Getting Ready for Haiti: Doctor's Visit

The whole family went to see Dr. O'Donnell for an International Health Check-up. We all got typhoid vaccines, Corey and I got polio, and Luc and Anna Ray got TB tests and are to start getting the three series rabies vaccines. The Doctor also helped us with some antibiotic prescriptions and chloroquine prophylaxis to prevent malaria for the whole family! It was a long, but very very helpful visit. I will miss doctors whom I know, trust, and speak English!

FOR RENT

Today we put the FOR RENT sign in our front yard. I spent most of the afternoon pushing Corey to complete the tasks of getting the sign up in the yard hoping that at least one chore of the many would be done and we could get on with our afternoon. Assuming that I would feel some ease and relief with the sign up, it came as a surprise to me and the family when I started crying as soon as I saw it standing in our front yard. It made our move to Haiti so final, real, and so public. It felt a little like getting married- the finality that comes with making such hard vows in front of so many people that we hope not to disappoint. I hope that our work will not be futile, but life-giving. I hope to share the love and joys of the Haitian people. I hope not only for health in my family, but growth. I hope that we are changed. Still... it’s hard to leave home.

Recent Trip: Where We Will Live

David Sella

My first thought about Port Salut is ‘I like the road.’ Port Salut feels like a different country compared to the remote villages of Rossier and Fond des Blancs. We stopped for lunch on the beach- lobster, fish, french fries, and coke. There were many Haitians eating, picnicking. This is the first time that I have seen Haitians recreating in a formal recreation area and the first time that I have ever seen Haitians eating in public. There normally is so little food to go around that eating is not the same recreational sport, doesn’t have the same festive tone that eating does for us in the US. The beach is clean and sandy. The ocean is full of varying brightness of blues. Hatians having a good time. The man next to me is wearing a Carnaval mask dancing with another young man- women, men, children sitting in the back of the truck, chattering, jeering, encouraging.
David Sella