Dear friends,

With our fundraising in full swing, thank you all so much for a quick and generous response to our call for help for the Haiti clinic! When the news of the earthquake reached us, we did not even have time to put out a formal request for help when many of you already offered. Thank you to everyone for caring! Our collection efforts and fundraising are ongoing. Many boxes with donations have already arrived in Haiti, are in transit or sitting ready to be mailed out.  And thank so many of you for asking for an updated list:

What do we need most right now? 

Essential oils of thyme, pine, clove, mandarine and palmarosa 

Dried herbs

Cash to ship supplies, for travel costs to the most devastated areas and for sterile gloves, a small portable solar panel, etc.

Books on basic anatomy, physiology, infectious diseases, ob and gyn, biology, chemistry, botany, herbalism, permaculture in French  

Small portable solar panel   

While this earthquake did not hit the largest city, it hits this poorest country of the Americas in a much weaker moment than the earthquake 11 years ago. After the president’s assassination, there is no government and no scheduled elections. There is no one to coordinate any real help efforts, and rivalling gangs rule everyday life through shoot outs.  In the Jérémie area, one mountain came crashing into the valley in a huge mudslide, and cracks so large opened in the earth that they swallowed the houses up. The movement of the fault line was much more extreme than in other earthquakes. Thus, despite the time which has elapsed, the roads to the part of the island destroyed by the earthquake are still not cleared of mudslides, rubble, nor are the cracks fixed. Our clinic staff is poised to go to these areas to hold mobile clinics as soon as the roads become passable. This is supposedly the case in three weeks, similar to us having to wait six weeks before we could fly into Haiti after the last earthquake. After the shock and damage to life and limb, the worst problem now is the lack of clean, potable water. All water lines in southern Haiti were destroyed. The stagnant, dirty water in barrels and buckets causes all kinds of infections and disease, especially as the earthquake was followed by flooding from hurricane Grace. The massive trembling also shook Port-auPrince area, so the trauma of everyone who survived the earthquake 11 years ago got re-triggered, and the clinic was flooded with panicking people.

 

Earthquake Refugees Come to the Clinic

So the people from the destroyed areas pour through the mountains into Port-au-Prince area, thus making their way to the clinic, such as the little boy in the photo, whose burn wounds were treated at the clinic. After their treatments, we send them home with small bottles of essential oils such as the donated Teatree and Niaouli to disinfect their water supplies. Thank you to the international aromatherapy community for their very generous donations and support! 

 

Essential Oils to Disinfect the Water

We learnt after the earthquake 11 years ago that the dirty water caused itchy skin eruptions and any kind of skin disease, conjunctivitis, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, vaginal infection and ultimately allowed cholera to spread. Putting as little as one drop of an all natural wide spectrum anti-septic essential oil in a cistern of rain water, a barrel or bucket with the water supply for a camp or family will prevent all of this and heal whatever has already developed. It seemed to also have prevented the spread of cholera in the camps we treated. 

What we also learned from the previous earthquake how efficient flower essences (thank you to Flower Essence Services for their very generous donation) and homeopathic are for acute shock and post-traumatic stress disorder. The best homeopathic remedy for shock from earthquake is Aconitum in a high potency, and we have helped countless people with it. 

The clinic’s Josephine finished her nursing training with honours as best of class, giving the speech of honour. She credits the clinic and the donated anatomy books for her excellent results. Thanks to us, she was the only student in her class to have an anatomy book with illustrations. 

 

Seed Donations and Compost

The clinic garden is coming along well, and Marie Lucie took a special training on composting in a tropical climate at the university of Port-au-Prince. The plants thrive with the compost. Thanks to the donations of medical plant seeds by Danica Arehart and Richo Cech (Horizon Herbs), many new species will soon join those which are already there! 

 

Listen to an interview about our healing work at the clinic at The Herbal Highway on 94.1 KPFA Radio (San Francisco):   

https://kpfa.org/program/the-herbal-highway/

With much love and gratitude from Michelle, Jinpa and Julia

 

A huge THANK YOU to all of you who sent support up to now! (Donations which are on the way and have not yet reached us will be listed in the next newsletter)

Venerable Robina Courtin

Patricia Kaminski of Flower Essence Services

Rica Borich

Lucy Villeneuve

David Perrin

April Eya of Hahnemann Labs

Candice Forte of Nature’s Gift Aromatherapy

Madeleine Knapp-Heyes of AromaCare Nurse

Jeff and Melanie Carpenter of Zack Woods Herb Farm

Virginia Joy of Stillpoint Aromatics

Ann Edwards of Blooming Oils

Richo Cech of Horizon Herbs / Strictly Medicinal

Lora Cantele of the International Journal of Professional Holistic Aromatherapy 

and her colleagues: Nancy d’Angelo of Julia Rose Botanicals, Kris Wrede of Kismet Potions, Aromatics International, Gurunanda, Karen Norland of Northern Prairie Aromatherapy, Lola King of Be Kind Botanicals, Linda Byington,  American College of Healthcare Sciences, From Nature with Love, Laraine Pounds of Institute of Integrative Aromatherapy

Special thanks to Danica Arehart for a very generous seed gift certificate! 

Special thanks to Kelsey Reinke for great help with shipping

Ken and Julia Bolger, Kyle Bolger, Susan Altabeth, Tamia McCormick, Rosemary Gladstar, Elana BlueStone, Rose Spinelli, Yoga City, Lydia Boaz, Iosellev Castaneda, Katherine Byrne, Paul Gruen, Prabhjyot Bhogal, Jaime Schultz, Whitney Denesha, Sae Yun Kim, anonymous, Kathrine Ewald-Latham, Diderik Finne, India Witkin, Richard Leclezio,  Amanda Lee, Chloe Campbell, David Bainbridge, Irnst Norgaisse, Megan Mook, Mia Hatgis, Briana Gomez, Pooja A. Shah, Andrea Lemon, Cathie Levine Isay,  Anupama Kulkarni, Edwin Bergin, Isabel Renner, Nicolas Vagnoni, Meredith Maltby, Tara Cosentino, Mindy Newman, Levine Dickman, Arte Sanarte, Shannon Roberts, Rachel Chaput, Susan Altabet, Kaia Fischer, Molly Burke, Corinna und Maarit Sönnichsen, Christina Kirchmann, Heidi Woolever, Judith Biehler, Meredith Goldman, the clients of Bio Emma food coop, Megan Mook, Nick Luchese, Olivia Grassl, Glendy Yeung, Marguy Gerton, Anne Apparu, Leigh Warre, Lundi Brown, Amanda Bloom, Olivia Tabert, Lisa Kellmann, David Brian Harrington, Veronica Benjamin, Marlyn McIntosh, Pamela McMullen

and anyone else whose name has not reached us (yet)