Haiti for 36 hrs now
We’ve been in Haiti now for almost 36 hrs, although it surely feels longer than that. I met up with Beth and the Naturopaths International team in Florida and we took a 2 hr flight over the blue Atlantic & what seemed an ocean full of islands to this one. Haiti is hot and humid, but not yet rainy. The airport felt like many other tropical little airports, but as soon as we stepped out of the front gates (personned by Haitian police, UN peacekeepers and others), there is quite literally a crush of humanity, vehicles, diesel fumes, rubble and lots of color. There’s a lot here to remind me of francophone West Africa, from the market women carrying wares on their heads to the French road signs to the kamikaze traffic flow. There is also a distinctly Haitian flavor, however. Although the music I’ve heard so far incorporates the rhythms I was used to in Togo, there is an undeniably Caribbean influence also. We are very fortunate to be staying with the family of Firlande, one of the Naturopaths on the team, whose mother preceded us here and is overseeing the cooking for our large group, and keeping us in towels and toilet paper.
Although it’s quite a nice neighborhood, there still hasn’t been more than five hours of electricity a day, and the lack of infrastructure in Port au Prince can be felt even here. Nonetheless, it’s been a terrific bastion for us to come home from long days to hearty meals and friendly folks. Our first few days have been spent at a tent camp behind Matthew 25, run by a Catholic Sister. There are (I think) over a thousand people in the camp, and it’s really pretty nice – very clean, a water filtering station, lots of ngo’s coming in to provide services. It’s still a tent camp though, with back to back tents (some of those provided through the efforts of Sean Penn, I hear) and lots of people in every public space.
Acupuncturists Without Borders gave me the introduction here, and –as in all places we have visited that they have preceded us – people smile to remember their acupuncture treatments. Beth and I have done over 150 treatments in the last two days, and the NI team is doing homeopathy, hydro, acupuncture, minor surgery, and have some supplements for use w/ all the infections we were seeing. We haven’t seen a lot of recent trauma, but there are certainly a lot of people with amputations, and it is still a bit shocking to see a 13 year old who – up until 3 months ago – was playing soccer and chasing her siblings now getting used to crutches. We haven’t been a lot of places, but I haven’t seen any prosthetics yet.
Today we’re touring other camps, and Beth and I are still looking for the venue where we can do a training. We are getting lots of help in this direction from Grass Roots United, who operates as a hub for ngos to network and apply themselves. They’ve just moved down next to the airport where they will build some model housing using appropriate technology, and one of our team, who is a US contractors, is consulting with them on building methods.
Tags: acupuncturist without borders, haiti project, naturopaths international team florida, TCMCH