Haiti Day 2

He is 11 years old. Short, skinny, eyes that see little and withdrawn. He looks like he's 7. He is what we call stunted. Malnourished during the most important growing years, 6 months to 5 years. No chance now to catch up, no chance to make up the difference. What we could do is give him some high caloric Medika Mamba and hope he gains weight, feel better, and feel like a person again. Severe malnutrition does that to children. We have an aggressive program to prevent that in our children 5 years and younger and it is simply giving a balanced meal to the children each time they come to the project. Since we started this last year, the number of moderately or severely malnourished children under the age of 6 years has dropped significantly. We've identified just a handful out of the 226 children we saw yesterday.

We traveled a quarter of a mile up a river wash to get to a project, saw patients in the rain, and served those who came to see us. The team is doing well. Dave, Lon, Tanner, Michael, Kelly, Thelma, Allison, Annelyssa, Michelle, Deanna, Danielle, Yolie, Trisha, and Anne are serving. We're finished in Limbe and headed to Cap Haitien. The cholera is well controlled in our projects thanks to the program we put in place a few months ago when cholera hit. We are re-educating and reinforcing the information in each project. The nutritional assessment and rescue program is working and we are training key members of our projects to continue the assessment and treatment of the malnourished children we identified. Serving. It's a wonderful feeling. I wouldn't want to be without it.

In all things give thanks,
David
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