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Standing at an internet kiosk in the LA airport at 4 in the morning, on my way home from Haiti.

It was a good feeling to have accomp0lished what we went for:  providing treatments and a training.  The reality is, of course, that this was just a drop in the bucket of what’s needed:  infrastructure, healthcare, education . . .

The fact that we were able to go without much more than experience, materials, and intention, and then hit the ground running was largely due to a little organization called Grass Roots United.  We’d heard about them from a couple of other ngo’s working locally.  GRU connected us with other people and organizations who were  able to help get our ball rolling, and did so with a competence and good cheer that was almost disorienting in a place where even basic tasks can seem insurmountable.

Our NADA training finished on Thursday, and in  the end we certified 24 people; among them were doctors, nurses, medical students, and some very dynamic community organizers.  We have a memorandum 0f understanding with a local foundation that is to act as our local umbrella, and we’ll see where it all goes from there.

Saturday we finally managed to catch up with Acupuncturists Without Borders in Leogane, where AWB has a treatment site at Mon Petit Village.  Leogane is about 18 miles out of Port-au-Prince, or 2 hours through creepy-crawly traffic and over rough and tumble roads.   Leogane was near the earthquake’s epicenter, and consequently had a lot of damage, so the drive out was both horrifying and beautiful.  Horrifying for the crumbled and flattened buildings lining the seaside road, and beautiful for the long stretches of farmland, palms and mango trees stretching into rolling green hills.

It was great to see the AWB team in action, and absolutely wonderful to receive treatments from the team.  Sally, Helen, Dina and Joseph had come for from all over the US to provide treatments through AWB, so it was nice to hear how their various paths led them to Haiti, and to have some acupuncture shop talk.

Afterward we stopped off at a private beach, which means pay-to-enter through a gate marked “interdit aux armes a feu” or “no guns allowed” which – as we had cause to know – was a good and relevant rule.  There were scads of Haitians playing soccer, having picnics, and enjoying the water.  It was enormously refreshing to take a boat ride on the azure waves, and feel some ocean breezes after all the diesal fumes and smoky particulates we’d been inhaling over the past few weeks.  We relaxed to the slap of the waves on the hull, watching a lightning show over the distant hills, and eating shellfish cooked on the beach and soaked in hot pepper and lime juice.

On our way home we drove through downtown Port-au-Prince.  I’d seen TV coverage of the post Jan 12th city, but the devastation is still jaw-dropping.  Whole blocks are little more than rubble, with bits of car poking out from under great slabs of cement.  Vast tent cities stretch across all available land, squeeze between buildings and down the middle of major roads, and the governmental buildings like the National Palace looked like fallen wedding cakes, all white tilts and crumbles.

Haiti was and is a challenge.  Beth and I are circumspect about creating new treatment and training sites, as it implies a commitment to ongoing support for each new project.  I’m hoping, and will work to assure that we can sustain the project we’ve begun here, and that the seeds of these past two weeks will grow into something useful for the Haitian people, who are graceful, resilient, and surely deserve better than what recent and distant history have delivered them.

I’ve already begun receiving e-mails of thanks from some of those we trained and treated on this trip, and through them see that the seeds are sprouting.