Update day!
We met with Eyleen who works in “Peanut Processing” at Medika Mamba (what a cool graduate fellowship huh?) and we are planning on heading over to the local hospital Tuesday morning to see how the program is run at the Justinian hospital (the big community hospital in Cap Haitien). Medika Mamba has received a grant to fund sites for use of the program which will include enough Medika Mamba to reefed 10-11 children per month as well as other medications used in the program and some of the supplies needed to assess the children’s growth. I am so stoked that we got hooked up with her and we also learned that the manufacturing plant is only about 15 minutes away so we are planning on heading over there on Wednesday to check things out. We will be receiving our supplies to implement this fantastic program as soon as the training is complete!
Yesterday we met with the directors and one of the nurses of a program that is about 30 minutes from here in a rural area just south of us. It is called Children of the Promise and they are a center for children who need medical assistance as they are too sick to be at home, most cases appear to require re-feeding as the children are severely malnourished or for children who have parents that can no longer take care of them. Currently they have 48 (If I remember correctly) kiddos at their center with an amazing 3:1 or 2:1 ratio of nannies to kids!! The goal is to help the children regain health and then to reunite them with families if possible. If they cannot go back to their families then COTP facilitates adoptions for the remaining children and provides care while the adoptions are in the works (read many, many years). They are great people who are working hard to make sure that these children are getting the care they deserve. I am excited to go out and visit their facility and to have them as a potential resource for those who need a little extra TLC.
The newly planted seeds in the shade houses are growing like crazy! It has been a little over a week and the seedlings are now anywhere between 1-3 inches tall! Our last volunteers also planted some collards, onions and radishes in the main garden that are also growing substantially. I guess the last few days of rain have been really good for the crops because I can literally SEE things growing. As the avid greens eater than I am, I have been overjoyed at the large amounts of arugula, beet greens and chard we have been eating at least once a day. Even our fantastic cook Deila has taken it upon herself to go out and harvest some of the greens for salads-this amazes me as most of the Haitians want to have nothing to do with our “bitter” greens J
We have the next few days off as Easter is a big holiday around here so most Haitians have Friday-Tuesday off to celebrate- our staff has taken a much needed break! I will be taking this time to study some of the botanicals that the students brought that I have never heard of, research some of the other outreach projects that I am excited to try and implement during my time here and to sit around and watch movies…all completely contingent on electricity but I am hopeful that they will be nice and give us many hours as it IS a holiday weekend and all.
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