They Wait Hours, Sometimes Days

Our lives are a journey…we are all given different paths to choose. I am grateful that I said yes to coming to Haiti with FOTCOH. The people have truly been an inspiration. The patience I have witnessed by the people waiting hours, sometimes days with little food or water…the elderly with their walking sticks struggling to […]

It’s Why I Knew I Had to Come Back

A little girl around 2 years old was waiting for another volunteer to return with her dossiers. Using the little French I could remember from high school, I called her “une belle enfant” – “a beautiful child“. Her mother (or other relative) who was holding her smiled. Then the elderly woman behind her said “Et […]

Are You the Mother?

As a woman, I have no country, As a woman, I want no country, As a woman, the whole world is my country.” –Virginia Woolf Meet Joseph. He is a five year old, healthy, little boy from Cyvadier, Haiti.  He presented to the clinic today to be seen for scabies with a young woman. I […]

Life Has a New Perspective

I arrived in Haiti on my rookie trip as a medical provider with Friends of the Children of Haiti. As an Anesthesiologist in Bloomington, IL., I was concerned that I would struggle with this new type of medical practice. These concerns evaporated quickly on the first clinic day. Within the first several hours of the first […]

Having Seen What I have, Can I just Walk Away?

It’s hard to drive through Port Au Prince and not be overwhelmed by the wrenching poverty. We take clean water for granted, but in Haiti, that is a luxury and the source of many of their problems. Garbage is piled up everywhere and there is a desperation you sense in the people of the street. […]

2003 September Mission Team

(Front, from left) Barbara Hammond, Dick Hammond, Bill Maher (RPh), Joshua Shadlen (student), Heidi Walker (RN) Back row, l-r; Juliana Shadlen (student), Sandra Antor (RN), Linda Bryan (RNP), Kent Bryan (MD), Anne Hramec (RN), Sheilla Beauchamps (student), Marie-Florence Shadlen (MD), Joyce Harmon (Lab), Bruina Beauchamps (student).