Tents and tarps

Medical needs in Haiti continue to be a challenge and will continue to be so for a long while. In the near term we were hoping to connect with needs closer to Port Au Prince at the end of this month, but making connections there has proven difficult. In reading other blogs we continue to read about there being a mismatch between where medical personnel are and where they are needed. The coordination efforts are very challenging. Because the February team is a small team (3) with a limited amount of time; the best use of our resources appears to be shifting to our April 7th trip when we'll have a full medical team of 12 on the ground focussing on the sites where we have established a presence. Although Les Cayes was not directly hit with substantial damage from the quake, there were many aftershocks felt by everyone. The needs there are very real with many refugees who have returned to live with families. After a long conversation with Amoce we learned that people are afraid to go back into their houses to sleep and they're sleeping outside using bedsheets as tents. Even after engineers told them their houses are safe, they remain afraid. Last week there was a stampede at an elementary school in Cayes caused by a workman accidentally dropping a large sheet of plywood with a large bang. The loud noise caused the children to flee the school in fear and the result was broken arms and legs. Amoce has had people asking him for tents; people in the area recognize that he has resources through the work we do together. We're fortunate to have a large team going down so we'll have adequate baggage space to bring down tents and tarps. We explained to Amoce that the people need to understand the tents will not be completely weatherproof; if it rains for very long, they'll begin to drip. Hopefully, given enough time, the Haitian people will begin to feel that their homes are safe to return to. In the meantime, we're buying a supply of tents and tarps to take down.