Cholera is spreading in Haiti

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/world/americas/15cholera.html

The hospital where Beverly is right now is Ground Zero for the cholera outbreak. Their blog is here:
http://www.hashaiti.org/blog

Petit Trou right now

Petit Trou is about under the "H" in the word "HAITI" on this map:

Beverly is back in Haiti

Beverly is the nurse from our team; she's back in Haiti right now, working at the Artibonite Valley Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, where the center of the cholera outbreak is.

That hospital's blog is here:
http://hashaiti.blogspot.com
...they seem to update it about every other day, so it's a good place to keep track of the Cholera outbreak.

And Bev's personal blog is here:
http://lyneglobalhealth.blogspot.com
She told me she'll do her best to update it, but of course internet access in Haiti can be iffy.

-Mike.

ps:
Tropical storm Tomas is expected to hit Haiti on Friday. Meanwhile, $500 million in US aid- your tax dollars- are being held up by a single Republicans senator from Oklahoma. He's been blocking that money since May.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90835

Bothered by that fact? Call your own senator 202-224-3121

A psychologist's perspective on Port-au-Prince

This is an interview with Sandrine, a woman we met in Pétionville, which is the neighborhood in Port-au-Prince where Mercy Corps is located (incidentally, also where Sean Penn's camp is).
http://www.mercycorps.org/lisahoashi/blog/22060?source=9840

Click here for a previous blog post with a picture of Sandrine, and the "bus school" she took us to!

Lauri is going to Zimbabwe

Lauri Benblatt was part of our June 2010 Mental Health Mission. She is a gifted psychotherapist in Boulder who specializes in art therapy. She is also an alum of Harvard's Program For Refugee Trauma.

Lauri is now raising funds for an upcoming trauma education trip to Zimbabwe, a land racked by the destructive earthquake known as the dictator Robert Mugabe. She's going with a group called Tariro:
http://www.tariro.org

If you'd like to help Lauri, please write LAURI BENBLATT in the memo line of your tax-deductable check, made out to:
Tariro
P.O. box 50273
Eugene, Oregon 97405

-Mike.

Art from Colorado kids to Haiti kids

During the June Trauma and Medical mission, we brought a big stack of art made by kids in Colorado to give to the kids of St. Paul's school in Petit Trou. Some of the Colorado kids even wrote some phrases in French on their masterpieces. We snuck out at night to tape the imported children's art up all over the school walls, so the school would be decorated upon everyone's arrival.

After Lauri's art therapy session with the first grade class, we handed the rest of them out individually. The Haitian kids were thrilled to get art from other faraway kids and compared and traded with one another.

Here's some pictures.

-Mike.

Art therapy with first-graders from Port-au-Prince

While in Petit-Trou, we all (including the first grade teachers from St Paul's school there) helped Lauri to run an art therapy session with the first grade kids. A lot of them are "new arrivals" - coming to St Paul's since the earthquakes for various reasons. Some are orphans, some had their house destroyed and now live with relatives in or near Petit-Trou, etc. The first-graders are the ones with the most behavioral problems, so we singled them out.

The first picture is the response to the question, "How many of you lost a loved one in the earthquakes"? You can see that many of the kids drew houses in the first project, "Draw something that makes you feel good." We all thought it was really telling that many of the kids also drew a picture of the school.

The teachers thought it was such a success that they plan on doing this with the kids every Friday!

-Mike