Andrew-To start, I woke up Sunday morning with intense, crazy, angry stomach pains, and feelings of wanting to faint. Also, let's just say, I haven't been able to keep any food down in four days. My heart was racing and I have felt so weak, and it was weird that I couldn't easily find ginger ale, crackers, Gatorade, or medications, let alone a doctor if things got too bad. Monday was like torture. We had already made plans to interview at two hospitals, but the first one was over two hours away. It was hot and dusty, and the roads were so bad every time we hit a pothole or swerved around a corner I wanted to just jump out the window. The intense smells of pollution, food cooking over coal on the sidewalks, and garbage piling up on the roads was enough to make me want to continuously chunder. We somehow managed to get through some good interviews at the hospitals, and I realized my situation wasn't nearly as bad as any of the sick kids I saw on the wards.
Yesterday was the first time I tried eating, and that was probably a mistake. I had Cheerios for breakfast, cheese pizza for lunch, and steak for dinner. Yeah no. Not doing that again.
Last week was really good, I went to a few different hospitals and got some great interviews. It made me so happy to see how happy the Haitians were when Rose Charities was giving this course, some of the students/pediatricians had the biggest smiles I had ever seen. I interviewed select people after the teaching was done and the head of Pediatrics was so glad to see so many people receiving education. In fact, almost every single person I interviewed over the course of this trip had said that education was the number one thing that the country needed because the people are very smart and they want to learn so badly. I was told from many people in Haiti that through education, everything else will fall into place as well.
If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. Teach a man to teach other people how to fish, it grows the economy, and can fix a nation.
Sincerely,
-Andrew Warner
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