Oh no, I hope we don’t have to go all the way up there! No, no the natives said, we will only go part way up into the shadow of that mountain. Wow, maybe we will be able to make it after all!
After 2 ½ hours of walking we arrived at a small church house perched up on the side of the mountain, this was our destination. We were graciously received by a very eager and excited group of people that had been waiting on us almost all day long. They already had a meal prepared for us, so after resting for awhile, we had a nice time sitting around eating and rehearsing our little trip up the mountain. That evening we had a church service there, a brother from our group preached the message, the church house was well filled with people and it was a blessing to hear them fervently singing and praising God. After service we passed through the icy cold shower and laid down to try to sleep.
The next morning we began seeing goiter patients at around 7:00am, we had a few other interesting cases come in that morning. One was a 10 year old boy that had an abscess in his one finger that was causing his whole hand to swell up and giving him lots of pain. I had the privilege of trying to hold him as we numbed his finger and lacerated the abscess, needless to say it was exciting! We worked hard that day and did end up seeing quite a few patients but there were some that we had to send home to wait until the next day. That evening we held another service, again the house was well filled with people eagerly waiting to hear the word.
This is now Wed. morning and we are needing to leave by noon today to head out to Fon Doux where we will be spending the rest of our time, the problem is that we have about 80 people sitting here in the church waiting to be seen! Oh boy, this spells trouble! The doctors all tried to work as fast as they possibly could so we could see all these people, in spite of working until noon, we still had to send about 25 people home without being seen.
As soon as we could, we packed up the remaining medicines, ate lunch and got ready to leave. But alas, it started to rain… and rain it did! We waited for a short time but then the natives said that we may as well go because it isn’t going to stop anytime soon, so we launched out into the rain.
Within 5 minutes we were soaked and the trail conditions were rapidly deteriorating. We slipped and slid down the mountain trying to stay right side up and keep from falling over the edge of the cliffs. For those that have been here, you can fully understand how hard that can be on these steep mountain trails! Thanks be to God, everyone finally arrived safely at the truck, some took a few small tumbles a few times, others went up the mountain trails on hands and knees when they couldn’t walk up because of the goopy, slimy mud. The rest of the trip went fairly smoothly as worked our way back across the curvy mountain road towards T-Goave and finally Fon Doux.
We arrived at Fon Doux in the dark and were greeted by a small group of people waiting for us. They had a room all fixed up for us there in the school, it was a wonderful sight after a long day of travel. We arranged our things and laid down to sleep…but, the rain began to fall and it came right through the roof onto us and our nice dry beds making for very uncomfortable sleeping conditions. We finally ended up moving many of the beds and luggage in order to try to stay out of the waterfalls cascading from the roof above us. We survived the night and thankfully had a nice sunny day the next day and were able to get everything dry again.
During the day Thurs., Bruce had some guys put tarps on the roof so that in case rain fell again that night we wouldn’t get all wet. It was a great idea except that the tarps were about 3 feet too short and so when it rained the next night almost the same thing happened. It wasn’t quite as bad but still created mini lakes in the rooms.
I thank God that all of the team members suffered with a glad heart and no one got upset at me for getting them into such a situation. It was indeed a trial for our patience as we would get soaked during the night and didn’t get much sleep but still needed to see many, many patients during the day.
Friday afternoon after seeing over 200 people during our time in Fon Doux, we packed up and headed for Port-au-Prince. On the way we drove through a bad down pour of rain so everyone got to get a little more moisture on their skin. No problems with dry skin on this trip!!!
God was good, the whole trip was a blessing and we trust we were able to be a blessing to others as well. I am thankful for God’s protection over us each step of the way, there are many dangers when traveling here in Haiti, whether by foot, by vehicle, or by mule. -Jeriah Mast