This is Team Haiti 5 blogging from Jeremie, Haiti! We arrived in Port au Prince last Saturday with 16 enormous bags packed with medical supplies. After zooming through customs, we boarded a small 2 propeller plane for a short hop west to our destination Jeremie. Since then we've been busy, packing first-aid kits and orienting to the Haitian Health Foundation Klinik Pep Bonye-a facilities. Our first health promotion presentation and anemia screening for 100 adolescent girls was a true team effort. Each member of Team Haiti 5 would like to share a brief thought with you...
ANTHONY PHO - Now that I'm actually in Haiti, global health and community health is no longer an abstract concept for the lecture hall. Healthcare here is raw and real: counting a child's respirations to assess for infection, a shower curtain becomes a delivery pad for childbirth! There is much to learn from the Haitian people and it is both inspiring and humbling.
MEGHAN GREELEY - Already, we have seen so much during our short time here. The Sisters of Charity-run orphanage left the biggest impression on me thus far. Walking into a room of 25 cribs of babies was a bit overwhelming, knowing that there are never enough people to tend to all of the children. It was amazing to see what they were able to accomplish!
ANNE CAVETT- It is incredible seeing all the need and the many differences between most of the U.S. and Haiti. Yet at the same time, there is such similarity. Teaching a group of adolescent girls to do the Heimlich Maneuver and watching their attempts full of nervousness, giddiness, excitement and reluctance was just what it would have been with any group in the states.
MICHELLE CHARRON-There are so many new experiences here. I am learning so much everyday. There is beauty of the ocean and the jungle and the sunshine. Then, in contrast, there is profound poverty and undernutrition that affects everyone's lives. I am inspired to continue to learn how to make a valuable difference in the world.
MEGAN MARX- Conquering my biggest fear of small planes to arrive here in Jeremie was only a small step in beginning my public health rotation. Holding the littlest of the orpans at the Sisters of Charity, introducing myself in Creole to a group of 100 Haitian girls for the first time, testing more girls for anemia in a two hour period than I ever thought that I could...this is a whole new part of my Hopkins education.
SHEILA ORMOND- Our first full day in Jeremie, Haiti, (Sunday) set a festive tone; we were fortunate enough that our visit coincided with Flag Day, which was celebrated with colorful fanfare in Jeremie. The streets and people were adorned with red and blue (the national colors), and a parade of young performers and representatives of community organizations marched throughout the main streets. In the 24 hours following the festival, we have seen and experienced so much more than one blog can cover, from young orphans gleeful for the opportunity to be held (and later wailing upon our departure), to a two-year-old with the characteristic golden hair distinctive of Kwashikor, to the 30-plus soccer girls we determined to be anemic today, to the girls at church laughing as we erroneously stood when only the choir members should have (un faux pas); I can only imagine what the next 24 hours will bring. Bon chance.
SUSAN NORRIS - This trip is the culmination of many years of anthropological training and nursing education. Although I have travelled throughout the develeloping world as an anthropologist, Haiti is the first country I am seeing through a nurse's eyes, and the scenes I am taking in are incredible. Children blinded by vitamin deficiencies, deformed by malnourishment, orphaned by AIDS. There is much work to be done here, and it has been a joy and blessing to do it.
More thoughts from Team Haiti 5 soon!