February 13, 2010 | Saturday

Woke up the other morning to find this furry little friend about 3 feet from my cot. It was a pleasant surprise. After taunting him a bit with a Banana peel he got pretty unhappy as you can see: he is rearing back showing us his fangs. Later, after he returned to his hole in the ground, I put a large rock over it for safe keeping... Although I really liked the idea of waking up to find him crawling on my face in the middle of the night I thought it would be better to save the camp from my screams.

So I have spent the last couple of weeks now doing mobile clinics out of a place called Leogane. It is very nice out there. The last couple of clinics we have held have been out in villages surrounded by lush farmland under a mango tree. Although we still see some pretty bad wounds in our clinics, overall, the acuity is pretty low and we are now more focused on primary care.

The spirits of the people in the the more rural communities are quite high. When we go out and set up our gear, the whole village usually shows up to hang out. It seems to be the social event of the day. There are lots of kids around trying to cause "trouble". As you can see, the kid I am standing with kept stealing my exam gloves out of my discard pile. I was trying to figure out what he was going to do with them... At the end of the day, he presented me with a slingshot made of braided exam gloves... Very innovative.

There's a ten-minute walk you can take from our compound in Leogane where you will find yourself in an orphanage with about 30 kids that one of our interpreters is running. On a couple occasions, a couple other volunteers and I walk over to play with the kids after finishing our rounds of clinics for the day. The hunger these kids have for a little love and attention is incredible. The little girl in the pink dress is one of my favorites. When I come over, she would follow me around just staring into my eyes.

Most of the team I have been working with has left or is leaving soon. A new group of doctors and nurses just came in, as well as a new country director... Things are very organized now. I have been reassigned from the beautiful countryside of Leogane. I am now in charge of  the mobile urban clinics we will be running with medics from the 82nd Airborn in Port-au-Prince, as well as, helping with logistical support at HQ. I am now back to the big city. It will be a good change of pace and a valuable learning experience. I am actually looking forward to it. I'll let you know in a couple days how these clinics go.