Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Operation Blessing gate
Day One - The airport and a tour!
Today was pretty relaxed. We arrived in Port au Prince and were met by Operation Blessing at the airport... The airport was pretty busy and unfortunately our baggage belt broke down, so we all had to step in and start unloading bags manually. We all means everyone who de-boarded the plane! It was total chaos, but after about 30 minutes we found all of our bags and went to leave. As we were leaving the terminal, there were many people offering to help and I have to tell you, if I hadn't been with a group, I'm sure I would have ended up paying a ton of money for a guy to carry my bag 200 feet... not because my bag was heavy, but because the porter are so persistent. :) About halfway to the car a small brawl broke out amongst porters, but just as quickly as it started it was over. They were back to being great friends despite punches being thrown! Will followed up with a quick statement about how passionate the Haitian people are! It certainly shows.
After a quick rest at the Operation Blessing house, which is amazing, we travelled to the various hospitals that we will be working at. Our first stop was St. Luke's which is the adult hospital, ICU and Cholera treatment center. We were shown around the different parts of the hospital and then as we left we washed our shoes and hands in bleach water. According to Will, only 8 months ago, most of the hospital was tents. Operation Blessing has been busy in the last 8 months, because St. Luke's now boasts a semi permanent structure. It is clear that so much effort and love has been put into creating a good place for Haitian people to get free healthcare. After St. Luke's we went to St. Damien's, the children's hospital. St. Damien's is a very well run large, children's hospital and we were met by exciting news from one of the providers. They had been trying to get one of the children a visa to get medical treatment in the US and the visa had come that day!
We took another quick tour and headed back to the house. On our way back we stopped at a local restaurant and had a much needed beer. We continued our trek home and ran into Wilson, who has been Dr. Bill's (Will's father) driver for much of his time here. Wilson drives a taxi. The crazy thing is that taxi's in Haiti are mostly motorcycles. The gas is pretty expensive and getting around on a bike is just easier. When I showed interest in the motorcycle, Wilson offered to give me a ride back to the Operation Blessing house (It was just a short distance). It was pretty fun and got me back to dinner that much quicker ;).
All in all, day one was great! I'm super excited to start working at the hospital tomorrow morning.
Haitian airport baggage claim
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