Monday, June 17, 2013

Ready, Set, Haiti

At the request of many, and in an attempt to ensure I am able to record in some way my upcoming trip, I've revived my old blog from my days living in China. Fear not - those fantastic diagrams and pictures aren't going anywhere - I just thought it'd be fun to continue the same blog rather than build a whole new one (read: I'm lazy).

I'm currently t-minus around three hours from lift off. To summarize for those who aren't clear, I'll be spending the next nine days (June 18th through the 26th) in Port Au Prince, Haiti volunteering for the organization EMPACT Northwest/EMPACT Haiti. While I will spend a few days volunteering in a hospital run by another NGO - Project Medishare - the majority of my time will be spent teaching. Myself and the other volunteer Nicole will be administering a modified "continuing education" class for Haitian EMT's, very similar to the continuing education all EMT's in the United States receive regularly.

I'm still learning more about the genesis of the program myself, but as it was explained to me, following the earthquake in 2010, bilingual university students who were lucky enough to survive the devastation began acting as translators for foreign aid workers traveling to Haiti. Over time, the students picked up much of the medical knowledge needed to perform an initial patient assessment, until someone had the bright idea to continue the training formally. As time has passed, EMPACT's mission in Haiti itself has began to focus on maintaining, supporting, and growing this program.

So, in an effort to do something a little bit different and maybe a little bit more important than the normal, I'm jumping ship. I managed to avoid checking a bag (American Airlines, with two transfers on the way down AND it's an international trip = high probability of bag loss), so here's hoping I don't get questioned too much about the slightly larger than normal bottles of liquid...

This is roughly what I managed to squeeze into my trusty Deuter. I did ultimately need a "personal item" about the size of a gym bag to carry my computer and some clothes that didn't fit. A general overview of what went in:

1 mosquito bed net
1 air mattress
1 VERY light weight fleece sleeping bag thingy
2 empty water bottles
2 large bottles of de-worming medication for children
1 box of gloves
1 headlamp
Flip flops, crocs, and lightweight athletic shoes
A super awesome teal fanny pack
A wad of $1 dollar bills (for making it rain)
Assorted synthetic shirts, pants
Snack food
wet wipes
Ibuprofen
Antimalarial medication
...And some other random stuff.

At any rate, as this is such a short trip, I'll do my best to get a post in every day or two, hopefully highlighting how the trip is going and helping highlight the current state of things in Haiti.

2 comments:

Huskychemist (aka Lowell) said...

Have a great trip Nick. I'm glad to see the blog coming back to life. I even re-read a few posts from your days in Qufu. Great stuff.

Unknown said...

Awesome! Look forward to the upcoming blogs :)