REMEMBERING COUNTRY SCHOOL

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Haiti Mission Trip Part 2
By Cindy Linsey
Haiti, Day, Monday, May 26
Breakfast today is French toast, mango, bread, peanut butter, watermelon and bananas. Today is the first day of work at
the clinic. Today I checked in patients. I took their vital signs and found out their complaints with the help of the interpreter.
I also worked in the pharmacy filling prescriptions. I love doing that, maybe I should have been a pharmacist. Most of the
patients we saw today had the Chikungunya virus. This was an epidemic while we were there. The symptoms are flu-like
symptoms with high fever and joint pain. We saw a child that couldn’t even walk. Chikungunya is from mosquitoes. The only
treatment is acetaminophen. Dr. Doolittle saw a young child who he was pretty sure had lymphoma. We tried to make
arrangements for a biopsy but could not come up with any formalin to bring a sample to the states. They tried 2 hospitals
and they ―supposedly‖ didn’t have any. This afternoon, Lindsay and I along with Arnold and our driver Toto went to St. Mark.
It was a town about 30 minutes away and we went to get medicine. I was able to purchase $500 of much needed medicine
to use in our clinic. The pharmacy is always locked and no patrons come in. They walk up to an outside window with their
prescription and then it is filled and they pick it up at another window. The pharmacy was very clean and organized and it
was air conditioned. What a nice relief for an hour! We noticed that baby formula and all vitamins were in the pharmacy so
we are not sure if they have to have a prescription for all of that or if they can just ask for it. Unfortunately they were out of
adult acetaminophen due to the epidemic. It is a good thing we had brought a lot with us. This evening I got to see, Jacob,
one of the kids I met last year. He speaks very good English and he climbed to get coconuts, collected sea shells and even
brought us a live sea urchin. He is such a happy kid and would do absolutely anything for you. He was at the mission most
every night when he found out we were there. My sponsor child, Widlin, came for supper. She has sure gotten taller in the
last year. She doesn’t know much English so I had to have an interpreter. She is 17 but in the 8 th grade. She has 2 brothers
and a sister. She is the 3 rd child. Supper was goat, carrots, pineapple, French fries (YUMMY), kale, tomatoes, and
watermelon. We bagged more rice and beans tonight and Widlin and Tiana both helped. They each got to take a bag to their
families. Tonight we decided to have popcorn. Those little things like matches that we take for granted are really, really hard
to find. After 3 different mission workers, we finally had some matches to light the stove!! They left the matches out for us
from then on.
Haiti, Day 4, Tuesday, May 27
Today is surgery day so we filled up on eggs, mango, pineapple, banana, peanut butter and bread. We brought the fans
from our rooms to the clinic because it is so hot. We did 5 surgeries this day. Today, I assisted with surgeries and was in
charge of cleaning the instruments. I take that for granted at my hospital as we have a whole department in charge of that
work. After the surgeries were done, we headed to the mission school. Marilyn found a 3 year old to sponsor. He was quite
the cutie. Last year we had met, Maclene, a young girl with brittle bone disease and she was not in church or at school so
we stopped by her home. When I turned the corner to where she was she got the biggest smile. Yep, she remembered me!!
What a great feeling. She had the Chikungunya virus and just looked and felt awful. So I headed back to the clinic and got
her some medicine and took to her home. This night we gave away 2 hogs. Benwa has different Haitians come to the
mission and then they are given something. Widlin again joined me for supper and we had spaghetti, slaw, watermelon and
French fries. The French fries are homemade and deep fried over a fire pit. They are wonderful. At supper we asked what
kind of juice we were drinking and Benwa said ―grenadine.‖ We are like no way, that is for mixed drinks and it is red. He
used his phone to look it up on the internet to make sure he was telling us the correct fruit and he was. I had no idea.
Arnold drove Widlin and Tiana home that evening and I got to go meet a sister and brother and a lot of her cousins. It
looked like she had a fairly nice house compared to what we had seen. It looked bigger than most and had a wood door.
They had a nice large area around the house which is also unusual for what we had seen. It sounded like a lot of family
lived together though not just her siblings and parents. After we dropped off the girls, Arnold drove us to the gas station
(looks like a BP station in the states) and Paula bought some ketchup to take home. She hopes it is the same kind they
served us. You know the saying ―it’s a small world‖, at the gas station a lady saw Paula’s KU shirt and she was from Kansas
visiting some family. We made popcorn again and Benwa and Toto joined us. We found out they really liked our popcorn.
Part 3 next month
These are the tap-taps!
Maclene and I when I visited her house.