Deliveries Begin Again

Hey out there. I have a couple pieces of great news to report.

First, my colleague and good friend Brett came down on Tuesday morning so I'm not flying solo here anymore. I have to say however, that while it's great to have him back, it actually wasn't bad being here alone since I was rarely truly alone. Most days I spent at least 17 hours (or what felt like it) in the car with my boy Pascal (see him and I below at this amazing beach in Jacmel on our Sunday beach day) and the rest of the time I was in meetings, visiting hospitals, or spending time with the doctors in the house. But either way, it's great to have Brett back down here.
The other great news is that we got our own little office and apartment set-up above our warehouse. Now we have a place to work from, we can be here when people come to pick up products, and we have a place to stay that is already set-up whenever we come down. And it's actually turning into a real-life apartment. When we first came in it was totally barren because they had just finished building it when the earthquake hit. But on Tuesday they put in the shower, yesterday we got the stove hooked up, and today we even got a kitchen sink installed! And because this place is actually a water factory, I'm convinced that we have the best bathroom/water pressure in all of Haiti.

And yesterday, after a couple small customs issues, we collected the shipment of 53 pallets from the airport and delivered them securely into our warehouse. (All the cuts are from customs officers inspecting the products to make sure we're actually sending medicines). After spending time today organizing and inventorying the products, we sent out a list of what we have here to the over 30 new hospitals and clinics that we've identified and have already received requests for all of it! These items include everything from standard painkillers, to asthma medicines, to antibiotics, and re-hydration formula for babies.

Tomorrow we'll spend the day distributing these products to the partners and will hopefully collect more info on their specific needs. For example, one of our largest new partners is a group called the Jenkins/Penn Haiti Relief Organization (as in Sean Penn) and they are running the largest tent city in Port-au-Prince where roughly 80,000 people are people living, bathing, receiving medical attention, going to school, and trying to make a new life. Our plan is to continue to support them in the future with hygiene kits that contain basic items like toothpaste, soap, and diapers that are so desperately needed in these camp settings where sanitation and hygiene remain one of the highest priorities.