Monday was a great day in the clinic, Dr. Sarah initiated our first patient into the Medika Mamba program, we saw well over 30 children and I was able to give fresh vegetables from the garden to a family who was unable to feed their children adequately…life is good I tell you…
My hopes for the garden we have here have not only been that we can feed ourselves with fresh organic veggies but also that we can feed patients as well as teach them how to garden, give them the tools they need and be a source of information if they have questions. Today I was able to make all three happen in one day! Dieula (our chef extraordinaire) has been taking it upon herself to pick us salad greens for meals from the garden. This may not seem like a big step but when none of the Haitian’s living here will eat these greens so this small gesture is quite impressive. I can understand their hesitation in eating our spicy arugula or the bitter beet greens or the foreign bok choy however my hope is that one day I will come downstairs during dinner and find a each person taking a few spoonfuls of the salad or greens for their plate…a girl can hope can’t she. So anyway, I also showed Dieula that we have green beans, green onions and basil out in the yard that she can use for cooking, all of which she was excited about using. Either that or she has gotten good at feigning excitement while I grin and talk quickly like a child who has had too much sugar. Regardless I am happy to be able to eat out of our amazing garden.
As far as feeding patients with our food, today after the intake and treatment I took a young girl who was eating dirt and failing to gain weight and her mother out to the garden to give them some food. I was unable to provide money for them to feed their extended family (the mother runs an orphanage locally that takes care of 23 kids) but I felt good about being able to feed them from our garden. We walked around while I picked bunches of bok choy, explaining how they can use this vegetable in cooking. We also grabbed, beets, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, chard and a few green beans. I also inquired about whether or not the family had space to garden in their yard and though mom was unsure of the amount of area she had I am pretty sure we could help them grow at least a few plants…we are planning on hooking up with them to do a village clinic for their other kiddos so we can do some recon at that time and be able to assess for garden space. It just made me so happy to use our garden therapeutically. This is something I would love to do locally at home as well, Portland is currently experiencing a “locavore” movement so it seems like people are really interested in this kind of idea.
Another patient had come in a few weeks back with his son and the gentlemen who built the shade houses had given him some seeds. I asked if he had planted them as he was excited about the prospect of having his own garden. He said he was waiting for the rain to stop as it would wash away the seeds. It has been raining here more often this last month (when I say rain I mean pouring usually then it clears up to a cloudless sunny day) so I can understand his hesitation. I offered some information about how we chose to grow some of our plants in small cups and then transfer them into the ground when they got large enough. He inquired more about this and then I got him some cups we had used and some good dirt to start them with. I also gave him a few more seeds so he could have multiple foods growing. I could see how happy he was about being able to garden himself (did I mention every time he comes to the clinic he spends a good 30 minutes walking around the garden, he also came and listened to me as I was telling the other patient about the uses of bok choy and chard). This kind of desire to learn and know more about things is just what I was hoping our project would stimulate!
No comments:
Post a Comment