Carrie Petersen

Well, I’m back in Haiti. For those who know me or who have been reading my blog for a while, you know that from time to time I make my way to Haiti, to volunteer with a medical team in a rural community here.

Right now it’s 9:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. West Coast time) and we are about to turn in for the night. It’s been an adventure getting here. We left the airport in Port-au-Prince and drove for nearly eight hours to get to our destination, a distance of about 100 miles. Yes, I said eights hours in the car to travel 100 miles – and most of that was on the national highway.

Haiti suffered terrible storms last year during the hurricane season. It flooded areas and destroyed homes, business and belongings. I was here just after the flooding. And in some places – eight months later – I see that not much has changed. The same detours are in place. Mud still lines some roads. And any amount of rain results in more mud and standing water. We had to drive through a river and slide across mud to get to where I am now. But we made it. Safe and sound.

We headed out for a walk this afternoon but only made it about 100 yards before today’s rain came. And it’s not like Northwest rain. It’s get-to-cover-as-quick-as-you-can rain. Once the skies cleared up, we tried again to go for walk. And again, we made it about 100 yards before shoes became caked in mud. This evening, I was on the roof of the clinic building watching people – and goats – pass by. I saw one woman walking up the muddy hill in a pair of white dress shoes. All I could think was how frustrating the feeling must be that on top of all the hardships someone faces living in a place like this that at the end of the day you have to struggle through mud just to get home.

Most of our day was spent setting up clinic. We saw a few patients, including a young boy who came here with a bad burn on his arm. He was burned when he had an animal – I don’t know, maybe a donkey or goat – on a rope and it drug him through a fire. The good news is that we were able to help the boy and he’ll keep getting treatment till he’s better.

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