14 June 2010 Monday Goodby and hello

Monday 14 June 2010
From Beverly
The Mental Health team departed around 8:30 this morning for Port au Prince. Now, at 4 in the afternoon, we expect to hear that they have arrived very soon. The river crossing was uneventful for them. But last night, the 2 drivers coming from PaP were hit by a Haitian version of a tsunami (lavalas in Creole) as they were actually driving through the river! The car was totally flooded – they had water inside the car, up to their knees and had to be towed out. At least it was during the day and there actually was someone there to tow them. They were pretty well shaken up by the time they arrived. We are only guessing that there had been rain high up in the mountains because it was dry and sunny here.

We are expecting the arrival of the women's health team any minute. Their departure out of PaP was delayed by no cars actually being available at the car rental reservation. Luckily, Pere Kesner had arrived here on Sunday ( the head of St. Paul's church and over the region). He was able to make one call and arrange 2 drivers, a truck and a 4 wheel drive. Whew!

Anita and I remain at St. Paul's to support the women's health (WH) team. We will have 2 clinicians doing pelvic exams of women with specific complaints of vaginitis. CHP has heard about the seeming high prevalence of vaginitis for quite some time. This team will actually only see women patients, will take specimen and will look at them under a microscope in the field and diagnose/treat. Then we will share our findings with the local government clinic.

We will be going to one of the outlying communities for the first 2 days of clinic and then 3 days at St. Paul's. We have tried a new experiment – giving the Women Volunteers appointment cards to distribute, only 45 each day...and only women with the cards will be seen...we'll see how it works.