Cabois Inauguration

My dad and I at the Cabois Inauguration

We were also able to visit the US embassy in Port au Prince, and had a frank discussion about the legal requirements for Wenson to receive a student visa. There are still some hurdles, but we hope to have all the documentation completed in time for Wenson to sit for a visa interview in early January. If he passes the interview, he’ll be able to begin school in Anchorage when the spring semester begins in mid January.

We’re having a party to celebrate the completion of construction for the Cabois School on November 21st, and I’m really happy I’ll be able to be there for it. Classes have been in session since October 4th. Wenson also finally got his passport, so we’re going to go to the US embassy to try and move that process forward as well. Finally, I’ll be working on some data collection for the Haiti class project. I’m a little scared about the cholera problem, but the people in Cabois and Fayette haven’t been affected by it yet, so I hope we all stay safe and healthy.

Rock Climbing in the Jemez Mountains.

We’re also inching forward on Wensons passport. It looks like he will receive his passport within the next few weeks, hopefully by the beginning of October.  Wenson had an appointment to pick it up on September 6th but upon arriving at the passport office, he found out that some of the documentation wasn’t set up correctly and he needed more documentation.  After getting his passport, our next step is to apply for a student visa. Although we don’t know how long that will take, I hope it will be an easier and quicker process because we’re dealing with the US government instead of the Haitian government.  I hope to see Wenson in school in Alaska this fall.

I’m doing well.  I’ve been able to be very active this summer- here is a picture my friend Jason Halladay took of me rock climbing. I wore my teenage leg all summer while I was in New Mexico. As expected, it started out wonderful and comfortable, and slowly got too big. My calf muscles were still shrinking. So, as soon as I came back to Arizona, my prosthetist and I started working on my grown up leg. This one is built similarly to the teenage leg, but hopefully will last me for a few years, not a few months. It’s got a better suspension system, which means that if I hook my toe on something, the leg will stay on and I’ll fall over instead of the leg coming off and landing in who-knows-what I’m walking over. This will also make roller coasters much safer for people below me. (Okay, there aren’t any roller coasters that I know of in Phoenix, but LA isn’t so far away!)

I'm only halfway up the climb, but I finished the hardest part!

I was out hiking once this summer, and used a fallen tree to cross a stream. On the way out, I managed just fine, but on the way back, I had a little more trouble. I got about halfway across, and then caught my toe on a branch. Instead of being able to correct for it and keep going, my leg fell off into the stream! I was still in my teenage leg at this point, and it had already gotten too big for me, so it didn’t stay on very well.

The other major improvement between my grown up leg and my teenage leg is how much I can bend my knee. In the teenage leg, I had about 45 degrees range of motion. I could walk and just fine, but stairs were a challenge, and the knee got in the way while climbing too. Now, I’ve got about 90 degrees. This still isn’t as good as my real leg, but it’s a big improvement. Now I just need to build my quads and hamstrings back up so I can support my body weight at the higher angles.

This is what Angels look like: Julian, Major Sujith, and Wenson George are three of the four men who worked together to save my life.

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I’ve been so slow in posting updates. We’ve all been busy, though, so I’ve got a lot of news!

Thanks to the hard work of Haiti Partners, the crew back in Haiti, and the Zyman family foundation, construction of the Cabois Community School is well underway! We have enough money to build the school, and supply it with solar panels, batteries, and satellite internet. I got to put my engineering degree to good use by designing a rainwater harvesting system for the school. The XO laptop group also donated many laptops to the kids in the Cabois Community School, and a number of other schools in the area. Some of our students just graduated from their first eight week training session using the new laptops, so it’s pretty exciting that they’ll have internet access soon too! Also, the USA womens ice hockey team raised a bunch of money that we’ll use to cover operating costs for the school. We’ll pay 17 teachers their $80 per month salary, and give all the teachers and students lunch every day. This is the only reliable meal many of these kids get right now, and it costs 52 cents.

Before the Quake

After the Quake

Under Construction

The photo above shows the Cabois Community School right after it was completed for the first time. The next photo shows the school immediately after the earthquake- nothing survived. To the left is a photo of the school right now, under construction. It will be a bigger and nicer facility, and notice the strength of the steel frame. Below is a photo of the home that Gerald, my motorcycle driving savior, built for his family with help from Julians church group in Philadelphia. Look at the half height cement walls- this is a home designed to be earthquake safe.

New Home for Gerald and Family

We’re still struggling with documentation and paperwork for Wenson, so if you’ve got any ideas on how to facilitate that process I’d love to hear from you. Once we get him to the US though, my parents have set up a fantastic program for him back in Anchorage, and there is also a school near DC that has offered to take him in. The sooner he can come, the better, because he’ll have more time to get settled in the US before jumping into a challenging academic life.

I’m doing quite well now too. I took my first steps with only one crutch instead of two at Gimps on Ice- and one of my friends there had the presence of mind to pull out a videocamera.

I got the stitches from the last surgery out in early April, and as soon as I was allowed to walk again, my prosthetist Mike made me what I’m calling my “tween” leg. The first leg I had was nice soft squishy plastic, and was not designed to take my full weight. That was the “baby leg” that I went ice climbing with. The tween leg was hard thermoplastic, with a fiberglass cover just like casts you get for a broken arm. I ran around with that one for a few weeks, while we adjusted the shape and the fit, to make sure it was all perfect. It was a huge step up from the baby leg, so the day I got my tween leg, I made my roommate take me to the drugstore to buy a cane, and haven’t used my crutches since. About a week later, I put my cane away for good too.

On May 12th, Mike made me my first carbon fiber socket, and now I can do anything! (almost). I’ll keep this teenage leg as long as I can, but my calf muscles are still atrophying. They will probably continue to do so for the first year, and every time they shrink up too much, my leg stops fitting and I need a new one. Mike and I have our fingers crossed that the teenage leg lasts me through the summer, but you never really know what a teen is going to do.

Just yesterday, I tried running for the first time. It wasn’t very fun, and kind of hurt, but I did run 200 meters without stopping and about half a mile total. I only have to do that fifty two times in a row and it’ll be a marathon.

Mike and I also collaborated on a custom made climbing foot that I can switch out with my regular walking foot when I go rock climbing. It’s pretty awesome- we had to calibrate the flexibility of the foot with how much I weigh and the amount of force I’m planning on putting on it. Amazingly, we got it pretty close to right on our second try.

I’ve been climbing enough now that I’m pretty comfortable with the new foot. I keep thinking that climbing with a prosthetic foot should make things a lot harder, but I’m not sure that’s true. There are moments up on the rock when I want to turn my ankle or stand on my tip toes to reach just a little higher and I can’t, but most of the time it doesn’t bother me. I’m also climbing things that are almost as hard as the things I was climbing a year ago, so it must not be holding me back. Mal, the fearless leader of Gimps on Ice, says that feet are overrated, and I’m starting to believe him.

At this point, I am ready to re-learn all the things I want to do. It seems to take me a day or two of figuring things out, and then I’m pretty much set. I learned to drive my manual car without any adaptations in about a week, I’m climbing pretty well, walking pretty well, and managing stairs and slopes without too much awkwardness. My next project is figuring out how to ride my bike.

I gave the commencement address at Simons Rock College of Bard in mid May, where I got my first undergraduate degree from. It was a lot of fun to go back and see the beautiful campus, and my speech was pretty well received. Below is some video that my dad took while I was speaking.

Breaking in the New Leg

Below is an update of what we’ve all been up, written by my dad. I had a blast ice climbing, and I’m really happy that we’re making such good progress with finding a home for Wenson in the Anchorage School District, helping the Dabonne area recover, and rebuilding the Cabois school. After our adventures ice climbing, I needed another minor surgery to deal with all the extra skin I’ve got now that the swelling has gone down. (I had permission from my doctors to go climbing, and the surgery wasn’t related. So there .) It went well, but I’m not allowed to wear my prosthetic until the stitches come out and the skin is healed again, so I’m back on crutches for a few more weeks.

From Papa:
Christa got her first prosthetic leg in early March, and her indomitable spirit continues to shine. She joined in an ice-climbing event called Gimps on Ice in Ouray, Colorado on March 19-20, sponsored by Paradox Sports, an amputee climbing group. See more photos at the bottom of the page.

Our son Julian returned to Haiti in early March, with water purification kits, medications and tents. The photos are of Julian with friends, and of food distribution by Head’s Together, the literacy program where Julian and Christa were volunteering.

Julian back in Haiti

Finally, we have made great progress towards Wenson Georges to the US for school. He is the 18-year-old Haitian young man that Christa credits with “saving my life twice over.” The Anchorage School District has offered to provide a place in the ESL and secondary programs, and Terry and I are very much looking forward to hosting this compassionate, heroic young man in our home. No doubt Alaska will be a wild contrast with Wenson’s previous life experience, but he a young man of quite remarkable initiative.

Gimps on Ice 2010

Head Together Distributed 317 kits of rice, beans and oil

climbing again

Classes and educational activities have been restarted in Cabois, providing a much needed sense of normalcy and community to the students, as well as a source of income for the teachers and their families. Right now, they’re taking place under tarps, but we have plans to build a permanent Community Learning Center in partnership with Haiti Partners. It’s designed for quick construction so that it can be completed before the hurricane season begins, and will provide transitional education facilities for 250 students. It will also provide a location for 50 people to shelter during hurricanes, as well as solar power and internet access. (more information)

We’re looking into a number of different secondary education options for Wenson George in the US. Wenson is very excited about the opportunity to finish his education. We’ve prepared an application statement and are approaching secondary schools who have worked with students from other troubled nations. The biggest impediment we see is obtaining a passport for Wenson, although an application with the Haitian government has been initiated.

Here is an interview by Kent Annan of Haiti Partners with Wenson and Gerald.

I’m also recovering well. I’m back at home in Arizona, attending my classes and catching up with the schoolwork I missed. I graduated from the bulky knee immobilizer I left Jackson Memorial with to a much slimmer “stump protector” yesterday and celebrated by going to my climbing gym for the first time. If I continue healing as well as I have been, I hope to be fitted with my first prosthetic leg in a few weeks.