Susan's part: I have a feeling Sam's day will be much more adventurous than mine today. It's nearly 8 p.m. and he's been gone from the Maison since 6 a.m. on a little adventure. My day was "another day at the office" type of day. Because all the vehicles were gone from the Maison this morning when it was time for us to go to the Bel-aire clinic we got to ride in the open, flat bed truck for the 5 mile, 1 hour trip through Port-au-Prince. They threw three single bed size mattresses onto the bed of the truck and we climbed in and made ourselves comfortable. I'm sure it was quite a sight to see the "blancs" riding through the streets...at least we had plenty of stares. We did take a little different route this a.m. and drove past the Presidential Palace. We were going fairly fast so all I had time to do was click a few pictures as we flew by. Arriving at the clinic we got busy getting ready to see the already large group of patients waiting for us. I'm sure I was exposed to many things again today, including probable active TB. Glad I'm healthy and up to date on my immunizations. I'm also praying God gives me an extra measure of protection while I'm doing this job. I really enjoyed this morning. There was a group of Haitian Nazarenes who came to the church this morning to sing, pray, and worship. With the clinic on the second floor balcony and the sanctuary open below it was easy to hear them...and they are not quiet! I found myself humming along and praising God as I was taking blood pressures. I saw some of the patients sitting there singing as they were waiting. They sang and prayed for nearly 4 hours. We are seeing a lot of patients with post-traumatic syndrome with many vague complaints. There is a lot of high blood pressure, both in the city and in the rural areas. Beautiful people! Just after we had triaged our last patient for the day one other nurse and I gathered up the wound care supplies and walked across the muddy street to the house of the little lady with the leg wound. We took care of her wound then finished packing up for the day before climbing back onto the flat-bed for our trip home to the Maison. Just a little sprinkling rain on our way...enough to keep us cool without soaking us. Great supper of spaghetti tonight with just a few people here to enjoy it with. It's nice and quiet tonight, very peaceful.
Sam will write his part of today tomorrow as he was exhausted after getting back after 10 pm.
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