Thursday, January 21, 2010 Arrival at GSH

Arrived at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Jimani. The bus stopped in front of a residence surrounded by walls. It is where we were going to be spending the next several days in while we worked at the hospital across the way. Helping us unload our bags were a few children. They couldn't have been more then 7 or 8 years old.

We were shown a quick tour or the house, which was completely empty. Was told that it was a newly constructed home, but was abandoned for some reason or another. COTN managed to have this home serve as our resting place. Scott led us to our assigned area on the second floor. Some relief workers were already sleeping downstairs. All I saw was a lot of mattress scattered about. No specific bed assignments here. You grab flop down where you can to get some zzzzzz's.

Went outside the balcony and was able to see the Haitian border from where I stood. What a beautiful site! It made me forget for just a minute how much devastation was going on beyond that ridge. Port-au-Prince was just less than 50 or so miles from where I was standing.

There were 2 bathrooms in our area. A high tech shower! No running water. Flushing the toilet was done by pouring a jug of water collected from an outside artesian stream right in front of the gate of the house. It wasn't for drinking we were told. At least the bathrooms were private, I thought to myself. Good thing we brought a lot of body wipes. I have a feeling that I will be using them in lieu of getting a shower during the next several days.

Once we got our bags unloaded, we all gathered downstairs to meet our COTN medical team leader, Vicki. An emergency physician with a heart of gold, she was the first COTN member to arrive in Jimani. She was our main medical team leader and she was going to be the one to help lead our group. She gave us the best advice today: "Learn to focus and manage your own space". She told us that there will be a lot of frustrations that we may be feeling in the coming days ahead. After a group prayer, Scott handed everyone our COTN badges.

The group was then asked to write down work shift preferences. The night shift needed the most help, so I signed up for it without any second thoughts. All of our team members from Weeks, aside from Walter was going to be working the night shift. I had a feeling that the next few nights were going to be bumpy...