Montrouis

I'm playing a little catch-up here. Friday afternoon we headed up to Montrouis, pronounced "Mon-We." There is an orphange there of approximately 25 children that we went and did "well checks" on and of course treated for anything we may have found, usually colds or stomach aches. These children live in a two bedroom house and paint. Their paintings are quite good, this coming from someone who can not even draw a stick figure. We also checked out the adults who worked at the orphanage and cared for the children. One man had TB. Horrible sounding lungs, coughing all over everyone. We referred him to Hospital Albert Sweitzer. We saw a few little babies that were sick with colds, some runny noses, and quite a few impacted ears. Nothing too extreme. We worked hard. Some of the community kiddos snuck in and in all we treated about 50 people on Friday. Friday afternoon we played. And we played hard. We spent the night at Indigo Beach Resort which is a club med of sorts. It's quite luxurious around here, most of us Americans would consider it probably a glorified Super 8. But it was nice. They have a pool, the ocean is beautiful and we had a great suppers with some local music and dancing. Soaked up a lot of sun! Thank you to my great-granfather for the Greek blood coarsing through my blood that makes it so I tan beautifully and do not burn. Fantastic. We did a lot of swimming, especially with our interpreters. Matt, Lesly, Big Mack, and Steevenson had never swam before. It isn't part of their culture. In fact many Haitians are scared of water. It took some coaxing to get them in the water, especially Big Mack. It was so funny. This boy is probably about 6'8" and standing in 5 feet of water he was clutching to us with dear life. Poor child. They acclamated well though and had a fantastic time. We sat and played on the beach and watched the sunset. It was gorgeous (pictures to come). It felt like two entirely different days, in two entirely different places. Saturday we returned to the orphanage but this time opened our "doors" to the community, we held a pediatric clinic. We had gotten them to spread the word that we'd only be treating children. So once again, lots of runny noses, dirty ears, UTI's and vaginal infections. We did see a little boy that had an abscess on his head. It was painful to touch. All we had was topical lidocaine and a scapal. Kirk (our MD) lanced it and drained it. This kid did not budge or shed one tear the entire time, although we could all tell that he was in pain. It was amazing. I played in the pharmacy this time. I actually really enjoyed it. Dosing and disensing meds. Looking up dosaging for amoxicillin based on weight and mixing. A little different for me and I loved it. It was a fantastic weekend. Probably my favorite part of the whole trip.