Cange

Yesterday (Thursday) we visited the amazing facilities at Zanmi Lasante at Cange. If you have read Mountains Beyond Mountains this is the hospital that Paul Farmer co-founded and has earned him international recognition. We toured this amazing facility that offers virtually free care to everyone in Haiti. The road to Cange is rugged so getting patients to the hospital is now their number one concern. I was struck personally with the 4 new neo-natal incubators, I remember the blessing of the care that our new, premature twin grandbabies received in Des Moines when they were in the NICU for over a month. There were 3 babies in the incubators yesterday. We were told that Senator Dick Durbin recently visited and was given an opportunity to see what is possilbe in Haiti. Hopefully Senator Durbin will pass this along to his good friend, President Obama.
http://www.pih.org/where/Haiti/Haiti.

The U. N. presence in Haiti as witnessed on the way to Cange and our previous travels is oppressive. Their posture is unbelievably aggressive with machine guns and huge armored vehicles. If this is what peacemakers are we are in a bad place as a world. The new US Embassy is easily the largest building in Haiti. We were not welcome to take pictures of "our embassy" and got scolded by the police. I am not sure what message the UN / US is trying to send to the masses in Haiti but the intent seems extremely questionable given our recent and long time history of nefarious actions in Haiti.

Today we leave for the airport at 11:00. I am sad to say goodbye to friends but excited to see the rest of my family. Daniel, our interpreter has been awesome.
- Paul