Mission Manna Staff
Mission Manna Staff (left to right) Frankel, Givenaud and Rosmela Santelia do height and weight measurements in Fond Baptiste. Increasingly MM-trained Haitians are replacing US volunteers in clinical work.
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Mission Manna's Trip Blog
The Mission Manna medical team in Haiti
Last clinic. The team
We had our final clinic of the trip in Shada. This week we treated well over 1000 children for parasites, infections and malnutrition. We heard again and again that Mission MANNA is doing good work here. Thanks to our Haitian team and our supporters in the states!
So here we are on our last night in Montrouis, wrapping things up to leave tomorrow. What a whirlwind of a week! I thought I would come here and feel alot of pity and sadness for the children and the country. Instead I feel a sense of awe at what these resilient people deal with daily; how they survive and how they overcome. This morning at Fond-Baptiste we saw the sickest of the sickest. Things I've only seen in textbooks. Infants crusted from head-to-toe in scabies or impetigo. Others with eyes swollen shut and skin splitting from kwashiokor. Toddlers burned from falling into cooking fires. Children that likely won't survive. But life goes on here. It's accepted and understood. Going home tomorrow i'm sure will feel like stepping into an alternate universe. But I will be forever changed. And I will be back...!
Jennifer C. Nicolini, MD
Jennifer C. Nicolini, MD
Asheville Internal Medicine
Post from a worm girl...
Being a second timer here, I've come back with a fresh perspective and hopeful to see a positive change. We're preparing for our 5th and final clinic tomorrow and I've asked myself "are we making a difference?". The malnourished children are still here...I've seen so many of the same kids a year before. There are some who look better, so that gives me hope. While talking with one of our translators, he said if Haiti didn't have help from mission groups, they have no help at all. I still can't believe a country continues to survive with such little help from the government. I've dewormed a ton of kids this week ( a task I do with great pride and joy). I wish all of them had clean water, healthy food, felt safe, happy, and cared for. I can't give them all that, and seeing it first hand makes me feel helpless. But I feel like we're doing what we can, and knowing these families feel cared for is enough incentive to return. What a shift of perspective I get each time...I'm thankful for the experience.
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Boys playing soccer with an orange
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Fond Baptist goat herd
We're very proud of our Haitian counterparts Frankel and Rosemela's work with 23 families in Fond Baptist. Twenty of these families now have goats for breeding and a better diet of milk and meat. These two Haitians did great work in today's clinic, where we saw more than 450 patients. Tom
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Post from Annie Dephouse
Yesterday we drove up to the mountains. It was a very intense drive with a deep gorge in the middle of the road and we had to cross it by making a bridge. Thankfully we all made it up safely. When we got up to the mountains everyone was invited to a local game of soccer. Mission Manna vs. Fond Baptiste. The ending score came to a draw 3-3. As we were walking back to our compound we noticed a small game of soccer being played by little 5-6 year olds. The little kids were running around kicking not a soccer ball but an orange. I found it so creative and original that these kids who lived in dirt and had little to nothing to eat were playing the world's game with an orange. After the game we walked back to the compound and headed in for our rough night sleep. We were sleeping in a church on some church pews and a concrete/dirt floor. Waking up at 5:30 to the sound of roosters, we set up our clinic and began treating over 450 kids which took over 6 hours without a break! We headed back into Montriouis and began preparations for tomorrow!
Goat project
We visited three families in our goat program. The mission MANNA goats were the healthiest goats on the mountain. Franckel, the goat community health worker is doing a great job. Also, Rosmela, the CHW in Fond Baptiste was present at clinic today and is taking excellent care of the kids up there. If only we could expand the program to include more kids...
Off the grid
We head to the mountains today and will return to Montrouis tomorrow. No electricity up there. We will see kids in Ivoire and Fond Baptiste.
Post from Val Pulsifer after Piyat clinic
Although I have participated in the fall trip to Montrouis now for five years, I am still moved by the beauty of the country and it's people. Although they live in poverty with minimal sustinence they manage to maintain a dignity and grace that is impressive.
Today we saw over three hundred children and while some of them were obviously sick and a few malnourished, the majority looked pretty healthy. Always nice to see! Becoming familiar and comfortable with some of the children that we see year after year is for me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of our yearly trek here.
Tomorrow is a more local clinic here in Montrouis. Then its up into the mountains for our clinics in Ivoire and Font Bsptiste with a final clinic back in Montrouis on Friday.
The week will fly by, we will be changed by our experience and what we see here, and although we will have an impact on the Haitian families that we regularly see, it will seem minimal compared to the impact that this experience continues to have on me!! Val
