First Medical Mission to the Mountains

2nd Haiti Trip – Vol. IV

Before I start this week’s update I would like to make a correction on last week’s update.  I write these from Bill’s verbal reports and Jesse’s written ones and I don’t always get the story straight.  When they took the tents to Port au Prince, Dottie only received about a dozen and the rest were given to family members of friends from Fonds-Parisien.  Not a terribly important distinction but I hope to give the correct idea of what we are doing.

On Monday the 19th Bill and Jesse headed into the mountains at 5 am along with several of “the girls”, Jolius (pronounced Joo-lee-us), a medical student from the mountain village they were going to, and “Dr.” Elisabeth, a medical student who was the only one of her class who survived the earth quake at her school in Port au Prince because she had left class to go to another room and was able to jump out a window.   A piece of concrete hit her face and she has scarring but she survived.

“Dr.” Elisabeth

They drove as far as they could and left the truck at someone’s house.  There were supposed to be some mules to help take up their gear and supplies but they weren’t there at the time so they headed up the mountain with Jesse and another young man carrying extra things being the “goats” as Jesse called it.  Eventually, some of the rest of the party came with the mules that finally were brought to help.  It was a fairly grueling climb.  The “girls’ were mostly wearing flip flops which are difficult to walk in over such terrain.  It cooled off nicely which was a blessing.  Jesse said they saw women carrying 45-50 lb. sacks of concrete on their heads.  They’ll carry them 5-6 hours to their villages in the mountains to build something!

They finally reached Jolius’ village of Pays-Pourri about 11am.  They met his family, had a meal, and went to the school to set up a clinic.  Jolius had called ahead so people from the village were waiting.  They had been handed numbers to try to create some order but when the team got there, it was the usual mayhem, pushing, and shoving to get into the room for treatment.  They finally came to understand that most of the people didn’t know their numbers and so had no idea what they meant.  Jesse’s “people” talents were put to good use as he talked, cajoled, poked, and prodded to get them into line.  He can usually win them over so they don’t get too upset.

Jesse doing crowd control at the clinic

The team saw over 90 people the first day.  Jesse’s observation was that if Haitians were educated about hygiene and had a good diet, it would solve 90 percent of their ailments!  A quote from Jesse:“The spirit and countenance of the mountain people was much more positive and the fact that they work harder than I thought was humanly possible to survive instead of begging for handouts was very refreshing. With good hand tools the people there would be capable of gardening an incredible amount of land working it by hand!”

That evening, Bill and Jesse went back to the school to have an “FFH” meeting (Future Farmers of Haiti).  They tried to find out what the needs of the people were.  It was difficult as the translator they had was not very fluent in English.  They were trying to arrange a system where we could provide the seed as some of them don’t have the money for the seed and they would sell us some of their produce.  We don’t know exactly how it will all work, but we feel it is really important to work on this as these people will work to help themselves!  They hope to go back up soon with a good translator to be able to communicate better.

The school in the village was started by a couple of people from Canada and the US.  From what we were able to understand, they try to pay some Haitian teachers who can read and write to teach the children.  They ask that the children pay $5/year to help with supplies but even as cheap as that is, there are children that cannot pay and therefore don’t get to go!  Just like in the chaos of the line, there are so many things a person can’t do if they don’t even know their numbers!  Bill wants me to contact the folks that started it and see what we can do to help as so many people want to learn but have no way to do so.

After treating more people the next day, it was time to head back down the mountain.  The Haitians insisted that they find a horse or mule to carry their gear back down.  There is always a lot of discussion and arguing.  Finally, Bill quit talking, put his pack on, and headed down the mountain.  Jesse headed out also, though on a different path to get back to the truck.  It was quite the journey he made with “the fun of traversing some pretty great boulders, sliding down some sweet, water formed slides, and in one spot grabbing a cactus as a handhold on my way down the hardest drop off. Not the brightest!” Jesse made it in two hours.  Everyone else took three.

At the house this week the ditches for the water lines from the Mennonite hospital have been dug and the pipes put in.  The gates for the compound have been installed making the house much more secure.  The electrical transformer is in so hopefully the loop to the house won’t be long in coming though the electricity supply is spotty.

Bill called me one morning just to tell me to look up a song on the internet by Josh Groban, You Raise Me Up.  I did so and it is beautiful!  He also asked me to find the scripture about “He who does not work does not eat.”  He couldn’t remember which book of the Bible it was in.  He said it is really amazing how people will sit around all day doing nothing but will sing hymns all evening!  Bill is trying to teach the Haitian friends he has made.  They are very religious but  don’t seem to have many basic concepts that are vital to living together and being the church.

Please keep us in your prayers as we seek specific direction for helping the farmers and children of the mountains and for how to go about teaching people down below about living their lives for God and each other.  Everyday brings new challenges.  We are just willing hearts seeking to serve.  Thank you for praying for us and for your support.  God bless you all.