Wow what a crazy 48 hours. I hardly know where to begin but I will try. We received a call from our friends at Partners in Health on Thursday October 21 at about 9am asking if we could partner up with them to try to stop an epidemic of cholera. Well David called me and asks if I wanted to go help people get safe water to drink and I said for sure. Within 3 short hours I had 2 trucks loaded full with 2 water systems and all the tools and other supplies we could carry --was not for sure what to expect. The drive is about 2 to 3 hours from Port au Prince. When we arrived in Saint Marc we went straight to the hospital and talked to our friends at Partners in Health. Upon our arrival at the hospital it was very unnerving what I saw-- there were hundreds of patients laying everywhere. There were many that were dying or next to it everywhere. I saw a nurse try several times to put an iv into a girl that was about 10 years old that was so dehydrated that finally they had to put a band around her neck and finally was able to get an iv in her neck. This girl was so sick she could not hold herself up in the wheelchair. I later ask about her and was told she did not make it. I wanted to cry as I realized that most of the people I was looking at would not live to see another sunrise and unfortunately I was right.
Cholera what is it and why were people dying from it so fast it is a bacterium that got into the river where these villagers draw their water from and due to all the flooding that has happened in the last few weeks it appears that cholera got into the water. This seems to move very fast on the young and elders mainly because cholera causes diarrhea and vomiting. Well, you can guess what happened at first they were given more water by their family members to keep them from getting dehydrated but instead was making them more sick.
Ok back to the hospital well as you can imagine the smells of diarrhea, vomiting and yes even the smell of death was very strong at the hospital. I immediately told David lets go we have to get clean water to these people before more die. We immediately jumped back into our trucks and drove about 45 mins. to 1 hour to the place where a lot of cases had been reported to us by the doctors. We encounter 1000’s of desperate people begging for water. I also encountered several road blocks --by people that refused to let people go on because they wanted water. This is where God helped in a mighty way. We safely made it through each road block and were able to go to a small village that had not had any water for over 2 days. We jumped out and within 2 hours the first glass of clean was served. We then loaded up and left one man there to run the system all night and told him we would come back with more systems in the morning. We arrived back in Port Au Prince at 11:30 pm.
6am awake and on the road again wondering what we would face and how much more death we would face we went straight to the warehouse and loaded up as much as we could load and left for Saint Marc again. Again we stopped by the hospital and were told another 100 had died throughout the night. My heart broke as I knew many were children I had seen yesterday. I immediately ask the doctor where we were needed for the biggest impact on the water front and she stated around the same place as yesterday. She also stated that they were going to look at another village in a different area and would call us later. We left and was relieved to see our guys sitting there running the water system and had been through the night. People were very happy and smiling. We then were told of a village about 30 min father that needed help well you know me I yelled to everyone to get into the trucks and off we went.
Dauphin a small village were most have never been and many could not get to due to the condition of the roads. As we got to a village we kept asking for Dauphin and they just kept pointing farther and farther down this very mud. I finally had to stop all trucks and told them to wait because they could not make it and I was not even sure if we would make it in the 4x4 SUV but after 15 mins. Of roads that disappeared in water and a nearly slid into another truck that was stuck in 2 feet of soupy mud we arrived in a village that looked like a ghost town. When we arrived a few people came out and we ask if this was Dauphin and we were told that it was not that we had to go a little farther down the road but they told us that we could not make it by truck. We ask why and were told the roads were very bad could only walk through mud and water to get there. We then ask where everyone in their village was ……….well it is 230am and I am tired and have had a rough 2 days will post more tomorrow I have to be up in 3 hours so please keep us in your prayers.
Cholera what is it and why were people dying from it so fast it is a bacterium that got into the river where these villagers draw their water from and due to all the flooding that has happened in the last few weeks it appears that cholera got into the water. This seems to move very fast on the young and elders mainly because cholera causes diarrhea and vomiting. Well, you can guess what happened at first they were given more water by their family members to keep them from getting dehydrated but instead was making them more sick.
Ok back to the hospital well as you can imagine the smells of diarrhea, vomiting and yes even the smell of death was very strong at the hospital. I immediately told David lets go we have to get clean water to these people before more die. We immediately jumped back into our trucks and drove about 45 mins. to 1 hour to the place where a lot of cases had been reported to us by the doctors. We encounter 1000’s of desperate people begging for water. I also encountered several road blocks --by people that refused to let people go on because they wanted water. This is where God helped in a mighty way. We safely made it through each road block and were able to go to a small village that had not had any water for over 2 days. We jumped out and within 2 hours the first glass of clean was served. We then loaded up and left one man there to run the system all night and told him we would come back with more systems in the morning. We arrived back in Port Au Prince at 11:30 pm.
6am awake and on the road again wondering what we would face and how much more death we would face we went straight to the warehouse and loaded up as much as we could load and left for Saint Marc again. Again we stopped by the hospital and were told another 100 had died throughout the night. My heart broke as I knew many were children I had seen yesterday. I immediately ask the doctor where we were needed for the biggest impact on the water front and she stated around the same place as yesterday. She also stated that they were going to look at another village in a different area and would call us later. We left and was relieved to see our guys sitting there running the water system and had been through the night. People were very happy and smiling. We then were told of a village about 30 min father that needed help well you know me I yelled to everyone to get into the trucks and off we went.
Dauphin a small village were most have never been and many could not get to due to the condition of the roads. As we got to a village we kept asking for Dauphin and they just kept pointing farther and farther down this very mud. I finally had to stop all trucks and told them to wait because they could not make it and I was not even sure if we would make it in the 4x4 SUV but after 15 mins. Of roads that disappeared in water and a nearly slid into another truck that was stuck in 2 feet of soupy mud we arrived in a village that looked like a ghost town. When we arrived a few people came out and we ask if this was Dauphin and we were told that it was not that we had to go a little farther down the road but they told us that we could not make it by truck. We ask why and were told the roads were very bad could only walk through mud and water to get there. We then ask where everyone in their village was ……….well it is 230am and I am tired and have had a rough 2 days will post more tomorrow I have to be up in 3 hours so please keep us in your prayers.
load lifesaver cans to take to Dauphin
RSS Feed