It is not often these days that our whole family travels to Port-au-Prince. With a small baby, bad traffic and the busyness of life us and the big city don’t always make a good combination. Most of the time I do the errands on my own as it tends to go faster that way.
Today, however, we had several errands that required us all to be there. And it turned out to be a very productive day with few delays and traffic that was pretty decent on the whole. It was time for Esther’s 4-month checkup so we took her into town to see Dr. Ed. Ed has been working in Haiti for 9 years now after retiring from practice as a Physicians Assistant. He has been a wonderful resource and was willing to see Esther to check her out. She is doing great. She only needs a few immunizations and she will be set.
As an aside, if there is anyone reading the blog who knows of a medical team coming to Haiti in the next month do let us know. We can’t trust the vaccines here in Haiti because often they are heat inactivated from sitting in containers on the wharf waiting to get through customs. That means she could get the shot but it doesn’t actually vaccinate her. We can get the vaccines but need someone coming on a team to carry them down in a cooled container for us.
Heather and the kids have not seen a lot of Port-au-Prince, so some of the downed buildings were new for them. Many people ask what progress is being made? Not a lot, but there are some spots where you can tell rubble is being cleared or new buildings are going up. The picture at left is the new police station on Delmas 33. The old wall and much of the building collapsed in the earthquake. The sign out front says the Brits have been helping rebuild it.
Other highlights of the day – Epi D’Or. The kids have been waiting over 9 months to get their favorite meal at our regular lunch stop when in Port. Ethan and Elijah like the crepes with ham and cheese while Emma prefers the chicken nuggets and fries. We nearly always meet someone we know there and today was a record setting day. We met two sets of folks we knew and also got a chance to talk with some Canadian police officers with the Surete de Quebec who are down here on a nine-month mission.
We are working on some details for the closing of our house in Florida but that didn’t all work out. Looks like we will need a trip to the US Embassy to get some papers notarized. The streets were peaceful which is good ahead of the elections on Sunday. The cholera outbreak down not appear to be concerning people too much. We did see the hand painted sign in the picture – it read “Wash your hands” with the drawn hands standing in for the word.
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