The last few days in Hispaniola

I realize I've delegated blogging to Johnny...I guess I can wrap up our adventure tonight :)

What a week. Yesterday was pretty eventful because one of the Haitian staff at the school fell while hopping out of a pick up truck and broke his wrist. The staff member, "Boss" Solon, was unloading fuel and then slipped while getting down. Everyone at the school is tired, and on top of that, he lost his son in the earthquake. He hasn't slept well since. Luckily there are 150 doctors staying on the school's campus. Of that 150, there were a few German orthopedic doctors that wrapped his wrist immediately and connected us with their team at one of the local hospitals that is still functioning. We got him there and into the xray room within 20 minutes of arriving. I guess that means 1 of 2 things...1 we were hooked up pretty good by the Germans, and/or 2, the initial emergency is taken care of so hospitals aren't as crowded. After some turf issues between the American and German ortho surgeons on site, Boss Solon was given local anasthesia as they set his broken wrist. We re-xrayed and everything looked great. Mission accomplished.

When we got back to the school, I did some data entry and talked with students during their breaks. I was able to see a few new faces around campus--more students seem to be coming back to Haiti. Unfortunately many are also leaving, so it is a constant cycle of kids in the school. Meanwhile, Johnny helped carry cokes to the Army guys stationed on campus. He was happy to report that he carried the cases all the way from the trucks to the Army tents, while the army guys had to take a break. Haha.

Oh, I've also been dealing with a cold that has definitely been a distraction. Yesterday, I had to blow my nose every five minutes or so then rub a little hand sanny in to protect everyone else :) I'm slowly coming over it now, but it's still driving me crazy.

This morning we decided to catch a ride back into Jacmel to hopefully meet up with our pilot. When we arrived, we found out our pilot changed his plans. That meant we needed to get on whatever flight we could out of Jacmel or stay there over night. We found a great pilot that took us into Santiago. You meet a lot of interesting people involved with disaster relief. We rode into the Domincan Republic with an ER doctor that has been all over the world. Very neat guy. Then we found out that a hotel near the airport has reduced rates for relief workers. What a relief :) We met more interesting people here that have been bringing supplies into Haiti since the first 30 hours after the quake. Amazing.

Our plan is to get up early and head back to the airport tomorrow. We should be on the first flight to the US and on our way back to Dallas by the afternoon. I am sad to leave Haiti behind (again), but excited about the prospects of raising support and awareness of the continuing needs there. No doubt CNN and Fox News will drop news coverage of the situation (if they haven't already), but we need people to continue to pray for and support Haiti. The worst may or may not be over....we are now in what we call "secondary infection" stage. Not to mention there will be needs that will emerge as time goes on. Please don't let your interest in Haiti wane with the news coverage!