Jen Watters Haiti Blog
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 7:20pm
Bonswa!!! (which is Creole, last week I used the French!)
Wow! This week has gone by so fast! And this Wednesday will mark 4 weeks for me here in Haiti! Wow! I am definitely feeling settled in here, which is nice. While I miss home, I am happy to be staying two more months. I’m just starting to get a little bit of the language and I’m really enjoying getting to know our Haitian staff and my patients. I can tell I am starting to be “long term” here though, because my friends are starting to leave. There have already been a couple in the past week, but beginning next week the group that I came with will all start to leave without me – Sad!! Most people are only staying 4-6 weeks, so it is hard to see them come and go. But there is always a new group and everyone is great!

I had a really great and also challenging week at my new antenna. This was only the third week it has been open so it was a little slower than CDTI, which was a nice break. The staff is great and very receptive and eager to learn. They’re very excited about helping me to learn more Creole and want me to help them with their English too, so we have some interesting conversations =) On Tuesday I went out to the community and we attended a meeting of a support group for people with disabilities in the Port-au-Prince area. They have been meeting for awhile so most of them were not injured in the earthquake, but it was great to be able to tell them about our mission and meet with the organizers of the group. In total we got the names of 58 people with disabilities that we can look out for. The organizers were amazing too, they basically work on organizing this group and supporting people with disabilities full time and they don’t get paid for it. I’m not sure how they make a living but they were so dedicated! They knew all the people and what their needs were. They definitely had a passion for this, which inspired me! I also got to meet up with several other Americans who were volunteering in the area. I think someone different stopped by everyday! It was fun! One lady from Virginia even gave us a bunch of her extra crutches and DME the day before she headed home. Since our stock is pretty depleted and we’re stuck waiting for our shipment – it was kind of like Christmas!!!
At the antenna this week, we usually finished up with the patients around 2:00 and then I got to spend my afternoons inside the adjacent hospital caring for a very special patient. He and his family need lots of prayers. During the earthquake he was trapped in his house and suffered a very high spinal cord injury (we think C5/6 for my PT friends). His family wasn’t ever educated on what a spinal cord injury is and he had not gotten out of bed for two months until a Canadian PT volunteering in the hospital found him about two weeks ago. Needless to say he has developed a very large and serious stage IV pressure ulcer on his sacrum (a big wound on his bottom for my non-PT friends). He’s getting good wound care at the hospital but it’s such a large and deep wound that I’m worried about it healing. We’ve been working everyday on positioning, range of motion, education and even getting him out of bed into a highback reclining wheelchair which the Canadians miraculously found in the hospital! His family is amazing and stays at the hospital night and day caring for him. It’s been so hard on them though, because they are always there turning and positioning and caring for him and they have a hard time finding work or earning money. They lost everything in the earthquake. On Thursday, they were asking me if we could get an xray of his arms and legs to see why they weren’t working. I couldn’t believe that no one had really told them what was happening. That was one of the hardest conversations I have ever had to have . . . I didn’t get a picture of him up in his chair, but I’ll try and get one for next week. His strength, courage, perseverance and faith in God amaze me. He is a very special person. It was so wonderful to see the smile on his face when we wheeled him out into the breezeway for the first time. He hadn’t been outside in months and was so happy! So that was a very good note to end the week on. I just wish I could do more. . . But I do have one more week at Del Mas, so I’ll get to see him some more. We are trying to get him transferred to University of Miami’s hospital here in Haiti where they have special equipment and staff to care for SCI patients but it’s currently full. Please say some prayers!
This weekend has been a nice break with lots of fun and also some relaxation. We had a great party last night as a send of for several of our staff leaving this week. It was definitely a good time! This morning my friend Lisette and I happened upon a new church: St. John Bosco, which also happens to be the name of her high school and her university in El Salvador – amazing! We were supposed to be going to a different church for mass at 9:00 but the traffic was terrible this morning. It was 5 minutes until 9 and we were nowhere near the other church. We just happened to drive by this church and I asked the driver if he knew if it was a catholic church – and sure enough it was and mass was just starting! They actually still meet inside their church which was really nice and it was packed for palm Sunday today. They had amazing music and even though I couldn’t understand anything – especially without my friend Louise to translate, it was a beautiful service. Then several of us went out for lunch at a real restaurant in Petionville which was a nice treat. We had a little bit of an adventure finding it, but it was well worth it. We sat out in a beautiful shaded courtyard. While we waited for our pizza, the boys ran out to a grocery store and brought back some beer since the restaurant had run out. It was a nice treat! Then back to the house for a cold shower, a nice nap, and now my weekly email.
I feel like I’m forgetting lots of stuff this week, but it seems like such a blur. Thank you everyone SO much for all your prayers and encouraging emails, especially about my grandma. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all the positive thoughts. It really does mean a lot.
I’ve been trying to upload pictures for about 20 minutes now and I think I’m going to give up for this week – sorry! I’ll try and put some up midweek!
Big Hugs and lots of love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jen =)