We got into Port au Prince no problems, despite the rumors of the border being closed, armed attacks along the road, etc. The main city seems to be a bit more controlled, dead bodies being collected, some basics becoming available on a very limited basis- gas, water. Convoys of supplies coming in- with most NGOs looking to groups such as amurt/el to take on the distribution. In the outskirts things quite bad.  It is very moving to see how the Haitian people are organizing themselves in the face of such overwhelming challenges. I visited the hospital that Amber is working with in the soccer field of the Catholic school around the corner from the Amurt/el. The nun there told me it was the soccer players and the community who have set it up and are running it. There seems to be plenty of doctors and nurses and meds are coming in. Food and water are still problems. Initially we came to our center in Delmas 31- in time for a mass feeding program. The level of desperation of the people is overwhelming and limits how many we can safely feed at a time. We will have to work out a better arrangement. Now I am staying at our school/children’s home in Bourdon, in PaP, but a bit off the main area. Within 5 minutes of arriving I was surrounded by people with medical needs. Treated a young girl who had multiple lacerations and a broken hand. She was walking, carrying her baby sister when the earthquake hit. A wall crashed down on them, killing the baby sister and injuring the little girl. Didi took me to a camp that is set up about 10 minutes from our center. It has about 100-200 people living under sheets- I treated one family with multiple injuries, they had been on the second floor of a building that collapsed; the family in the apartment below them was all killed.  There are numerous camps around our center that we are taking responsibility for. The challenges now include getting medical care to those in need, food and a way to cook it, and of course clean water. This is a huge problem as I am already seeing people with diarrhea, etc. And then of course there is all the human waste building up. One man has asked us to come to the area his village was, reporting the stench from the rotting bodies is becoming too much. We will go this afternoon. Although there is little that can be done about those who died under the rubble, we need to cordon off those areas for health reasons. And try to get names of those killed. In about 5 minutes we have our first medical camp here. All the area has been alerted so we expect a large turnout. We will meet with each person, take their pertinent information, and then I will triage them. They will then be sent to either one of the 3 doctors we have coming or be seen by me, depending if they have broken bones and internal injuries or just need bandaging and have illnesses I can treat homeopathically. So far, the wounds I have treated have been pretty grisly- deep, and infected. We really need antibitotics and pain relief meds here. Love to all, Joni  Monday, Jan 18 Yesteday we treated 150-200 people at the medical camp. We had 3 Chilean doctors plus an amurt/el nurse who came to help from the project in the NW, and myself. The Dr’s brought meds. For most of the fractures we casted the people there as the hospitals are a nightmare- people staying outside waiting to get in. There was one old man we had to take to the hospital as his injuries were so serious. The hardest thing for me was having to clean the very deep and infected wounds on the children without analgesics. Having to have hold them down while they screamed tore my heart out, but the alternative is gangrene, which we are beginning to see in many patients. At our strategy meeting this morning, we planned out an area that has about 20,000 to take on- food, shelter, medical, drinking water. Things are frustratingly slow in getting supplies from the UN- apparently security is a huge issue, with smaller NGO’s like ours getting attacked, so we are looking to truck in our own items from the DR. We have a truck coming tomorrow with a generator so sending email may not be so tortuous and time consuming. This afternoon we will begin visiting each of the villages we are taking on, we are all concerned about what we will find. We are hearing of tremendous suffering, and although I have bandages, we have no antibiotics. I will try to send an update tomorrow. Photos will be from a different computer. Love to all, Joni  Evening, Jan 18 The assessments went well, we have covered all the areas we could walk to. The people are amazing- working together to build shelters for each family in the community. Some are using cardboard and plastic, others tin. We have been sending reps to attend all the UN meetings on shelter, food and medical. It is a bit overwhelming to be doing everything at once and by evening we all look like zombies from exhaustion, but it is nothing compared with what the Haitian people are dealing with. Tonight we were requested to go to a remote village for a girl with a broken leg. One nurse and myself walked to the village, crossing the river 3 times and hiking up a trail to a village that is beginning to take shape from tin. Just up the hillside we could see the remains of all their homes, built from cement and brick,and lying in ruins. I felt so bad for these people- they had obviously worked hard to build a nice lifestyle for themselves and now they are living in makeshift tents and lean-tos, bathing in the river, with no medical care. After we splinted the girl’s leg, we ended up treating many others in the community for lacerations, and serious bruising from falling houses and walls. Tomorrow- we move out to some communities a bit further away. Love to all, joni.  |
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... Ananda Marga ... |
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