Friday, April 30th, 2010

We’ve just returned from our 2nd day working in one of the tent camps & the Naturopath group has done a drinks & treats run so I’ve snuck off to the internet cafe, the first time I’ve had real access since arriving here (although interestingly I’ve been able to exchange a few e-mails with the Acupuncturists Without Borders women).

I met up with my colleague Beth and the Naturopath Internationals Docs in Florida on Monday morning & we flew over the blue Atlantic over mysterious islands to land on this one.   We’re fortunate enough to have a Haitian-American doc in our group and we have been staying with her family in a lovely house in Belvil, Port-au-Prince.  Although it’s a lovely house in a charming neighborhood, electricity is extremely spotty and water has been in less than abundance.  The whole family is still staying in tents outside (as are we, and most people in Port-au-Prince) because everyone is nervous about another quake.  Almost every person I’ve spoken with lost classmates, work mates, family etc. in the earthquake, and people talk about feeling traumatized.  Even though the earthquake was several months ago, the devastation is still in evidence everywhere, from the tortured and flattened buildings to the scores of people with recent scars, burns, and amputations.  It is in fact remarkable how much normalcy is in evidence, as people do their best to continue life and all the activities that entails.

We’ve worked at two different tent camps so far, and made a lot of contacts and inquiries toward providing a training next week.  We’ve seen literally over a thousand patients, and several hundred of those received NADA and/or body acupuncture.

It’s been interesting comparing populations from the US, Uganda, Kenya, and Haiti.  I’d never seen needle shock in Africa, but we did have one case yesterday.

It’s incredibly hot and muggy also though, and most people are pretty dehydrated, so that can’t be helping.  It’s about all we can do to keep enough water in ourselves, and we usually take only a few minutes for lunch to guzzly electrolytes and eat power bars.