Jonas

I am currently in Fort Lauderdale, enroute home from Haiti and itching to start posting again. Not surprisingly, I have not had phone nor internet access so I'm anxious to pick up where I left off. My time in Haiti this time was very productive, but in different ways than when we were here at the field hospital. The pictures here were taken when we arrived on the island of LaGonave. Every time I come to LaGonave, Jonas is there with his broad smile, Haitian flag, and a hug. I was only on LaGonave for about 18 hours, having meetings with the schoolmaster of a primary/secondary school as well as the hospital administrator of the hospital in the same village of Anse-a-Galet. I was also able to swing by an orphanage not too far from there. The next day I returned to Port-au-Prince where I was given a tour of the parts of the city that were particularly hard-hit by the earthquake. The next day I traveled to Petit Goave to visit the field hospital that we had recently set up. Yesterday I was able to spend some time in a refugee camp that was visible from the Haitian home where I stayed while there.

I noticed a big difference in Haiti this trip (as compared to right after the quake). The media is gone. And, although there are a lot of relief agencies and work teams here right now, I just know that world attention shifting away to other things. Problem is, Haiti's humanitarian crisis is far from over. Hunger and lack of shelter will claim many lives over the next half year.

I will be sharing with you very soon about some ideas I have about helping the refugee camp I visited (around 200 families, I estimate). There are probably thousands of similar camps in Haiti right now ("tent cities" they are called here). And, of course, I can't do anything about that... but I figure I can help this one. Stay tuned... I think we just might be able to do something very cool.

It will be good to get home.

Steve