Happy Thanksgiving! (and more typical updates.)

The weeks are going by quickly and although the mornings and evenings are pleasantly cool (at least relative to when I arrived in August,) it certainly does not feel like late November to me.

My groups with the kindgerten children are going fairly well.  The children really like the puppet I am using.  It is a turtle puppet, which I have decided to call "Ti Toti," which means "little turtle."  Now when some of the young children see me walking around the tents which is their school, they will ask for Ti Toti, I respond, "Ti Toti ap donmi", which means he is sleeping.  It is quite fun to work with the young children.  I began play therapy with a second child as well this past week.  My hope is that the workers at Kay St. Anne will do activities with the children after school even if I am not there.  This will enable me to start working some afternoons with groups of the children ages six and over, who live in the orphanage at St. Louie, which is on the same site as the school. 

All volunteers have been asked if possible to try to give some time at the Cholera tents to help out and be a supportive presence to the people, at least temporarily until administrative workers are hired.  I went over there yesterday for the first time.  There were a couple of large tents for children and a couple of large tents containing adults.  It seems over the past few days people have arrived soon enough after symptoms began that they could be re-hydrated quickly.  Yesterday during morning liturgy Farther Rick announced that nobody had died at our cholera tents for a few days.  While I was there for a few hours yesterday, I helped with copying some of the paper work for record keeping purposes and worked with another volunteer to mix water and re-hydration salts to form a serum that patients drink.  The tents seemed better organized than I expected and many established protocols are in place to prevent the spread of the illness, such as  soft mattresses soaked in bleach water people must walk on when leaving to kill any cholera germs that may have attached to one's shoes.  it seems that such prevention startegies are successful, as even those working directly with patients everyday for many hours are not catching the illness.  On one hand it seems under control at the moment, as there seem to be 40-50 patients there at a time, but there are several empty tents because some are predicting that it could get worse before it gets better.  The fears are around the crowded tent communities that lack sanitation.  I think I was a little nervous about going over there, mostly fearing that it would be chaotic and somehow overwhelming.  This was not the case at all.  As I sat helping with record keeping in the depo tent, I could actually hear singing coming from a tent of Cholera patients.  

While this coming Thursday is not a holiday in Haiti, I do believe that my being here has increased my thankfulness as my gratitude for what I have grows especially for what I have often taken for granted, but realize so many don't have.  I am also thankful for my family, friends, community, and all who are supportive of me in many ways especially at this time.  I say thank you to you, anyone interested enough to read this.    

Happy Thanksgiving!                  

This week was filled with a variety of activity.  I spent Monday at Kay St. Anne after I learned that there was no school, (which was after I showed up at the school.)  It had been canceled because they had taken down the tents that are used for classroom in anticipation of the hurricane that occurred the end of the previous week, and needed the day to resurrect the tents. This week, I started doing play therapy with one of the children who attends the school and lives in the orphanage; I felt that went well.  Yesterday, I went shopping with a child who needed underwear and watned to buy a birthday gift for the couple that works at Kay St. Anne.

We now have electricity and running water and even a working air conditioner in our house.  Much appreciated luxuries!  Another volunteer, a speech therapist from Luxembourg has moved into our house the other day.  I must say I do meet a variety of kind people who come here to work.  This week there was a group from Ohio who came to do medical care, who I enjoyed meeting as well.

The Cholera problem has come closer.  If I go on the roof of the building where I am sitting, I can see what is now referred to as the cholera tents.  It was decided to create a separate area for cholera victims rather than put them in the pediatric or adult hospitals here; to prevent contaminating other patients.  Yesterday morning, when I arrived for daily mass at the chapel, there were a few bodies of cholera victims in body bags and in small card board coffins on the floor of the chapel.  The daily liturgy was actually, a funeral mass for a few individuals of various ages, who probably arrived at a hospital when it was too late to help them, perhaps after making long journeys.  If people get IV fluids and immediate treatment, then they recover fully and quickly, sometimes within a few hours. 

Often from my little house, I can hear the cries of women in labor since my house is behind the maternity wing of the hospital.  This morning I heard such cries, and then later as I sat praying I was facing a nearby field.  On the other side of the field is a crematorium.  I watched as a truck pulled up to the crematorium, as a bag containing a body was removed, and a few minutes later a gentle almost clear smoke came from the chimney.  As I sat, a butterfly came close, and I became aware of the full cycle of life which surrounds me and all of us everyday.

Well, hopefully you are doing well.  Please continue to keep the people of Haiti in your prayers.
Take care,
Kathleen  

Pa malad

The child I accompanied last week is doing well.  He was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon.  The local contact person from the Marco Island Rotary Club who paid for the surgery, was working the polls and was unable to come for us on Tuesday.  We could have spent the night in the clubhouse (like a Ronald McDonald House), but as life has a way of working out, my parents were on vacation in Florida and were willing to come for us.  It was great to see them!  How grateful I am for them.  They were able to help me figure out the directions and measure the medications he needed that evening. They reminded me that they had done this before (36 years earlier my own twin sister, who was an infant had a similar surgery herself.) 

It was a privilege to spent time with this little boy.  On Friday we returned to the hospital for a check up.  I translated for him when the doctors told him he is fine, all is well.  When he asked me in Creole if he is no longer sick and I could tell him, "wi, ou pa malad," I almost cried tears of joy.  I was touched by the kindness of the people.  The hospital staff who worked hard to find foods that he would eat, the woman behind the counter at Publix who was Haitian who gave him a piece of chicken to try, and thanked me for helping her people, the security guard at the hospital who because I had the bracelet on that parents usually wear, told me I did not have to wait in line because I need to save my energy for my child, the couple from the Rotary Club who sacrificed to take us around, my parents who donated the use of their condo and were so helpful during their own vacation. The little boy himself, the courage he had to come to a foreign land with strangers and the hope of getting better. 

I am also feeling better.  As I had been sick the previous week, spending time with one sick child mostly in  air conditioned places in the cooler (than Haiti) weather up North in Florida, was good for my recovery from those parasites and amebas that were living in me.  I am also grateful to the doctor in Naples who saw me for free for follow up based on my lab results from Haiti.  I am still taking the antibiotic but have felt fine for a week now.     

The week went quickly.  I returned to Haiti yesterday.   Hurricane Tomas, had come through the area the day before, but it was not nearly as severe as some predicted or feared it would be.  On the way from the airport to NPH we did have to drive through some very large puddles, but otherwise there was not any apparent damage on the route that we took.  Apparently other areas of the country did get heavier rains which caused some problems.  It seems too that at least at this point, from what I have heard, the Cholera has  not really reached this area in epidemic proportions, let us hope and pray it stays that way. 

I hope that you are well.  Many Blessings!Take care. 

Love, Kathleen
(Is that better?  I did get accurate feedback that the previous entry ended kind of abruptly.)

   

There are so many things I could write about since my last update.  Last Monday, I took groups of children from kindergarten to at least introduce them to the psychoeducational program I will be doing.  There were  challenges, like finding something to put on the ground so the children could sit, since the program is in a tent without a floor which sits on stony ground.  The tent I was going to use did not have any walls; at one point there was a generator running   nearby and older children had recess; they kept coming into the tent in groups mostly out of curiosity; so I kept asking them to leave. 
On Wednesday I was sick; we were all pretty certain it was not Cholera as it  had not reached to Portapince area and I did not have the symptoms which differentiate Cholear from other stomach problems.  Since this was the third time I had gotten sick in approximately two  months, even though each time I had recovered with in a day, it was recommended that I go to a hospital to get checked out.   It turns out that some parasites and amoebas, (no where near as serious as Cholera)had made their home in my gut, thanks to antibiotics they are being evicted and I am feeling better.  Being sick teaches me a lot about humility.  Once again, in the midst of my simple suffering I realize how fortunate I am, as I have heard stories s of people who are suffering from the more devastating illness, Cholera in other places in Haiti, who do not have easy access to clean water and what most of us consider basic necessities, never mind for the the means to go to a private hospital like the one I was sent to. 

I am updating this blog from the Connie Clubhouse of the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Florida.  I am responsible this week for a Haitian child who had surgery last week.  After open heart surgery he was discharged, but when fluid developed around his heart he was readmitted.  He is a delightful child.  I will be with him until Saturday when the volunteer who is his official guardian while he is in the USA, returns from an NPH meeting in Nicaragua.  It is truly a privilege to accompany a child in this situation.  It is also truly an injustice that due to fears of illegal immigration the child's mother is not with him. 

As the plane was descending to land in Miami, I clearly identified the Florida International University Campus, the dorm  and library where I had class last summer were both easy spot.