Day 3

The sun comes up at like four in the morning here. I was hot when I woke up.

So yesterday was superawesome and all, but we totally could have come a day later. I think today is going to be another lazy day. We might get to go the orphanages…I hope. We might go to the pool. There’s a vendor selling paintings just outside the hotel gates; I hope he’s still there. I want one. But apparently there are four possibly untreated hip fractures here, so we might be fixing those? I don’t know. Dad’s still asleep. I’m sweating.

I forgot to mention that we drove past the President’s mansion on our way through town. It was incredible.  The dome had caved in; the walls were crumbling….it mirrors what Haiti’s government is like. ]: There are political posters everywhere; they’re constantly electing someone or voting for something, because half of the elections are fraudulent.

In Haiti, there are a lot of these taxis-like things called taptaps. You know a taptap when you see it, due to its crazy stripes and geometric shapes painted brightly on all sides. Most of them sport painted faces of supposedly famous people, but I don’t recognize them. Bunches of them have “Merci Jesus” across the top of their windshields, which means “Thank you, Jesus.” Taptaps are painted trucks or mini buses that have extra seating in the back. They drive madly through the streets and have so many people inside them, you’d think they might burst. Sometimes people are even standing on the bumpers! They must have a death wish; most of the cars have long scrapes down their flanks from squeezing through impossible gaps in traffic.

Another thing we saw when driving through Port-Au-Prince was funerals. In Haiti, funerals apparently consist of a parade through the streets, lead by a jazz band. Friends and family members, looking more overheated than sad, follow the flower-topped hearse. The strange thing was, we saw like, five, all after one another. I don’t know if that was just a strange coincidence or if Saturday is the accepted day to have funerals.

The water is icky tasting here, even the filtered stuff. But there’s no Crystal Light in Haiti. We have a minifridge, and I made ice cubes with plastic cups.(:

The wifi is off-and-on here…we’ll see when I can post.

We did rounds this morning. (Checking up on all our patients in the hospital.) Not everyone in the hospital are ortho patients, of course. Dad read the limited charts we have on the patients and oriented himself to their maladies. But we saw one 19-year old boy with a massive shoulder….Dad thinks it might be bone cancer. ): It is possible that he would have to have his entire arm amputated, up past the shoulder. There were two little girls in a separate building, Beatrice and Chademere, both with lower extremity injuries. I knew enough French to tell them that my name was Chloe, that the doctor was my dad, and where I live. I also told them that I had two brothers and a mom back home. I couldn’t really understand them very much, but they seemed glad to meet me. Later, Stacey, Dad & I went back to the girls’ room and gave them little stuffed tigers and fruit snacks. I’m glad they were in a building by themselves…I don’t want to be seen passing stuff out. People notice me enough already and I don’t want to create a mob.

Amy is nowhere to be found….so no orphanage visit today. But hopefully later!

That CREEPO Mc Creep Creeper who was hitting on me in church apparently works at the hospital. Ughhhhhhh. Either that or he was visiting someone. He kept poking his head into the room where we were looking at x-rays and shook my hand. He waited outside the x-ray room. He was leering at me. Dad seems mildly amused, but I’m afraid. But God will protect and provide.

You know what’s strange? Everyone seems to have cell phones! I guess they buy the phone and then buy minutes. A lot of Haitians seem to have MP3 players as well.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY!!!!!!!!!! Amy just called, and we’re going to an orphanage at 3 today! Woohoo!

We aren’t operating today, due to lack of blood supply as well as patient complications. Monday, Wednesday, & Friday are usually clinic days. I guess the clinic is pretty crazy. Tuesday and Thursday are the normal operating days. I think I’m the only scrub tech here, & I’ve barely had any training at all. Dad says I might be assisting other surgeons. Eeep.

-Chloe