okay...so this is going to be a long blog, i can tell you that right now! Hmm…how do I even begin to start… yesterday was quite the eventful day around here to say the least and I ended up getting to experience the renown Albert Schwietzer Hospital. I guess I’ll start by explaining some of the culture here. I don’t want to be presumptuous since I’ve only been here for a month & a half, but to preface the story, I’ll just say that anything going on draws a crowd. There are many people who just seem to stand around on the streets all day, so i guess it gives them some entertainment. Well, in the process of mixing the cement for the new school, much water is needed. So, the boys have been driving the tractor through town to the local spring (where people bathe, do laundry, swim, you name it…) and gather water in large barrels and then drive it back to the school ground. Everytime they leave, a crowd of people from town follow them and watch. So yesterday at La Suse (the name of the spring, and I have no idea how it’s really spelled) the boys did what they always do. They shut the tractor off, got off and started filling the barrels by hand. Well, yesterday while they were filling the buckets, apparently a person from town reached into the tractor and messed with the switch that operates raising and lowering the bucket and the bucket fell onto a little 9 year old boy’s feet. This was the story I got when they brought him to the clinic anyway. Of course, I only got bits and pieces that I could actually understand in Creole. So, they called me over to the clinic and I unwrapped the shirt that was around his feet and instantly knew we had to get him to the hospital. Working in the NICU I’m not really used to seeing traumatic injuries, etc. I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that I could actually see his bones in his feet. So I wrapped them tightly with gauze to provide pressure for the bleeding and we got him to the hospital here in Dessalines where they said that we needed to drive him to the Albert Schwietzer hospital in Des Chappel. So two hours later we arrived there. They debrieded his feet last night and are determining today if they need to do a skin graft or what they will do. They are planning to keep him there for at least 3 days. Oh yeah, and we got home around 9pm... and let me tell you that riding down haitian roads in a rickety old van, after dark, and in the pouring rain is an interesting experience in and of itself!!
That’s the basic story, but so many interesting details happened along the way. First of all, I described the crowd that gathers around anything out of the ordinary. It drove me crazy yesterday while we had him in the clinic b/c everybody “and their brother” from town were hovering around to watch. Then this one lady comes in and starts screaming, of course, I assume it’s his mom. She’s yelling and trying to grab the kid, he’s bawling, a couple of the people that work at EGO were trying to calm her down, while i was trying to calm him. Finally the van comes and she picks him up and climbs into the van. Well, apparently she wasn’t even his mom or any relation b/c his mom shows up then and the two women are fighting over who is going to take him to the hospital. Meanwhile, the poor little guy is getting pulled in every direction, crying b/c of his feet, etc. So, I reached around from the front seat and carried him/pulled him up onto my lap while the 2 ladies went at it. Finally the women stopped fighting and the mom came with and the other got out. So, we get to the hospital and I went in with him (i'm not sure where his mom went) and while they were giving him shots for pain and antibiotics he was crying. I leaned down close to his face to talk quietly to him, telling him that it was going to be alright and he was a good boy, and he reached up and wrapped his free arm around my neck and just started hugging me. It just about broke my heart. I can still hear his ‘little boy voice’ crying and asking me something that I couldn’t understand… I just kept saying in Creole, "Ou Cone, Jezi renme ou anpil, anpil, anpil?" Which is, "Do you know that Jesus loves you so, so, much?"
When we got to the A.S. Hospital, we stood around for a while waiting amongst many sick people(although they did give us an empty bed for Rickelson, so no one had to stand holding him). We saw a ‘white girl’ walk through and the two people from the orphanage told me to talk to her and see if we could get help. Her name was Marianne and she was a nurse educator from Switzerland. She was very sweet and gave me her phone number in case I needed her to translate anything for me. Anyway, apparently she went and found a doctor for us and that got the ball rolling. Don said today that usually Americans get waited on right away. It doesn’t seem right, and I'm sure it’s probably “money related”, but ultimately & selfishly, I was glad for Rickelson’s sake and ours that we didn't have to wait around any longer for him to be seen.
Another funny story from yesterday… actually not humerous at all, but to give you a little glimpse of the difference here… apparently, 2 men from town had been working on the school. One loaned the other one of his gloves, and when he asked for it back they started to fight, which of course drew a large crowd. Fights probably aren’t that different here, but the weapons these guys used were! One had a machete and the other had 2 large rocks! Crazy! Anyway, apparently the issue was solved without anyone drawing blood! Thank you, God! I can't begin to imagine the wounds they would've inflicted with those weapons!
Anyway, tomorrow, I'm heading to P.A.P. with the team. We are going to try to get up to the Haiti Baptist Mission, which is apparently absolutely beautiful. I'm excited to get to go along! Then the team flies out friday morning. It'll be pretty quiet (and probably a little lonely!) at the guesthouse without them! It's been fun to have them here!
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