VIMM

Greetings from our third clinical day! It's so hard to believe that tomorrow will be the last day of seeing patients. Regular work weeks never go this fast! Today the team traveled to Macasia, a town on the Haitian border. Getting there was half the adventure as we traveled 2 1/2 hours in our filled-to-capacity bus. Over half of the drive was on an unpaved road, winding through mountains and surrounded by breathtaking views. One-room homes with walls of mud and sticks dotted the landscape, reminding us of the poverty in the area and of the reason for traveling so far. When we reached Macasia, we set up clinic in the school. By now, we are all well-versed in set-up procedures! We had our usual stations: triage, pharmacy, physicians, eyeglasses, and vitamins/"deworming". In all, we served 261 patients, with diagnoses of hypertension, arthritis, anemia, pregnancy complications, gastritis, URI, allergies, malnutrition, intestinal parasites, and more. As the team served patients in the schoolhouse, the local children busied themselves by playing baseball with a tennis ball and a stick--no X-boxes here--and by catching a tarantula! Through generous donations, the team was able to purchase bags of beans, rice and other staples that we distributed on the way home. We stopped at homes that looked to be the poorest and were greeted at one with "We weren't going to cook tonight because there's no food in the house." It is such a blessing to see God's hand at work through this team and through the generosity of those who contributed to the trip financially and through prayer. We can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!