Thankful

On Monday Oct 13 we went to two different locations on site visits. Our morning visit was to a place called Meds Food Kids or more commonly known here as MFK. It was started in 2003 by a Dr. Patricia Wolff. They employ 40 local Haitians. They test peanuts from all over the world that will grow the best in Haiti’s dry climate. So far it sounds like India’s peanuts grow the best here. They try as hard as they can to use the Haitian peanuts but they grow a lot of the bacteria called aflatoxin which is detrimental to children’s health. So the peanuts all have to be tested very well before it is ready to be used. They test it in labs at the factory and also in the states. We were led by two awesome tour guides Martina and Racha who gave us a tour of the factory. The factory makes a lifesaving supplement here called Medika Mamba or Plumpy Nut! You may be wondering what is this life saving stuff you speak of? It’s literally peanut butter full of calories, vitamins and minerals! Peanuts save lives here in Haiti and all over the world. There are three different products they create plumpy nut, plumpy supp and vita mamba which are all used a little differently.

Plumpy nut is used for severely malnourished children according to their height and weight and can only be used for those greater than 6 months of age. It contains 500 calories! That’s right 500 calories!

Plumpy supp is for moderately malnourished children and also contains 500 calories.

Vita mamba is for children 3 years and up and is a supplement and has many vitamins and mineral also. It costs 23 cents per snack.

In the afternoon we visited one of our translator’s Guindy’s church community called Caracol. This community is near one of the industrial parks that employs Haitians. I understood it as a sweat shop but it does provide electricity to the community for a cheap rate. The community is lacking health care and only has a doctor visit the community 1-2 times a year. There is NO clinic in this community of  6000 people. The closest clinic is an hour and a half away by public transport. We met Guindy’s pastor who gave us a tour of an orphanage, school and two churches. The churches would be where we would run our clinics. We would be able to educate in the schools about sexual health, puberty, menstruation and domestic violence.  The Pastor told us that the Haitian government has pulled out funding for feeding the kids while they are school and that 400 children attend the school. The orphanage has 10 girls and they are hoping to expand in the near future.  We are hoping to run a clinic in this community in the near future and bring healthcare which is a basic need that is lacking!