Living conditions

We slept in a tent on cods that were placed two feel away from each other. The tent was air conditioned (the only air conditioned place in the whole hospital). The air conditioning was very weak during the day and didn't help at all for the people who were working nights and were supposed to sleep during the day. It was way too hot and loud to sleep during the day :( It was impossible. There was no privacy and changing happened right in front of everyone.

The showers were made out of wood "walls" that were not covering the head, so when you took a shower people were walking around and looking at you. The water was not heated and often was completely non existent. No privacy at all.

Toilet was composed on porto patties that were cleaned every morning. Having said that, under the heat it was far from pleasant experience to go there.

Food was brought over in boxes every day around two pm. It was composed of rice and beans with a mystery meat in it. The UN truck showed up few times per week and sold American food and beer. Beer cost 3 dollars per bottle, while Haitians were working for 5 dollars per day... go figure...

Drinking water was bottled. There was no water to wash hands. NOWHERE!!! There was one place for drinking water that was not bottled and it was usually pretty warm and didn't taste very good. Few refrigerators throughout the hospital were repeatedly filled with bottles of water, but you had to get it at the right time otherwise it would be gone.

Hand washing did not exist anywhere at the hospital. Alcohol sanitizers served as basic hygiene. It is very warm and dusty/dirty in Haiti and it was really hard to not wash hands. Also, you always apply sunscreen and deed to avoid sunburns and mosquito bites. This makes the lack of water so much harder :(

There was no way to wash clothing, thus we had to bring everything from home. We were all sticky and dirty all the time.

Sleeping conditions were pretty basic. Cod located two feet away from the next cod. No privacy, no quit time, and fairly uncomfortable. Impossible to sleep during the day, so many of us from the night shift went on no sleep for days.