strength amidst the piles of rubble

After 5 days in Haiti, I'm settling in quite nicely.  There's been a lot of orientation and security briefings, and it's slowly starting to make more sense.  For those of you who don't know, my job has changed slightly.  I ended up replacing Isabelle in the position of conseiller technique en readaption.  From what I can tell so far, this involves program evaluation, creating and implementing tools to help the rehab teams do their assessments, finding ways to measure change, training staff and community partners, etc...

So, as a step in starting to understand the different programs, I get to spend time doing field visits in the next little while, which I'm very excited about.  On Isabelle's last day we went together to one of the "Antennes" (essentially an outreach clinic), and into one of the camps to do a "home" visit (see pics).  We had the opportunity to see a young woman with a below the knee amputation, managing extremely well with her crutches in very rugged terrain.  Unfortunately she has to have surgery again on her stump, and she is understandably very nervous; however, we were there will a local physio, rehab tech, and psycho-social worker, who did an amazing job explaining the importance of the surgery to both her and her husband.  

It's raining right now, and we're safely tucked into our house, but I can't help but wonder about all the people in the camps.  For sure their shelters are not keeping out the rain, and I can only imagine how wet and uncomfortable they must be, not to mention the increased risk for the spread of bacteria.  What's shocking to me is how long post-earthquake it is already, and how many people are still displaced in camps, will no sign of change in the near future.  Unbelievably, in our walk through the camp we still heard a lot of laughter and music, and saw kids playing like they didn't have a care in the world.