Haiti medical Mission: day 13

Day 13- Sunday march 28th
It has been a pride for me to see that the Canadians have a strong presence here and are helping a lot. For instance, in the Mission of Hope staff many are Canadians. Whenever I went to Port-au-Prince, we saw many Canadian soldiers that are stationed in Haiti to help.
Last week, there was a Canadian team that came to build a second warehouse and they worked really hard from sun up to sun down and got the job done. They also built extra storage for the food.

This week, the two EMT (ambulance guys) are from Toronto. Every week, there is a good part of the team that is from Canada. In fact, Vanessa the co-director of Mission of Hope is from Canada.
One annoying tradition that Haitian have is to knock on your door and when you say: “Come in” they stay outside and knock again. In one given clinic day, I usually get a knock on my door 50 times. It is pretty annoying. Some people also knock like ten times if you don’t answer.
Friday, many patients at the end of the consultation asked me for food or water which I did not have to give.
Food since the earthquake has been very scarce, costly and of low quality. A box of cereals sells for 10$ and often you open a can and there are bugs in it. One good thing at the clinic is that at the end of the consultation I have the opportunity to hand out the small gifts we have like soap, shampoos and diapers which people appreciate very much.
One thing I want to do when I come back to Montreal is to take Creole lessons as this language is very easy to understand for me as I am French.