Sandy III

The storm has passed, the sun has returned. and our solar panels are making power again.   Now the clean up begins and we try to figure out how to repair the road.  Meanwhile our latest email brings these pictures of the mother and baby who waded through the rain and mud yestereday to come for help.   As Killy describes:  "He came with a high fever and signs of respiratory distress...  His mother came with much anxiety and left with hope."

Sandy II

It's still raining in Petite Riviere today, yet people are beginning to dig out of the mud.  Actually, you don't have much choice if you don't have anywhere else to sleep.  In Haiti, if you have a house at all, you  consider yourself fortunate.   If you have a cement floor and metal roof, you are even better off.   And if you ride out a hurricane without being inundated with mud or your roof being blown off, you thank God for your blessings.   Haitians are known for their resilience.   One just wishes that it wasn't tested quite so often. 

Meanwhile, the upper part of Visitation Clinic's road is washed out and impassable for 4-wheel vehicles.  Our latest email brings this: 

"Flooding increase in town and access to the clinic becomes worse. Despite of that, we are open to receive emergency patients and we received this morning a baby of 4 months who was really bad and couldn't breath, we did the best for him and he's feeling better now but we do keep him for a while and will tranfer him later" - Killy

Sandy

At Visitation Clinic we welcome most guests. But if we had a choice, we would  have politely turned our most recent visitor away.  Her name was Sandy and she came calling with lots of rain and 105 mph winds.   Right now, we don't think we've sustained any major damage, but we don't know about the town.   Here are some excerpts from our administrator's mail:                    "... flooding in the town of the petite riviere, hard rains and wind since yesterday, trees are dug up in the yard of the clinic, the way to the generator is blocked with a tree that fell down, the fence of the cholera center is gone, many employees living in town are victims, they move to other places and leave their own houses as they are flooded."

 

"It's hard to go in town now to get pictures, it's raining and the wind is hard." - Killy

 

Break of the Day

This time of year, sunrise is around 6:00 am at Visitation Clinic.  If you want to catch it, you need not set an alarm - the roosters will happily announce it.  With the right amount of cloud cover, the rising sun can be beautiful and the dark Haitian landscape makes it all the more so.  It can be a good time to try taking some low light pictures.  Usually the solar power batteries have run out of juice during the night and there are no building lights to compete with the sky.  On this day, thankfully, the cholera center was dark and empty too,  with the last case being more than six weeks ago.  So we were fortunate to get this nice photo of the arches at the entrance of Visitation Clinic silhouetted by the palm trees and tropical vegetation.   

 

 

Then we noticed  another remarkable event unfolding.  People were already beginning to arrive at our gates.   Even though the clinic wouldn't open for another two hours, patients were beginning to arrive by foot and motorcycle.  In fact, though, this is  a routine occurance.  So much so that the local town has now installed a solar powered street light just outside our gate.  We are, of course, most greatful.   Undoubtedly, our early-bird patients are even more so.