What day is it?

More personnel arrived at our MASH today. We now are 25 strong, consisting of
about half doctors, the rest nurses, a couple of journalist, and a variety of
other professions. A congressman and senator, I understand, will be coming in
tomorrow for a quick visit.

The Army has established a military base a few hundred yards from us. That is
comforting to know.

There is a small hospital down the road from here that was destroyed in the
earthquake... All except for their surgery room, interestingly. So we have sent
our surgeons down there a few times to perform some of our larger surgery
cases: amputations and the like.

Our group has grown to the point where we feel we must spread out in order to
make best use of our resources. Tomorrow, therefore, we are sending a mobile
medical team of 10 to the village of Leogane not too far from here to see what
we can do there. The rest (including myself) will stay back in Petit Goave to
tend to the needs here.

We have an interesting development... We have been informed that military
geologists are predicting yet another earthquake, potentially larger than the
first. For this reason, we are joining our Haitian friends in not sleeping
indoors. Our army neighbors gave us two large tents which will serve as our
homes for the duration of our time here. (After experiencing a 6.0 let me tell
you I do NOT want to be in even a small building if another one hits.

I remain intensely humbled by the enormity of the task here and by the Haitian
people's dependency on others to help them. One told me, "This is our 9-11." I
agree with him.

There seemed to be more hurt and sorrow today. I think the most poignant moment
was while I debrided the deep and infected wounds of a young woman. Despite me
being as gentle as I could be, she wailed in pain, crying, "Jesi! Jesi!"

And I cried too.

Thanks for the kind comments and prayers.

Steve