Waiting, waiting, waiting....

 What a year it has been!

Due to Covid and the political scene we had to cancel our Spring 2020 trip, not even plan a Fall 2020 trip (due to Covid and cancer), and cancel our Spring 2021 trip too! 

Discouraging, to say the least.  Are we giving up? 

NEVER!

We are planning our Fall 2021 trip and are feeling mighty positive that it will happen.

Thank you so much to everyone that has been giving us supplies~ we think we may have enough face masks now, but maybe need suitcases still.

Stay tuned for more as the time gets closer!

Love you all!

LEAP INTO MUSIC 💟

Come to our benefit at Duluth Cider this Saturday, February 29, LEAP DAY!
The amazing Gaelynn Lea organized this event for us and is playing with Alan Sparhawk in their band, The Murder of Crows, as well as Katy Vernon, Jerree Small, Kyle Ollah, and Four Mile Portage! We have Oasis Del Norte (the tasty taco truck) too!
Come and have fun, spread joy, live the life of community.
If you can’t afford a ticket, come anyway.
Let’s show Haiti how much we care!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-murder-of-crows-duluth-cider-peacelovehaiti-fundraising-concert-tickets-94298287717

FALL 2019 trip to PANYOL (also known as peyi lok locks you up)

The political scene in Haiti was pretty sketchy this fall, and it was not possible to travel up to Lacoma due to the road blocks and manifestations.  President Jovenel Moise was asked repeatedly by Haitian citizens to resign, and he would not.  According to Haiti's National Network for the Defense of Human Rights at least 59 people killed and 189 injured in the many, many protests that took place all over the country.   The country was locked down.  It was called "peyi lok",  and things went from bad to worse.
Why were people protesting? Why was "peyi lok" a thing?  Government corruption is nothing new, but things were worse than ever after the collapse of PetroCaribe.   PetroCaribe was an oil program offered by Venezuela. Starting in 2006 Venezuela offered aid and cheap financing for Haiti (and other impoverished Caribbean countries) to buy gasoline and diesel and other petrol products.  Basically the government bought oil from Venezuela at 60% of the price, then deferred the rest at a 1% interest rate, and then was to use the funds generated by this to provide the country with infrastructure, healthcare, educational programs, agricultural programs, sanitation, and electricity.
Few of these programs were ever started, none were ever completed, and the debt to Venezuela grew to over 2 billions dollars before the program collapsed.   After the collapse, the price of fuel skyrocketed, massive fuel shortages began, and protests became a daily event.
When we first started coming to Haiti in 2010 after the earthquake, one US dollar was worth about 42 Gourde.  Now one US dollar is worth 100.24 Gourde.  Schools were closed for months, no one could get to work, banks were not open, the country was frozen, "locked down".  
We decided to go anyway.  We wanted to help, but we needed to be safe, so we headed straight up to the remote mountain village of Panyol.
There can't be any road blocks because there aren't any roads!
We hired Dr Aquis (the dentist) and Nurse Derise to work with us, and we saw many patients.
Dr Laura came with and cared for the hairy beasts as well, and of course Nurse Fabienne helped with all the logistics and saw patients too!

If you want to read more about the situation in Haiti, check out this article from fall 2019 in the New York Times.  It is written by Edwidge Danticat.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/demonstrators-in-haiti-are-fighting-for-an-uncertain-future?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker

Team PeaceLoveHaiti

Our house.... with a view!

One van load!

Dr Laura's clinic

This is how we travel~ our feet!

Dr Aquis and Millot's run a fine dental clinic

Fabi and a guest

Such beauty

Oh baby, sweet baby!

Nurse Derise's orphanage- more about this later

Pharmacy gets LOUD

SPRING 2019

We went to Lacoma this spring!
We just had a small group, Tricia and Julie were the medical staff, Kervens and Wes were the translators, and Jay was our driver and all around helper-guy.
We were BUSY, just how we like it.  A couple of days we also had 2 Haitian resident doctors, working on the "social" part of their residency.  They had a month of remote medicine, no water, no electricity, no lab, no nothing.  We all were so happy to teach and learn from each other.

Little buddy had a fever

One of our repeat guests! Love her lots

Haircut and mustache trim

Our pharmacy! Many suitcases, so many suitcases donated. We can't thank you enough!

School kids come in for vitamins, dewormer, and well child checks

These guys are Haitian residents doing their "social" rotation! Yes, 2 doctors.

Yes, there was a trench dug across the road, blocking us.  We just detoured and drove through the river!

Baby in the baby scale.  It is not a swing! Hi TEK!

Each of these slip is a patient record from their visit that day!

Our team! So mighty!

TMatt loves the fresh air!

My favorite tree

FALL 2018- Lacoma we love you!

Here are some pics from our fall trip of 2018!  It was bittersweet.  It was Sagebrush's last trip to Lacoma. The giant cistern that they helped the community build, that collects the condensation from the roof of the church and the school, is finished and functioning.  That means there will be irrigation to the land below, and all kinds of veggies will be grown.  Sadly, the water filtration system was not working, so the community did not have clean water (nor did we).  A new filter needs to be installed by a professional from Port au Prince.  We drink a million, billion small bottle of water.

The beginning of a day

So many rental trucks, so little battery power

Donkey parking lot 

We have the best patients!

Love this woman! She comes to see us every trip. 

Teachers

Super D cute!

Veterinary clinic too, yo!

It's all bah, bah, bjaaah all day long!

She was 10 going on 20

Pictures from our November trip-- just a few!

Last trip was amazing!
We went to Haiti for 10 days, and spent the first part of our trip up in the gorgeous mountains above Kenscoff in an area called Nan Panyol, Haiti. Nan Panyol is a farming community and is a two hour walk from Obleon, the first point that transportation is available for anyone from the village to travel to see a doctor in the city.  If it isn't raining too hard you can take a motorcycle on the trail, but that wasn't an option on our trip.
 We partnered with the Oganizasyon Sante Peyi Pam and saw 60-90 kids or so at the school, then opened up shop in the church and saw many patients from the community.
 It was cool and dreamy.
We can't thank everyone enough for all the love and support over all these years and all these missions.  We could never do it without YOU!!!

View out the "window"

Mobile clinic in the church! You can see our tents in the background.

Cutest patients

Sweet potato supper cooked on chabon grill

Tricia and Kervens see a patient in their office

Our mobile clinic is REALLY MOBILE!

Before clinic started

On our walk out

When the clouds blew away

They had a nice conversation

Spring 2017- what a great trip!

We had a fantastic spring trip to Lacoma.  This trip was all about community! We really combined our groups with the local groups and became one big family.  We had both a medical team and a construction team and we worked together with the local professionals and volunteers with the single goal of healing Lacoma.

The details are always a little different but the story is always the same.  Every trip to Lacoma brings growth and family.   For some unknown reason this community is home- home to 60,000+ Haitians and home to Peace Love Haiti.  We can't stay away.  The second time that I went there was in the spring of 2011.  The team house was freshly finished and there were still a LOT of rocks there lying around and constructions remnants and garbage.  One morning we woke up at about 6am and there were 20-25 elderly women sitting around outside the house.  "What the heck? Are they here for some free tylenol?" I said to Evey.  We watched them for a bit and soon we realized that they were out there tidying the yard and planting some mangey dying sticks.  This is the desert, and the aloe grows but not much else.   Well, the dying stick that they planted just outside of the team house has grown and grown.  It is about 300 times bigger than any other tree in the yard and now provides shade for our tents- no longer do we have to fry our brains if we sleep past 6am.  Our support for the community and their support for us just gets stronger and stronger.  One love.


The spring trip was fantastic. Our PLH/Sagebrush medical team consisted of 2 RNs,  a veterinarian, an EMT, a dentist, an oral surgeon, and their assistants.  We had Winnie and Milo translating and Kervens running the pharmacy.  We had our Lacoma workers Nurse Fabi and Madam St. Daman doing triage and Fanny and Woodlin doing lab work. We saw a LOT of patients- both human and animal.  It made my heart so happy to have a vet on our team and she was busy!  Once word got out people from all over the community showed up in our yard,  happy to wait in line to vaccinate their sheep, goats, dogs, and cats.  Dr Laura would put a collar on each animal that was vaccinated and I think she ran out of them by the 3rd day.

Medications in our pharmacy thanks to YOU and you DONATIONS

Sheep vaccination day was everyday!

This is what pneumonia looks like 

We had a construction team of 6 volunteers that were working on rebuilding part of the school- the hurricane last fall ripped the roof of a couple of classrooms.  Our team worked with the local workers and the Haitian engineer and got the foundation set for part of a new addition.  It looked like mixing cement in the sun by hand all day was a lot harder than being a nurse....


Another huge project underway was the replumbing of the community's water source.  All the water comes from "up the mountain" and until now I have never pondered what that really meant.   Of course this isn't potable water, but it is the only water.  This water trickles down the mountain through a series of mysterious pipes and there are many sites around the area to access it.  It is the source of the water at the filtration station outside the clinic that 3 Strand Cord and Sagebrush built.  The hurricane dumped boulders on the pipes where this water originates and stopped the flow, so there has been no water in this area since October.  The community (lead by Pastor Gesnel) bonded together and worked long hard hours to replumb the mountain so Lacoma and the surrounding areas could have water again.  Community!

Cool mountain spring!!!

Part of our team!!!