Ayiti Anko

Genette

Dina and I are careening toward our Haiti departure date this Friday. We spend our time weighing baggage to make sure we don't go over the 50 pound limits, buying last minute items like lollipops, beef jerky and Imodium D, calling airlines who won't waive our baggage fees even though they've done it before. Genette emailed me and knows that we are coming soon. We leave for Miami on Thursday night so that we can be in Florida for a 7am departure to Haiti on Friday morning. I'm getting excited.

Magdala

This year will be a continuation of our work with Midwives for Haiti. We will follow up with Magdala who is the lead midwife for the mobile clinics. She also runs a school for 600 children, has taken in 12 orphans, hosts a cholera encampment on her land and works her shifts as a midwife at St. Terese hospital. We were hoping to find her a major donor to help with her dreams of building an orphanage on her land but so far we haven't found the right funder.

Genette is one of the clinical instructors for Midwives for Haiti that I am trying to bring to California for the MANA conference. The visa interview was delayed until August 24th. That is problematic since by the time we even know if they approve the visa, it may be hard to get airline tickets for a mid-September visit to the US. I am hoping that my presence in Haiti when she goes to the interview will lend legitimacy to her proposal and that we won't have any snags. Haiti logisitics are always tentative and unpredictable.

As usual, we will try to blog live from Haiti using a personal hotspot from my iPhone. As long as it is all working, you'll be able to follow along with our trip. In the meantime, be sure to check out Dina's videos on my YouTube channel. Here are the links:

2011 Midwives for Haiti Update

2010 Midwives for Haiti Update

2010 Port-au-Prince Tent City