Life as the Patels

Haiti - Limonade

2012-02-11T17:27:00.003-05:00

The following day we headed to a rural town called Limonade. It was about 30-40 minutes outside Cap-Hatien.

The countryside.

We set up our clinic in a Judo gym. The patients laid down on stacks of gym mats.

The Moral Code of Judo

We saw a mixture of adults and children. We did extractions, sealants, and ART, which is atraumatic restorative technique. In other words, we use hand instruments instead of a drill to do a filling. It's painless, so it doesn't require anesthetic. We saw a total of 50 patients that day.

The Team

Bamboo Basketball Hoop

Our day in Limonade was a great experience and was just like what we expected from this trip.

First Clinic Day

2012-02-11T16:38:00.002-05:00

The first day we treated patients, we went to the local hospital's dental clinic. The clinic had two dental chairs. We were supposed to do fillings and show the Haitian dentists how to use the different filling materials. We thought the local dentists were going to bring their own patients; it didn't turn out as we had hoped. It was poorly organized and the Haitian dentists were the ones showing us how to do fillings. Apparently, there were some miscommunications. After the day was done, we were sitting in the hallway and one of the ladies from the clinic was sweeping up the medical waste that had ended up on the floor. She swept it out the door and we all thought that she was going to put it in the garbage can. When we walked out, she had just swept it into the grass, next to the garbage can. Anna, the resident who came with us, put on some gloves and put the trash inside the trash can. The streets of Haiti were full of trash. There was maybe one garbage can in the whole city. There is no trash removal service or sewage system. After the first day we weren't sure what the rest of the trip would hold, but we were pleasantly surprised.

Haiti Beach Day

2012-02-08T19:14:00.002-05:00

We weren't seeing patients until Monday so we had all of Saturday and Sunday to ourselves. Saturday we chilled around the hotel and then decided to walk over to the art market. The market was on the water and there were vendors selling their art out of storage units. I decided to buy some of their oil paintings. The only mistake I made was to buy them early. The rest of the time I was there, I would get mobbed and everyone would want me to buy something.

After shopping

The paintings

On Sunday, we went to a Catholic service in town. The service was in Creole, so I couldn't understand it. What was amazing was that there were maybe 2000 people in attendance and we were told that is normal attendance. There were lots kids and they were well-behaved throughout the two-hour service.

After church, I needed to get some sunglasses, so we headed to "The Market" to find some. Dr. Suszko decided to come along and show us the way. We were actually talking about different markets. He took us to "The Market," which is basically a farmers' market that sells everything. It is in a huge, dark warehouse and smelled like feces. It was crowded and we wanted to get out of there as fast as we could. After that, we ran into three teenagers who had poured old motor oil over their bodies and had whistles. They came at us screaming and asking for money, but we kept walking to try to get away from them. We made a huge circle to get back to our hotel but they still ran into us three times.

After that very eventful morning, we decided to head over the mountains to Combine Sainte Beach. The road to the beach was rocky and narrow. Luckily, the weather was perfect and the water was warm. We spent a good 5-6 hours there.

We had a great weekend and enjoyed exploring the markets and beach. After a relaxing weekend, it was time to get to work.