Stop the Jeep!

The Jeep literally was a "mobile clinic" at Los Palais.

After seeing 46 patients at mobile clinic yesterday, we were all ready to head home. We got word though that a woman was having trouble in labor. We drove straight to her home and had her laid out in the Jeep to take her to the hospital. Along the way, we stopped once to do a quick check. No head yet! But a few minutes later, Marie-Ange, one of the midwives, yelled for the Jeep to stop. As we came to a halt, I could already hear the baby crying. He came out all on his own! Luckily, the midwives had everything they needed for the birth beforehand, so everything went smoothly. Pictures to prove it!

I am handing Philemon a clean cloth diaper for the baby.

I had a good last week with another successful group. We all took a trip out to where MFH first started – about a 15 minute drive to a little nunnery. We saw their first classroom, a dirt clearing under a tree, and the house where the volunteers stayed those first months. It’s amazing how far the program has come! All in good time.

Baby en route!

We would not have been able to make that trip if we hadn’t cancelled our meeting in Port-au-Prince. I think I mentioned this before, but MFH is vying for national accreditation and approval from the Haitian Department of Health (MSPP). We found out last minute that the MSPP Director and other administrators all wanted to be present at our meeting, and so we decided to call the whole the whole thing off and reschedule. We are hoping to have a good turnout next time around!

To finish off the week, I went on a bike ride with my friends Brother Michael and Brother Bill, who help run Maison Fortune Orphanage. We rode and we rode looking for a school that Brother Mike wanted to see. Though we never made it there, we biked through beautiful scenery (most of the way was up) and even happened upon a World Vision construction site. What looked like an athletic center with land cleared for fields, we asked the security guards what was planned for the enormous building. They could not give us a definitive answer. It looked so out of place in an extremely rural and poor landscape. Out of all the things that World Vision, or anyone for that matter, could build, how could this make sense when people didn’t have clean water or proper housing? Unfortunately for Haiti, these sites are no surprise.