Saturday, April 17, 2010
Haiti Day 7
Its Saturday morning and I'm packing up my things and getting ready to catch the bus back to the airport. I don't really want this trip to end.
At some point yesterday while I was taking an outdoor shower, I realized that I hadn't even thought about watching TV or playing a video game the entire time I've been here. Despite the physical exhaustion, this has been one of the most rejuvenating experiences that I think I could have had.
I've really enjoyed the team of people that I've had the priviledge to spend time with this week. I've remarked multiple times about how we've just got some really solid individuals with us here and its been great getting to know them and learning from them.
I've also really liked being able to test myself learning something new. I really couldn't have told you about anti-biotics before this trip and I actually memorized some of the treatments and dosages while fetching drugs for our wonderful physicians.
Clicking back into French has been nice. I haven't spoken to the patients as much as I would have liked, but there was certainly a time for that along the way. I realized yesterday that my French was equivalent or better than the English of our Haitian volunteer translators and it was helpful to have a native English speaker who could at times bridge the communication gap a bit.
Another thing thats been great is the ease of logistics. The school put together meals and transportation and pretty much everything else. Its hard to come to a country like this and know what conditions are like and how/when you will be able to move around. Frankly there probably is no other way that I would like to visit Haiti than to stay on these school grounds.
Yesterday we went to a tent city and actually saw patients in someone's tent home. It was less hectic than mission rescue and there were no surgical procedures, but those people had not had any Dr.s come to that location yet, so we were really excited to provide some care. I stood right in front of the pharmacy table (3 steps away from both Dr.s) and tried to keep up with the perscriptions they wrote. We were also joined by some Haitian medical students who did triage work and saw patients as well - they worked faster and without translators so I had my work cut out for me filling sandwhich bags with pills.
Since I'm getting ready to leave, I want to sum things up, but its just not time for that yet. More to come . . .
At some point yesterday while I was taking an outdoor shower, I realized that I hadn't even thought about watching TV or playing a video game the entire time I've been here. Despite the physical exhaustion, this has been one of the most rejuvenating experiences that I think I could have had.
I've really enjoyed the team of people that I've had the priviledge to spend time with this week. I've remarked multiple times about how we've just got some really solid individuals with us here and its been great getting to know them and learning from them.
I've also really liked being able to test myself learning something new. I really couldn't have told you about anti-biotics before this trip and I actually memorized some of the treatments and dosages while fetching drugs for our wonderful physicians.
Clicking back into French has been nice. I haven't spoken to the patients as much as I would have liked, but there was certainly a time for that along the way. I realized yesterday that my French was equivalent or better than the English of our Haitian volunteer translators and it was helpful to have a native English speaker who could at times bridge the communication gap a bit.
Another thing thats been great is the ease of logistics. The school put together meals and transportation and pretty much everything else. Its hard to come to a country like this and know what conditions are like and how/when you will be able to move around. Frankly there probably is no other way that I would like to visit Haiti than to stay on these school grounds.
Yesterday we went to a tent city and actually saw patients in someone's tent home. It was less hectic than mission rescue and there were no surgical procedures, but those people had not had any Dr.s come to that location yet, so we were really excited to provide some care. I stood right in front of the pharmacy table (3 steps away from both Dr.s) and tried to keep up with the perscriptions they wrote. We were also joined by some Haitian medical students who did triage work and saw patients as well - they worked faster and without translators so I had my work cut out for me filling sandwhich bags with pills.
Since I'm getting ready to leave, I want to sum things up, but its just not time for that yet. More to come . . .
