This morning we all walked to our first destination. After over eight hours on the bus yesterday, it was nice to walk a little! We visited Coram Deo orphanage which is located only a short distance from our guesthouse. Coram Deo is home for fifteen boys. It is also a school for 120 children and offers a health clinic two days a week and a dental clinic two days a week. Coram Deo was started and is run by the amazing Karen. Karen is from Ontario, Canada. She came to Haiti for the first time in 1996. She decided to move here permanently a few years later. She welcomes children with special needs and helps arrange appropriate medical care. In fact, the school director and some of the teachers at her school were former residents of the orphanage. The school’s cook, Maria, is from City Soleil. Maria was hit by a tap-tap, the public transportation in Haiti. She was badly injured and had no help. Karen arranged for medical care and Maria recovered. Maria was able to go to sewing school and now also earns extra money making school uniforms. Karen gave us a tour of the place. The school director even showed me their office and supplies. We were all impressed with what Karen has built.
After the tour, the Health for Haiti students provided education on dental hygiene and cholera. We then distributed some toys and enjoyed some time playing together. There were some young adults at Karen’s and they enjoyed playing some soccer. After a few hours together, we headed back to the guesthouse for some rest.
Later in the afternoon, some of us went back to Mother Theresa’s Hospital to hold the sick babies. There are so many babies there, even with lots of volunteers there is no way to comfort them all. Some of us rested at the guesthouse and caught up with our journals, and some of us went shopping to get supplies for our day tomorrow. We are taking some kids from the orphanage to the beach for a fun day. We bought food and beach toys for the kids and some other supplies. We also bought some activities (nail polish, cards and hair accessories) for Monday, when we go to Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying. We all met back at the guesthouse for another amazing dinner from Barbara.
Bin wit from Haiti!
SUNY Broome Health for Haiti 