Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Haiti Mission Trip Day 7

October 14, 2011

We made it back to the Methodist Guest House!  What a treat to have a bed with a mattress, fans and most of all--a real toilet!!!  We were told yesterday that the vans would arrive in Odee between 9:30 and 10am.  So, before breakfast we took all our donations down to Solomon's house (which we were told would be the best way to get our donations distributed to the community) and packed up our cots.  We had an interesting assortment of food for breakfast: grilled cheese sandwiches, watermelon and pumpkin stew.  I didn't end up trying the stew, but Rich said it was delicious.  We had a nice farewell from Solomon who thanked us over and over again for our sacrifice of coming here.  Then we waited....and waited....and waited.  It was just going to be "10 more minutes" for 2.5 hours.  Finally at noon, when we were all hungry for lunch, the vans arrived.  We loaded up and said our goodbyes.  The engineer decided to hitch a ride with us all the way back to Port-au-Prince.  So what was already a pretty crowded and hot van, became even more so.

As we winded through the mountains, we saw a crowd of people on the side of the road.  Then I noticed random items in the middle of the road--car seats, stereo speakers and other debris.  We looked over where the people were and a truck had rolled off the side of the road.  As we were passing, I saw people pulling a man out of the truck.  We debated whether to stop (Would the presence of a medical professional cause more chaos and issues?  Would we be safe in the midst of a crisis?  What are the laws in Haiti...would we be liable if there were any deaths from the accident?).  Then Gary said, "It's the story of the Good Samaritan for goodness sakes."  So we pulled over and Rich, Colleen, Gary and Patrick went down to the crash site with supplies (we didn't have much left after our clinic yesterday) while the rest of us stayed on the side of the road.  Most of the cars and motorcycles that came by stopped to see what was going on.  But, we watched as several cars just drove on by.  We asked our driver how these situations worked in Haiti: are there ambulances you can call?  Do you call the police?  Does the UN help?  He told us that there are ambulances but they are few and far between.  The police and UN will help if they are around.  And while we would offer to drive the injured man to the hospital, in Haiti, if the man died while in his car, he could be found guilty of the man's death.  Just after the conversation, a UN vehicle drove by without stopping.  Maybe that is part of the reason why many Haitians don't appreciate the UN's presence?

A big dump truck stopped and we found out later agreed to take the man to the hospital.  They lifted him on a blanket which Colleen was really worried about because there could have been a spinal injury, but there was no changing their minds.  Colleen said she thinks he may have had some internal injuries.  We realized as we continued down the road that we were only about a mile from Partners in Health (the leading hospital in Haiti that we were able to stop at on our way to Hinche earlier in the week)!  The dump truck that transported the man was still out in front of the hospital.  We are praying that he is getting the care he needs and will recover.  We definitely scared Patrick.  He was on edge the rest of the trip.  We realized that if the vans had not been late, we would not have passed that accident and been able to stop and offer our assistance.  God was present!

When we arrived at the guest house we unloaded all our stuff, had a cold Coke and did a little shopping around the compound.  We bought some really neat things!  Josh and I took some pictures of the Longwood University scarf around the guest house.  Longwood is hoping to spread school spirit all over the world and therefore are asking people to bring and take pictures of the scarf wherever you go.





There were more people here than we expected-- 3 teams.  Dinner was rice, salad, avocado, plantains, watermelon and goat!  The goat basically tasted like beef.  After dinner we played some cards until it was time for our debriefing session with John (the accountant for Haiti UMVIM).  We talked about what went well, what could have been better, perceptions, expectations, etc.  It was a good meeting and resulted in a lot of laughter and stories from our time together.

We had a chance to shower which is the cleanest I've felt in a week, even though the water was cold.  Our flight tomorrow is at 4pm, but we will leave here at 11am so we can do a little driving tour of Port-au-Prince and see the Palace.  Then, we should be back in Virginia at 11:30pm tomorrow evening.

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