Thursday

Today we went to city Soleil. Words and pictures cannot describe the conditions. The people there think Americans take pics to sell back in the states, so we were advised not to. One of our translators took some pics on carla's phone for us. They are incredible. The weather is so intense. I'm sure we all smell terrible.
They are in the middle of building the actual hospital, so we set up in a tent. It's crazy, there are 300,000 people living in like a mile and a half area. They all live in these tin, square room houses. It's crazy, too, because the poorer you are, the closer you live to the water. So we worked all day like a football field away from the water. We luckily didn't see as many patients as Honduras, because there was only Will's dad and a physicians assistant from Spain. I spent most of my day with him. He was super cool and really nice. We only had 4 chairs for the 7 of us and 2 patients at a time, so he would always say "oh, sorry!" and then jump up and insist i take his seat. I think i love european manners.
He gave me the reigns to clean and treat this girls razor blade wound. She got sliced on the side of her cheek and arm with a razor blade during a fight. The interesting thing is she started crying when he took off her bandage to see what it looked like because she was upset that he told her the stitch job the other person did was terrible. There was hardly any and they were all crooked. It's funny to me that no matter where you go, the women are super concerned with their looks. It actually feels kind of reassuring that americans arent the only ones. There was also this little girl with scabies and I had to clean up her itch wounds. This other woman had cholera, so Will's dad called in the ambulance to come take her to the hospital. This old guy had a big, benign fatty tumor on his back. The Spanish guy told us you cut it, dig under it with your hands, and squeeze it out. He said it resembles flan exactly. Those were pretty much the highlights.
Surprisingly, my French is coming in really handy here. Merci Madame Blackburn..You can speak to them with it and there there are enough overlapping words where they understand. And if they speak Creole slow enough i can catch enough to get it. The Spanish guy gave me some nice practice in both French and Spanish.
I also made friends with the translators that came with us. The one, Junior, now calls me Baby because he told me I take little sips of my water. This was only the case because it's so freaking hot I wanted to make sure I had enough water to last me throughout the day, which is a good thing cuz one of the guys gave up his water to the lady with cholera, so we were short. Luckily i hoarded two bottles and had an extra to give away at the end of the day. junior and I sang backstreet boys on the way back from city Soleil. It was great. The ride, by the way, was maybe 20 min, not the 3 hours Honduras had, thankfully. I did ask to sit in the front on the way back because the way out made me slightly queezy. junior and Jean informed me I'm not Asian, I'm American, as well. They extensively made fun of me because I said I was Chinese, but then they found out I dont speak it and have never been there. When they were handing us luggage full of supplies when we got to the tent, Junior took two bottles of cough syrup and handed them to me instead of a bag.

One of the Americans who works at the main hospital we went to yesterday told us City Soleil is like a mafia. When the main guy, Father Rick, wanted to open a hospital there the locals were trying to negotiate jobs and hook ups in return for letting him open one. He told them no and explained that he's actually doing them a favor and they agreed. So while we were in the tent, right next to us were like 50 guys building the permanent hospital and those are our unofficial mafia guards. Kinda nice.
So far I've had mutton, okra, fruit, and spaghetti. The orphans here are later employed to work in their factory making pasta and bread. The Italians liked the Haitian bread, so they trained the people on how to make good pasta, so it's actually pretty good. The bolognese sauce is kinda sweet. Tonight we are going to The Olefson, which I guess is a famous hotel owned by an American. He has a voodoo rock band and is playing there, so we are going to check it out. Will told me that Mick Jagger has a room there.
its nice because everyone is getting along. I think this is the perfect amount of people because we have kinda become a little family unit. Today I wished for rain and literally right then it started raining. Then I immediately took it back because it was pouring. We hid under a tarp until we got a ride from some guy who works for the hospital. It's a good thing there were only 6 of us under the tarp, because any more and some people would've been soaked. And we know that I end up almost in tears if I'm soaked.