The hotel which is IMC's headquarters is gorgeous-- across the street from a tent village with no latrines and no electricity........I'm actually sitting in this gorgeous Caribbean bar with beautiful tile and lush plants and ceiling fans...........and the important thing is I'm doing it with a glass of a really good cab! But it's pretty jarring to be doing it with such horror so close. Again-- maybe arriving at night isn't such a bad thing.
Off to bed. We have to be up at six to be on the bus to the hospital at 7. Though we've been told we're very likely to be sent to a mobile primary care village about a 2 hour drive from here on Tuesday.
My phone doesn't seem to work and internet access is really slow -- but I'll do my best to stay in touch.
Can't get my email to work either so this may be my primary mode of communication.
Love,
Laurie
hang in there hon... glad you're there safely. Very wet here - big story in Wash Post today about how the few elderly Haitians there are are suffering disproportionately. Be safe! (oh yeah, Terps lost to Geo Tech last nite).
ReplyDeleteThe people in Haiti are lucky to have you!!!!! thinking of you !! -- jackie
ReplyDeleteTo everyone - Laurie sent me an email tonite - 2 actually, and told me to post some of them here - without giving me the password. So I hope you all see this. It will probably be the last msg till next weekend.
ReplyDelete"Just got back from the most chaotic, hellish, overwhelming day of my life. And I have no energy to post to the blog. Maybe later tonight. I just don't have words. Even Dante couldn't have imagined this place and no amount of news coverage or photos can begin to prepare you. Rubble & noise & suffocating heat & people everywhere. I saw a woman die of diphtheria, a gunshot wound, a 70 year old man who had a heat stroke-- a damn full blown stroke from the heat. The last thing I did today was tell his family we couldn't help him and he was going to die. Filthy children and vacant staring moms. Skin wounds and tooth decay. No children in the whole city attending school. And everything dates from "the event" -- cough, fever, headache, diarrhea. no matter -- you ask when it began and that is the date. I thought Honduras was chaos. The whole village shuts down and waits to see us. But those are villages in the country with five or seven hundred people at most. Port au Prince has two million people. This hotel is beautiful-- lush and green with a pool. And you look at the second story windows and there are tents just as far as the eye can see. I'm wrung out and its day one. Tomorrow I'm doing swing in the hospital -- a disgusting smelling chaotic hot tent full of flies. So that is 7 to 7." 2nd email - "And I just found out -- change of plans --I'm going to some town I can't remember -- something sounding French. It's about 3 hours west of Port-au-Prince and mostly primary care. I'll leave with Kathy, another NP in our group, and a family physician from Maine at Noon tomorrow and be back next Saturday. It has to be something I'm more competent about than the ER. I was truly overwhelmed today. About 11A when I felt like I'd already been there for days and had no idea if I could really make it until 5P -- some old man grabbed me and hugged me and then grabbed my translator and said "if you weren't here - there would be no Haiti". and I hadn't done shit. I was too upset to even cry! I'll take my laptop with me to this village but I have no idea if I'll be able to use it. But I'll take everything with me." She sends her love to everyone - keep her in your prayers. If she can't post but I hear form her, I'll post it here