Haiti a world apart for
News
By ELLIOT FERGUSON, QMI Agency
Posted 23 minutes ago
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Dressed in pink surgical scrubs, Phil Spoelstra guards the entrance to a medical clinic in Haiti's capital.
On a hillside overlooking , Darcy Martin hammers together a temporary shelter to provide shelter from the sun at a housing construction project.
At a compound in Cabaret, Jared Bjorkman helps pour concrete on a new bridge.
Haiti is a lot of things to a lot of people. And for those on their first visit, it offers a whole new world of experience.
"I've been here three days and I've done three different things," said Spoelstra, 26, a realtor who works in London and one of 50 people who took part in an 11-day Mission to Haiti Canada trip to .
"I imagine there is a whole lot more we'll get to experience."
Spoelstra and his wife Kathryn sponsor four Haitian children to go to school in Port-au-Prince.
He decided to make his first trip to Haiti after talking to Mission to Haiti Canada founders Bill De Jong and his wife Marge.
"They had kind of given me a good understanding of what to expect," Spoelstra said.
"What I didn't expect was how I was going to feel. At first you feel guilty a little bit. You feel that back at home you have so much, you're so safe, there's always food on the table and a roof over your head that is safe. Here, they just don't have that."
He said the feeling can be depressing but also provided a reason to work harder.
January's trip is the first full-sized mission since the earthquake a year ago.
The disaster happened about a week before a planned Mission to Haiti Canada trip.
That trip was cancelled, save for a handful of people who flew to the Dominican Republic to deliver a small amount of relief supplies and money.
Last April the organization hastily organized a team of about 25 people, with members selected for their experience working in Haiti.
Only one of the of the people on last April's trip was making her first trip to Haiti.
There were several first-time mission members on this month's trip 50-person trip.
"First time in Haiti, first time making a bridge and now first time providing security for a medical team" said Bjorkman,19, of Blythe. "I'm really enjoying it."
"The need and the urge that Haiti has for help really is what drove me to come down and help."
Trip organizers stressed that it was important for first-time members to get a feel for as many different types of work the group does in Haiti, such as housing and bridge construction projects, medical and dental clinics and school sponsorship.
"I did some construction and this is my first day at the clinic," said Darcy Martin, 23 from Drayton.
"I think I prefer the construction but this is also a good experience so we'll see what it's like here, see what the doctors and nurses do," he said.
This was Martin's first time in Haiti but he did a mission to the Philipines, doing daily bible studies with a group of youths known as the Rugby Boys, who take their name from the name of the glue they sniff to ease their hunger pains.
"It's in me to experience different things, to help out, to get out of my comfort zone. I'm not a fan of being comfortable with my life," said Martin, who is studying pre service firefighting at Conestoga College.
Having never been to the country before, many of the first-time members had few expectations about what they were going to find.
"I really didn't know what to expect," said Dena Paxton, 26 of St. Catharines.
"I've always wanted to go on something like this but I didn't know where to start."
Paxton currently works in a jewellery store while taking a year off school. While in Haiti she worked in the pharmacy at the medical clinics.
"I don't know if I could go on a vacation for leisure now," Paxton said.
The mission to Haiti has made her appreciate what she has in Canada and has inspired her to return to school to study in a medical field.
"I want to give more now, having been here," said Woodstock's Leah Reibling, 28.
"I've learned what a difference it can make to give a goat to a family or sponsor a child," said Reibling, whose father Keith has made three trips to Haiti.
"It's definitely opened my eyes."
Leah Reibling works as a registered practical nurse at Woodingford Lodge in Woodstock.
She worked in the medical clinics around Port-au-Prince and it gave her a wider view of health care.
"I'm used to working with geriatric people and I've seen pregnancies and children
Bjorkman admitted he didn't know much about the conditions in Haiti, but it wasn't long before the group was exposed to Haitian life.
"I didn't know what we were building, I didn't know what the compound looked like, I didn't really know what state Haiti was in," he said.
"On the trip here from the airport we were on the back of a truck and we got to see it all. We were in the thick of things. It was a culture shock for sure."
Many of the first time members are younger and say younger people are more knowledgeable about world affairs and more wiling to help out,
"I don't know if we are educated more that the earth itself has or needs and we just know how much Haiti needs it right now more than ever," said Bjorkman, who is to start studying theology this fall.
"I also believe that this generation is much more caring, much more understanding," he said.
"Not to say that the older generations aren't willing to help," Spoelstra added. "I think it's so available to us, the information and knowledge of what's going on elsewhere. It's a lot harder to ignore it," he said.
"I think you see a lot of young people out there because we have so much back at home and we have the free time to do it," he said.
"I think any generation of people that would have the availability to come would come."
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