Activities - Monday

 

Monday was an exciting day full of surprises! We were driving past Delmas 33/Gerard Bataille intersection and saw a body on the ground. As we got closer we noticed it was that of a child. The girl was laying in the middle of the road on the 2-lane road. We stopped our vehicle and then motioned for the vehicles in the next lane to stop. A couple of young men carried her away from the middle of the road. We saw that she was still alive. The guys who were carrying her said that a bus like the one pictured above hit her in a hit and run.

The girl was by herself. A couple of the young guys helped her into the back of our truck and we drove to Bernard Mevs/Project Medishare Hospital with a police escort. She had an obviously broken left leg. The triage department splinted her leg.

Preparations were made to prepare her to be placed on a backboard and then onto a stretcher before going into the emergency room.

The xray machine was broken and personnel told us to transfer her to the Medecins Sans Frontieres Trauma Hospital on Tabarre. In the meantime the parents of the girl arrived at the hospital and they accompanied us to the other hospital. Yesterday afternoon I called the girls' mother to see how she was doing. They brought her into surgery for internal bleeding in her abdomen. She will need further surgery for her broken bones. Her left leg was broken in 3 places and her pelvis was broken as well. The girl was conscious when we brought her to hospital. What worried her the most was that she needed to go to school in August. Pray for this girl and family. She is going to have a difficult time for the next couple of weeks, but she is getting excellent care. The doctors at the hospital told the family that they would need to donate blood at the Red Cross. I am glad that we were able to get her to the hospital quickly and that she didn't bleed to death while waiting for care.

As we were driving back from the hospital I saw this billboard. Translated into English it reads: "Choose Peace - Violence destroys our lives". It was difficult to understand how someone could just drive away after injuring someone in the accident. I hope that the passengers riding on that bus turned the driver into the police.

Angelica Dorane came to our house in the morning to register for her first year of schooling for the new school year.

She is a bright happy young girl.

This happy young boy is her brother Dieuniferson. We were driving Dieuniferson, Angelica and their mother to the St. Germaine Physiotherapy Center on Tabarre when we came across the accident with the injured girl on the road. The family accompanied us on our travels to the 2 hospitals. Dieuniferson has cerebral palsy. He can't talk but does understand what is said to him. Hopefully with physiotherapy Dieuniferson will one day be able to walk. The program costs 200H$ plus a 200H$ deposit to make sure that the person follows the program. This works out to $50US for the program. The mother had once been registered into the program but had stopped going because she didn't have money for a tap-tap. We told the administration office that we would make sure that the mother kept her physiotherapy appointments and they agreed to accept Dieuniferson back into the program. Dieuniferson and his family live in the Camp Accra refug camp.

Yesterday Ted Ronaldo Lamisere and his father came to the house to go and see Dr. Pilie to get an echographie done on his heart. He was born with a congenital heart defect.

The echographie costs $60US. We will be contacting 3 organizations that we know who find medical care to see if they can help Ted with a heart surgery. Please keep Ted and his family in prayer and prayer that a heart surgery is found for him.

While we were driving down Delmas, near Airport Rd. we were stopped in traffic and these 2 young boys approached us begging for money.

Peter is the name of this child. We noticed his face had some sores on it. We asked him about it and he said that while he was sleeping somebody burnt his face. He looks to be around 11 years old. He doesn't know his age and has never been to school. He comes from Cap Haitien. His father died and his mother is in the Dominican Republic. His extended family sent someone with him to Port-au-Prince and he was left there. He hasn't been on the street long. He is going to stay with us here at Coram Deo until we can find a placement in an orphanage. Pray for Peter, that his burns heal, and that we can find a placement for him.

Mothers and their hydrocephalus babies are starting to travel into Port-au-Prince from the countryside. Maguy, who is the hydrocephalus project co-ordinator called me yesterday to see if we could pick up a couple of mothers and their babies until the neurosurgery team arrives to Haiti on Wednesday morning. These 2 mothers came in from Aux Cayes.

Yesterday night the North West Haiti Mission called to say that they were bringing in 3 mothers and their hydrocephalus babies in from the north part of Haiti - Port de Paix. We had 6 mothers and babies sleeping overnight last night. Tonight we will have 9. The guys are giving up their rooms while the mothers and their babies are here. Pray for all the surgeries that will take place at Bernard Mevs/Project Medishare Hospital from July 10-12.

Demolition/Construction work is ongoing in our neighborhood. Finally the house on our street corner is being completely demolished.

This house collapsed during the earthquake and 3 people inside it were killed. Since that day it has been a daily reminder of the earthquake every day we drive past our street corner. It is great to see the rubble finally being removed :)

A couple of dump trucks removed the mound of debris on the street yesterday afternoon.

This is a view of Rue Magua on the other side of Delmas 31. Construction is being done for building curbs and sidewalks.

Delmas 31 is now completely paved from bottom to top! Workers are building sidewalks now.

The back road to the airport is also being worked on. This section of road now has a fresh coat of asphalt!

The mayor has ordered owners of properties to move back their walls 2 meters to prepare for sidewalks and curbs!

It sure is nice driving on an asphalt road!

On the corner of Delmas and Airport Rd is a large billboard advertising a project for the construction of an overpass.

This intersection will be one of 2 overpasses to be constructed in Port-au-Prince, a first for Haiti! The project length is projected to last 18 months and is being financed by the Petro Caribe program of Venezuela.

On main Delmas are a lot of solar powered street lights which will illimunate main Delmas during the evenings. Another new project done by the government :) I love seeing positive changes in Haiti! Pray for all the road building projects that are taking place throughout Port-au-Prince.

Nephew John - Surgery - Hydrocephalus

 

While I was in Canada my nephew John was hospitalized with a problem to his shunt. London Health Sciences Centre is not far from my parent's home.

John's shunt was blocked and not functioning. A neurosurgeon replaced the shunt and a general surgeon did the surgery on his abdomen to place the tubing in that area for the shunt to drain. My niece Laura is sitting with her brother John in bed.

Hospitals in Canada are far ahead in technology and care than hospitals in Haiti. The children in the pediatrics department can watch television and have internet access at their bedside.

My dad is sitting in one of the chairs in John's room.

A view from the window of Johns's room, of the "Forest City"; London, Ontario, Canada

John came through the surgery well but then started to develop complications.

He was starting to have stomach pains. Every day his abdominal pains grew progressively worse and sometimes he would scream in pain when someone touched him. The doctors determined that he had something going on in his abdomen. Fluid from the shunt was accumulating in his abdomen and wasn't being absorbed into his body. The scar tissue from previous surgeries was part of the problem as well. John had over a liter of fluid in his abdomen. I returned to Haiti on Tuesday and this week John had surgery to remove the shunt tubing from his abdomen. Currently he has an external drain bag where fluid from the shunt in his brain is drained into. In a week or so he will have another surgery to place the shunt tubing this time near his lung/heart area. Yesterday John was unresponsive. They did an EEG and there was no brain activity. He was in a coma. Later in the afternoon he woke up from his coma. Doctors, nurses and my family don't know really what caused John's coma, but we give the Lord thanks that he is alive and out of his coma. Please keep John in prayer as he recovers from the surgery this week and his coma and also as he undergoes another surgery soon. Pray for my sister Tanya and family as they look after John.

The last time I visited the hospital we saw and Orange ambulance there. I pray that Haiti will one day have medical care services like in Canada.

On Johns' hospital room wall are a couple of class photos. This is a dress up photo one day this year that was taken at the school he attends.

Clarke Road Secondary School in London, Ontario has an excellent special education program. Mr. Van Niekerk (Mr. V) has been John's teacher for the last couple of years. John has always been a happy child and loves to joke around. At a school assembly during the school year he sang O Canada in English and in French :)

For people who don't know John's history we found him in the abandoned children's ward at General Hospital here in Port-au-Prince 16 years ago. At the time he was a 1-month-old baby with a huge head. He wasn't able to feed properly and was fed with a feeding tube. Tanya made a visit to Haiti when John was a few months old and tried to feed him with a baby bottle. Amazingly he started to suck from the bottle. People here in Haiti said that John had no brain and that nothing could be done for him. Tanya went back to Canada and talked with Dr John Delmaestro who was a neurosurgeon at London Health Sciences Center. He agreed to do the surgery to place a shunt into John's brain.

We did the paperwork necessary for John to travel to Canada and were able to bring him to Canada. Here is Tanya changing John's clothes at the airport in Toronto.

Because John is from Haiti he wasn't able to get free medical care under Canada's health systems. People from across Canada donated money to pay for the hospitalization and surgery. Over $80,000 was raised to cover these costs. And today John has proven not only that he has a brain but he can bring a smile to everyone's face who meets him. John is a lesson for all of us.

Manu's Violin Concerto :)

 

Yesterday evening we attended a special music concert at Quisqueya Chapel. Manu would be playing the violin!

A music mission team from Conneticut spent one week at Quisqueya Chapel holding a music camp for children from the church, mission schools, and orphanages located within the church neighborhood. Ronald Pierre is a talented Haitian musician who leads the music program at Quisqueya chapel. Mrs. Topple (not sure of the spelling), to the right of Ronald was leader of the music team from Conneticut.

These young people from Conneticut sure could sing!

They sang most of their songs in creole.

Mrs. Topple and 4 of her children are pictured here playing a song. The Haitian man playing the saxophone is a World Vision worker. The Topple family is very talented!

Her son who played the guitar plays very well. Manu really wants to play the guitar and is eager to get guitar lessons. I have a guitar that was donated back in Canada but have to find a way to get it here to Haiti.

Here is Manu playing the violin :) After one week of lessons these children put on a concert!

The children's choir sounded great!

The orchestra played well too :)

In one week the children had memorized the songs which were sung in creole and english too.

From young children to teenagers the children sang together well.

You could tell from the picture some of the children were really into the singing :)

The music team did a great job at working with the children!

Mrs. Topple wrote some of the songs that were sang at the concert. The theme song was entitled "Kembe Fem, Pa Lage"; which translates as Stand Strong, Don't Give Up. A great theme song for the Haitian people. I bought a barbecue dinner for Manu as a thank you for playing his violin concerto :)