SILOE, Haiti – About 80 percent of Haiti’s population lives in Port Au Prince. The remaining 20 percent live in remote villages surrounded by beautiful mountains. Today, we traveled to the village of Siloe. The last few days I’ve had to ride in the back of a pickup truck, and for the first time this week, I was given a chance to sit in the passenger seat next to the driver for what I thought would be a comfortable ride.

Instead, the ride involved a cracked windshield, a twice-punctured tire, and a ride on the most uncomfortable motorbike ever. It seemed to take forever to reach this remote village.

The word was out that doctors would be available for medical consultations. When we arrived, there was already a long line of people waiting to be seen, especially young mothers with their children. Among the crowd, I met Innocent and her son.

“For almost eight days I have been giving herbal medicines to my son,” Innocent told me. “Fever and diahorrea have weakened his body and I have no money to travel to the nearest clinic which is 2-hour drive from here to consult a doctor. The hurricane has completely destroyed my home and my garden on which I depend for food. My husband is in the city looking for a job so that we can have food and perhaps get some medicine for my child. Until he returns, I can’t go anywhere.”

Innocent was married when she was 18. She has 3 children, and her vegetable garden was her only source of providing vegetables for her children. Since the hurricane there has been no food and taking care of her youngest sick child has been tough on her.

“I heard that doctors were in this village,” she told me. “I started out early in the morning, but because of the water all around our area, it took me 3 hours to get here. Nothing could have stopped me from coming to see the doctors. My child needs medicine.”

Dr. Ulrich with the Humedica medical team later told me, “This child came to the clinic just in time. He is dehydrated and we have the right medicines for him, so he will be fine.”

Innocnt was happy to hear that her son was going to be well. Just as she left for the 3-hour journey home she said, “Look at all these medicines the doctor gave. I could have never have afforded to buy all these. This was all free. Thank you so much for being here for us and God bless you all.”

More than 200 patients were seen today. The heat, floodwaters, and lack of food has taken a toll on most of these patients. Many of them walked long distances to be seen.

The journey back to Port Au Prince was another adventure involving a bike ride to the highway and then on a pick up truck called a “tot tot” with 15 others packed inside. The adventure continues…

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 9:53 am and is filed under Caribbean, Hurricane Relief, Kumar Periasamy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.