Whoops

It seems I have fallen off the blogosphere! I did not do very well with keeping the entries up to date, but to be fair, I neglected to finish my personal travel journal on each trip to Haiti since! I often do well on the first couple of days, but then once things start to get really busy and you don't have time to get all of your thoughts on paper when it happens, you are continually playing catch up. I have quick jot notes about what happened for each of the days, scribbled in haste in hopes that eventually I would come back and give them more flavour. This never happened. At least I have high hopes for myself, right? So here I am, back. Ready to give it the ol' college try, as the kids used to say. I'm sure they don't say that now.
I haven't even checked to see where I left off, I just opened to the edit page and started a new entry. My intentions of coming here were to simply try and update myself on all the other blogs I follow- but then I clicked a button and ended up in the section where you can write...and well. I started writing. I think the last time I was actually updating was November of 2009. But don't quote me on that. I'll have to sneak back and check! Done. Yes, I was right. It was November 2009. A lot has happened since then, to say the least. The earthquake occurred 2 months after we left. What a shocking, frightening, gut wrenching time that was. It is almost 2 years later and I still cant believe how horrible it was to sit at home and watch that happening to a place you love from such a helplessly far away vantage point. I wanted to be there. I wanted to do something. Let me rephrase. I had to be there. I had to do something. I knew that as an occupational therapist my skill set was more appropriately suited to the clean up phase, not the immediate acute phase. As an OT we like to assess the situation, let things stabilize and then come in and clean up the mess. First lets get that sewed up, then I will come in and help you get back to your life. So I joined the team going in March 2010. We worked solely in Jacmel, setting up the first ever rehabilitation facility. And by facility, I mean we worked out of a large white UN tent that was kindly donated to our efforts. There is something to be said about the level of heat generated in a large white tent under the Haitian sun. That was an experience to be sure.
Then I came back home to Canada and I got married :)
My next trip to Haiti was May 2011, where I split my time between Jacmel at a school for children with special needs that runs an out patient rehab program for preschoolers, and at an orphanage on a small remote island off the south coast. We joined up with the school team to run a couple of outreach clinics in the Jacmel regions, traveling into the mountains to reach children that didn't have the means to come to the outpatient program in the city. We had busy, non-stop days, but I loved it. Perhaps I will go back to my notes and do a better update about that last trip, but don't get your hopes up. We all know my track record :)
I will be going back to Haiti next week. Back to the same places as in May and I am beyond excited to be able to do follow up this closely. I can't wait to see the same kids and continue with what we started in May, and to see how they are making out with the programs we implemented six months ago. We will be spending the first week on the remote island, we have spotty internet when on the island, but I'll see what I can do to give quick updates on what a typical day as an Occupational Therapist in Haiti is like.