Rule Number 3- Always Smile at a Man With A Machete

We’ll put it this way, I’ve been doing a lot of smiling. I’ll start with our ride to Haiti. I am not one to get nervous when riding planes, but I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t soil myself a little when I saw that people smaller than me had to duck to get into the plane. I would also be lying to you if I said I didn’t reference the emergency handbook (the one you find in the seatback in front of you) to prepare for a water landing when a high pitched alarm went off half way through the flight.

Then we get into eyeshot of Haiti. Haiti is an absolutely beautiful island. The scenery with the flowing mountains is incredible. When we arrived to Haiti, we quickly adopted the slogan, “go with the flow.” Not only were half of our bags there (the only people to not get their luggage were the Americans and the one Canadian… coincidence I think not) we were not allowed into the country because they did not have the correct customs forms for us. Thankfully, Delnatas (the CFO of the hospital) was there to interpret for us.

Our ride to the hospital made this whole experience we have been planning for very real. I have a video that I will upload when I get back to an area with enough bandwidth (hopefully in the next few weeks), but I will give you a spark note version now. I had an image in my head to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to see, and it surpassed that vision. Haiti is very much a third world country. One cannot comprehend the poverty here until you see it first hand.

The compound of L’ Hopital Sacre Coeur is incredible. We all have warm showers, mosquito nets (very necessary), and three meals a day. The food is excellent (although I hear the variety may be lacking in the weeks to come). In addition to the hospital, there are three tents that are remaining from the earthquake. These are an adult clinic (I will discuss this later), an overflow from the hospital and the cholera tent. The hospital is also impressive with an ICU, three operating rooms an adult ward, a pediatric ward and various specialty clinics.

It has been raining the majority of the time we are here (this is really good for my sunburn). On our first day we climbed to the citadel in the pouring rain. The hike up to the citadel is very impressive. It is even more impressive that they could build such a monstrosity on the top of a very steep mountain two hundred years ago! If it weren’t raining we would have had an incredible view. We hope to get back there soon!

Oh and I just saw a rat walk by...

There is so much I can talk about, but I will leave it for next time!

Eric