ede

ede is the creole word for 'aid' or 'help.'

i found out why espwa only housed boys prior to the earthquake. at lunch today, i asked paige (a longtime volunteer who just moved from arizona to haiti permanently to serve on staff here at espwa) with sort-of self-righteous intentions, why had espwa not scooped up more girls off the street 15 years ago in les cayes? why be preferential to boys? she calmly explained that, in haiti, more boys are thrown away than girls - by an exponential amount. the reason is pretty sickening and shows the need for a better social service system here. girls have more value than boys because they can be used as slaves. household slaves. sex slaves. you name it.

in any case, father marc gathered the children he found to be living on the street and they happened to be all boys. and here we have espwa: 750 boys, 50 girls.

i spent the morning helping orient a new group of 9 volunteers from a small college in ohio. paige and i drove 'basic utility vehicles' which were basically huge wagons pulled by 3-wheelers with all the new folks in the back. we drove them through the property (several hundred acres) including farmland, livestock buildings, schools, guest houses, and two boys 'villages' where all the orphans live. the crops here include all types of vegetables, guava, breadfruit, plantains, and this strange looking gourd-like fruit that grows on vines and produces a pink fruit juice.

i'll include a picture eventually if we have enough wifi bandwidth to load it. (the internet really only has the capacity for emails and written posts, not larger uploads like music and photos, unless you post in the middle of the night :-)

this photo was taken in the back of one of the BUVs i mentioned earlier
in the afternoon, i worked in the clinic. i met the nurses and helped transcribe medical records into the new laptop that was donated. (there are upwards of 60,000 medical entries left to include....) i also worked in the pharmacy, filling prescriptions (which meant decoding a scrap of paper written in creole, but using the medications you donated!). i learned to count to 50 in creole (same as french) which is really helpful in a pharmacy - haha. the nurses laughed at me as i practiced counting un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit... (even harder pronounce than spell, for the record)

already we're seeing mostly skin infections, parasites, malaria, enteritis - things that good nutrition, vitamins, clean water and sanitary living conditions would almost eradicate. ah, public health. again, the world comes down to education. if i've said it once, i'll say it a hundred times. teaching is a gift. if you have it, use it. because the world needs you so much more than the rest of us who want to be doctors, lawyers, and indian chiefs.

at the end of the day, we were cleaning up the clinic and i had just grabbed my bag to walk out the door when i felt the bottom of my shirt pull a little bit. i looked down, thinking it was caught on something, and there's this small boy in a dirty dark green t-shirt holding his thumb up at me and yanking on my shirt with his free hand. he had (as boys of any age and in any part of the world will do) smashed the heck out of his thumb. we pulled him aside and soaked his thumb and i watched as the nurse gently cleansed and dressed his little thumb.

i know i'll never solve all of haiti's problems. and we, collectively, may never see that day either. but he pulled on my shirt. and i was able to get him the simple-yet important for a culture that plays marbles in the dirt- help he needed. in a country that is poorer than every other one on our side of the world. it's a difference. it's a small difference and sometimes you have to take two steps back for every step you take forward, but it's a difference.

those of you who know my starfish story (and ten dollar necklace from canal street in nyc) will know how much i believe in this type of "ede."