Day 6: Work in the Clinic

Today, I worked in the clinic that's on the compound. The clinic is sponsored by Partners in Development and is completely free to the patients. While working there I took patient's blood pressure, temperature and body weight before they were able to see the doctor. The language barrier was a slight issue with the patients, but luckily Miss Sues and Marci speak English, so if we needed to tell the patients something they just translated for us. I enjoyed working in the clinic much more, not only because I am going into the Medical/Health Profession but because I also got to work more personally and one on one with the Haitians. Miss Sues, Marci and Joot make the clinic even more fun because they are all so funny and have such a great, humourous and sweet personality. The biggest event in the clinic today though was we finally got to meet Marci's boyfriend we've heard so much about! She pulled Anne and I out of the clinic to meet him outside, then he just sat in the Triage room with us while we worked for a while. A mother and her child came into the clinic that hadn't eaten in a couple days so Anne and I had to make some spicy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to send home with the mother for her child. Seeing malnourished kids who haven't eaten in a couple days is one of the saddest and heartbreaking things.

Our work in the clinic was finished around 2:30 so we got the opportunity to just sit back, relax and continue to take everything in and just think about everything. It made me really think about how everything is so simple here and even though most people have nothing or very little, they are some of the happiest people I have ever met. It frustrates me because compared to those people, I have access to almost anything in the world, yet I'm not as grateful or happy as them. This trip definitely makes me think about everything and be much more thankful and grateful for what I do have. I have honestly enjoyed kind of being cut off from the rest of the world and even my friends and family this trip because it's made me really see everything here and think about what's all going on here. It's refreshing to not have to have your phone wherever you're going. So sorry everyone, but I did enjoy not talking to any of you this week :)