Hi everyone - I just received this great email from Donna - and with her permission, I am sharing her story,
Sandy
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Hello friends and family!
Yes I'm back from Haiti, safe and sound but a little travel weary (not to mention dealing with a little of Montezuma's/Haiti's revenge if you know what I mean)
I guess to sum it all up it was an amazing experience and I feel fortunate to have been able to go and experience it, hopefully offer a little help if not to many people than to a few, and also to be back home and be grateful for our many graces....water, shade, heat...ice!
Here's a quick summary of our days in Haiti:
Day 1: Landed in Haiti 7 a.m. and after dropping our belongings at our guest house we went to a small private clinic/hospital by 9 but no doctor was there so we were taken to an orphanage where we basically played and held young babies and youngsters. Little did we know that an aftershock occurred of 4.5 on the scale during that time. We didn't feel it but the Haitians did...they are very hypersensitive to the shocks.
Day 2: Worked in a tent city where a tent was set up on a dirt floor and we assessed people for various pain complaints. Most of them complained of pain from their head to their toes and encompassing their whole body. When asked when it started they would say Jan 12...the day of the quake. Needless to say a lot of post-traumatic shock.
Day 3: Drove up into the mountains to a Baptist orphanage of severely disabled children. That was a tough day. The extent of most of their disabilities and resultant deformities were profound. One child that was the size of a 9 month old was actually 13 years old. But as we worked with them we found they were overall well taken care of by the orphanage mainly in a family sense. They were happy and laughing regularly and even sang 'Jesus loves me' in english!They are very bound by their faith.
Day 4: Drove 6 hours round trip to a small village as part of a travelling mobile health clinic. We were set up in a church with a dirt floor, concrete block walls, and tin roof. Their were a couple of Haitian dentists, doctors and our physio team of 4 were set up at the altar! Our bathroom facilities was a stall made of concrete block back to back with the mens and open air ceiling, a corrugated free standing piece of aluminum for a door (if you choosed to use it). I was pleased their was a toilet seat made of concrete blocks rather than just a hole in the floor and the Haitians made it even more pleasant for us by placing pieces of 8x11 paper around the toilet opening!
This was a very gratifying day as the patients we saw were quite appropriate for physiotherapy and I think we were able to offer them a little something. Even though they live in and on dirt they showed up in their sunday best...crisp clean and colourful clothing. One woman even wore here sunday hat!
Day 5: This was our last day and we were on our way to Florida in the afternoon. In the morning we toured a very clean and well equipped hospital called St. Damien's in Port au Prince. There we saw an excellent little rehab centre for amputees and they even had a prosthetic department. It was good to know they have something there..how many people can access the facility is another story.

To sum up Haiti is a mess (especially Port au Prince) and I believe always will be. With a combination of no infrastructure, an ongoing corrupt government, incredibly high illiteracy rate ,huge HIV rates and these tent camps that hold up to 7,000 people with no sanitation facilites its hard to believe it could ever turn itself around. But interestingly people continue to live their day to day lives as they always do... the shoe shine man ringing his bell starting at 5 in the morning (yes Haitians who work or go to school feel it important to have their shoes shined!) school children dressing in crisp clean uniforms with many ribbons in the hairs of the girls. There are traffic jams from cars, goats crossing the streets or huge cracks or rubble blocking the road...some as the result of the quake and other streets being nearly impassable well before the quake. We've seen some modern conveniences and then we see the contrast of a more primitive society such as the women transporting their wares in huge baskets balance on their heads....wonderful posture!..I'm starting to practice balancing a book on my head at home!
And through all the mess and trauma of Haiti the people have made the biggest impact on me. Quiet, humble but also passionate at the same time. Our interpreters were young adults who had a strong opinion on the state of affairs of the country. I asked one what he thought of the foreign aid coming in and quite diplomatically he said he was grateful but what they really needed was being taught the skills to fend for themselves rather than just receiving aide...teach them to fish rather than providing the fish.
So that wraps things up in a nutshell. Would I go back...yes...I didn't think that would be my answer before I went.
When I get together with you be prepared...you may have to suffer through some home movies/pictures!

Donna