Wednesday, July 6, 2011 Simonette

Yeah about the delay in the blogs, The Internet connection has been playing a cruel game with me.  It only seems to be active when I don't have time to sit down and blog.  or when I am too tired.  I guess the good news is that the events of this trip have not been as life and death compelling.  I think I may have lucked into a "normal" mission trip.  In Simonette, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, near Cite Soleil, the notoriously dangerous slum, we have our trip today.  We came here in November.  In fact, we were the last team here.  There are ways to tell how poor a village is. In Haiti, dogs aren't often personal pets. They aren't eating Puppy Chow. They hang out in the village and live off scraps.  The less food the people have the less scraps.  the less scraps, the skinnier the dogs.  There are some skinny dogs here.  And red headed children.  The hair color is significant.  These are dark skinned people.  The hair on the head is naturally dark.  That color comes in the form of melanin.  Melanin is dark from, or black, if there is enough of it.  There is one absolute requirement in the body's production of melanin: protein.  No protein, no melanin.  In people of Irish descent who are redheaded, they simply lack the genes to produce melanin.  Here, they lack the protein in the diet.  It's called Kwashiorkor, or protein/calorie malnutrition. If you see a child with spindly legs, big belly, and red hair, they are not getting enough protein rich food.  Fortunately, there is no child here in extremis, none that is starving to death, none with terrible infections.  Most of the children, though have scabies, and we liberally coat them with permethrin cream, which kills the scabies mite.  I get scabies, too.  I have picked it up at some point this week.  Permethrin cream is used liberally by the team tonight, as well.
Today, I find some recompense for the tragedy of our November trip.  I diagnose a girl who has malaria, and she is not that sick yet.  She will be cured.  This won't come back to haunt another team down the line.
It is a bittersweet day.  On the one hand, despite being hungry, the people here are not that ill.  On the other hand, they are hungry, and today, we didn't bring any rice, which means the day is far less chaotic for us, but there will be empty bellies tonight for the children in the village.
Doug