Haiti Medical Missions -- Clinic Day 1!

And so the week of clinic begins! We started off the morning with breakfast and a devotional--a reminder that we are on this trip not to make waves, but to show the love of Christ to the people of Haiti. Then it was grabbing supplies, headcounting, and off to clinic! On our way there, I snapped some shots of the neighborhood we were treating. What astounded me most were the brilliant colors 

The signs of things are painted right on the wall
(which is actually pretty efficient, if you ask me :P)

Everyone here carries things on their heads

This is the road leading up to our clinic site. The thing on the L is a giant sewage/garbage dump. 

People live on top of this sewage dump :(

A nicer part of Port au Prince

This is the street where our clinic (held at a church) is located

washing clothes on a rooftop

Tin rooftops. On the lower L is our bus!

Our base was a church with two floors; the triage team, children and pharmacy were downstairs; the medical teams were upstairs. There were a TON of kids! 

When we got there, people were already waiting outside 

The set up of our clinic

Most of us saw families at a time

The dentist at work!

ADORABLE KID

We also gave away reading glasses 

A glimpse of the kids ministry downstairs

Triage 

Our pharmacy

Got to saw--the kids LOVED taking pictures. The kids in these next photos could NOT stop hounding me for pics xD

Some things I learned: 

1) People throw trash in piles on the side of streets, making these massive mounds, and at certain times in the week, a truck goes around picking all of it up. This translates into some days being super smelly; other days being super clean. 

2) The main form of transportation in Haiti is via vans, trucks or tap-taps (aka extremely vibrant trucks with a cage-like back for people to sit in).

3) There are people whose living situation consists of a makeshift tent, in the midst of garbage :(

4) People carry a lot of things on their heads

In total, we saw about 200 patients today. Saw a lot of headaches, dehydration, vaginal infections, insomnia and fungal infections--with the conditions they live in, who can blame them? I realized the true limitation of the care we can give is our medication list. But God has been good, and we've been able to pray with all our patients. A lot of them do believe in Jesus, so that is definitely encouraging. Aiming for 300 tomorrow! 

Prayer Requests:
-energy and health of our team
-the ability and strength to handle--and minister--to more patients tomorrow
-the people we treated today--that God will watch over them and heal them both physicially an spiritually.