Today we took a long trip on the Toptop to the city of Carrefour and visited the home for sick and dying adults. This is my third trip to Haiti, but my first time going to this place so I did not know what to expect. The whole property was beautiful with flowers blooming and such bright colors on the building. I was very impressed with how organized and sterile the place was compared to most places I have seen on my trips catering to sick adults. While massaging the sick older women I came up with my word for today. NUDE. Last year when I was in AP Art History we learned the difference between nude and naked. Nude is unashamed, embracing your anatomy, before Adam and Eve took the fruit. Naked is ashamed, not wanting to be exposed, how Adam and Eve felt after taking the fruit. I was first taken back by the woman totally stripping down and embracing the lotion on my hands. But as I carried on I grew more comfortable with her bare body because I realized that she was nude, not naked. I knew she was comfortable enough that she could feel unexposed and comfortable with me seeing it. I love that places like this exist that a woman on her death bed can have love and comfort that everyone in this world deserves. No matter their wealth or status.
- Emma H.
After we had left the home for sick and dying adults, we traveled to general hospital which is exactly as it sounds; the hospital for Port-au-Prince. At a Haitian hospital, it is a little different than our hospitals in the states; the patients are to bring everything of their own including bedding, clothing, medication and anything else they will need for themselves or their children while they are staying there. The night before, we made 75 bagged lunches filled with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a granola bar and two diapers in which we passed out to each patient as we traveled through the rooms. There were a few different rooms, one was for “pediatrics urgencies” which had very sick babies, the next one was a general pediatrics, another one was for elders, and the last room we stopped at was for post surgery adults. All of the patients/parents of the patients were so grateful that we were bringing them something and they all had huge smiles on their faces and said “mesi” (which is thank you in Creole) and the best thing is, they hadn’t even opened it yet to know what it was that we brought them. There were a few women sitting at a table with some paperwork (I’m not sure if they were the nurses or not), I didn’t see any while we were there. I find it interesting that they need to bring ALL of their own supplies and everything they will need in addition to hopefully receiving proper care. It is crazy to see how different one country is to another and how blessed we are to have what we do in the states, we take for granted everything that God has blessed us with and we don’t realize it until we see different circumstances.
- Erica
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