Day Five in Haiti:
I turn my body away from the pushing crowd and face the rusty tin wall to cry. The lump grows in my throat and I want to sob, but I fight it, turn around and fill the last three medicine cups with our treatment for scabies and staph: neem oil, coconut oil, essential oil of clove, rosemary, and melaleuca.
We had made and handed out 47 bottles so far of the treatment, and still there was a crowd of at least 30 more people throwing their babies towards us, pushing and pressing, yelling and pleading to be the next to receive the last three bottles.
Their desperation for help cracked my heart wide open.
The midwives saw 40 pregnant mommas at the MamaBaby Haiti birth center this morning with the help of the volunteers. Then we left for Shada in a tap tap, arrived at the home of our protector by the dusty banks of the river filled with garbage, set up our prenatal table and a small table for skin care treatment, and proceeded to work over the next three hours in the hot sun caring for 118 people.
I came home and had interviews with MamaBaby midwives and then had the privilege of watching two slippery sweet babies be born within an hour of each other around 2:am.
It has been a long, hot, sad, happy, wonderful day and I am full of all the feelings.