So I'm back. And it's been kind of a rough trip. Or an eventful one, to say the least.

On my last night on the island I passed by the Mission center on the Dominican side of the border with Dr. Dave, with whom I had been working in the Haiti clinic. It was late at night, and we were expecting everyone to be in bed. Instead we found almost all of the doctors, nurses and students awake and gathered in the central patio. It turned out that on that same day, a nurse at the Mission had been killed in an accident. She was riding in the back of a pickup truck up a steep mountain road, and the truck lost its traction and flipped over. She died instantly and several other people were injured. It was her first time in the country, and she had been there for six days. She was twenty-seven years old.

Because of the accident, the whole future of the Mission is now in question. It's unlikely that the university that organizes the Mission will continue to allow students to come down to the Dominican Republic. And the doctors and nurses who do come, if any, will not be allowed to travel to the more remote towns and villages on the mission circuit. Because I'm a free agent, this wouldn't prevent me from working in Haiti, but if the Mission shuts down or decreases its scope, it would cut off the Tilory clinic's main source of medicine and supplies, not to mention doctors and nurses for me to bring there.

But there was also some good news. We had a good couple of days at the Tilory Clinic in Haiti. We were able to help quite a few people, including some very sick babies, although there was one who was so far gone by the time he was brought to us that he's almost certainly died by now. He was barely two weeks old. A neighbor brought him in because apparently the mother was mentally ill and unable to take care of him. He was severely malnourished and barely had enough flesh on his bones to inject antibiotics into. Clemencia will follow up on his case now that the gringos have gone home, but Dr. Dave didn't have much hope that he would survive.

But wait, I was going to talk about the good news. The good news is this: A couple of years ago, a Christian organization called World Vision built a small health center in Tilory. Nothing very fancy, but certainly a lot better than anything we have at the Tilory clinic. The problem was that after it was built, there was no one to work there and no medicine or equipment inside. So the facility has been sitting unused all this time with its doors locked, gathering dust.

The good news, then, is that the Cuban government has just sent a doctor to Tilory to open up the World Vision health center. Cuba requires all its doctors to do two years of this type of foreign service after they graduate. The health center is still a work in progress, but thanks to this doctor's efforts, there is now a small staff on the grounds, including a pair of nurses who work for the Haitian Ministry of Health.

Even better news is that Zanmi Lasante (Partners In Health), an NGO based in Boston that has been doing amazing work in Haiti's Central Plateau region, as well as in places like Peru and Rwanda, has become interested in Tilory since Clemencia, Dr. Dave and I visited their hospital last year, and they have begun sending medicine to the new health center. They are also making plans to build their own facility in Tilory, which would provide affordable, quality health care to anyone in the region who requested it. This is exactly what we've been hoping for, and it would be an incredible change for the community.

Curious kids checking me out while I wait for a ride across the Dominican border.

A woman and her grandson in Corozo. Some Haitians tie strings or beads around their children's necks or waists to protect them from illness or bad lwa (spirits).

I don't remember now what this little girl came in for, but she was awful cute.

Clemencia's brother Nikol comes by the clinic sometimes to help. Here he's interpreting a patient's Kreyol into Spanish for me so I can interpret it into English for a visiting American doctor.

A Dominican doctor visits us with a load of medicines and spends the day treating patients. Clemencia put on a silly hat for the kids and ended up wearing it all day.

Kids wait outside the clinic for their mother.

We found this little girl and her family in the mountains while surveying the area for clean water sources. There were four people living in this tiny lean-to made of sticks and leaves, growing manioc on the side of a hill.

More Photos

This photo was taken in Corozo, one of the small outlying communities in the mountains surrounding Tilory. About once a month, representatives from the Clinic travel to Corozo with medicine, often on muleback.
Clemencia at the end of a day's work with a group of volunteers from the United States, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Houses like this one made of sticks and mud are still common in much of rural Haiti.

I've finally scanned some more photos (I took all the photos on this site myself unless otherwise noted.) The quality of some of these is not so great since I was using a disposable camera and the processing available on Hispaniola is not always the best. But these should at least give you an idea of what Tilory is like and where your donations are going. (Click any photo to enlarge it.)

The shot above is of the road that leads into town. Twice a week there's an open market in Tilory and people from miles around come to buy and sell produce, meat, old clothing, tools, soap, etc.


This man brought his little girl to us with a horrible skin infection over most of her body, a common problem in an area with no running water.


Nurse Clemencia Profeta, founder of the Tilory Clinic. She's an amazing woman who has devoted most of her life to helping the people in the border region.


This little boy was severely malnourished, as you can see just by looking at his arm. Malnutrition is another common problem and can lead to a compromised immune system and poor ability to heal, among other complications. When we have the funds, we are able to provide mothers like this one with formula for their children.

I've scanned a lot more photos, so I will be posting a few every day if I can. Thanks for looking, and please think about helping if you can.

Dave