alannarene: Tired is an understatement

Well, somehow I made it to day 6 in Haiti. Well, technically it's early Friday morning so day 7. I'm about to go to sleep after another shift. This one lasted almost 13 hours. I have to say, I'm pretty tired. I have immensely enjoyed this experience and would do it again in a heartbeat. It's amazing how hard it is for your body to keep up sometimes. I've met some great people. I met a priest today named Father Luc. He runs an orphanage for boys. He runs a bakery in the city to help pay forth the orphanage that was destroyed in the earthquake, along with one of the buildings at the orphanage and the school that they all go to. He also has another offshoot orphanage out in the country which was destroyed too. Yet he still had a smile and came to see what orphan boys we are taking care of that need his help. I really like Father Luc.

Jimmy our interpreter.

Everyone here is so nice despite having lost so much. One of our interpreters lost his mom, dad, brother and sister when his house collapsed during the earthquake. He taught himself English without classes. He was lucky enough to finish high school but couldn't afford collage. He is 24 years old and comes in everyday for more than 12 hours to translate for us. All he wants is to make a difference.

Me, Nancy, and Germaine

Then there's Germaine. She is our Haitian nurse in the peds unit. She is a rockstar! She can run that whole unit by herself. She is trying to learn English and she is amazing with the kids. I don't know much about her story, just that she gets up very early so she can walk to our compound and get to the tent by 6. She works like a maniac for 12 hours, hardly drinking and not eating. We figured she didn't have any food, since she really doesn't get paid enough to live. We started taking extra meals for her to eat at night. She'll sometimes eat them. I think she feels she needs to never stop working because she needs this job, and jobs are scarce. The new hospital administration fired a bunch of Haitian workers yesterday because they accidentally over-hired. Germaine got by, but our other nurse never came back.