construction...

today i was IN CHARGE of a construction project. and the project was putting a roof on the security station. Lawrence is dr. cheryl's husband and he pretty much runs all the construction, maintenance, and building projects of the mission. i was assigned to him today and he said that i would be overseeing a construction project. half the workers were haitian (kreyol speaking only) and the other half were american. i obviously had no idea how to put a roof on, but he explained to me how it would work and what was supposed to be done and by whom.

the first phase of the project involved hauling gravel and stones to a cement mixer which was quite a task considering the heat and sun and the fact that the children had been let out of school early. one thing about all haitian children is that they flock to you like a herd of wild animals. they are always grabbing our hands, pulling at our clothes, wanting to be picked up. considering that the MOH school teaches somewhere around 2000 students, it really made for quite a scene trying to get the construction done! the kids are all so cute in their uniforms and it is great because they can all speak french. we filled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of gravel and stones and the kids would hold alongside to the dumping pile, in exchange for rides back. i wish i could have taken a picture of them piling into the wheelbarrow in handfuls...it was like a tap tap for kids! it of course made the task a little bit harder, but they just wouldn't take no for an answer...and of course none of us could say no!

once we had finally transported all the supplies it was time to mix the cement and lay down the roof. this all worked out really well bc we formed an assembly line....2 guys f/ the group were in charge of loading and mixing the cement, one of the haitians filled all the tin buckets, passed them one by one to me, i'd lift them to the first man on the ladder and he would pass it to the second guy and then there were 4 more guys on the roof that were laying down the cement. then they would pass the empty buckets back down on a rope and we'd go another round. this went on for probably over an hour and i was pretty exhausted by the time the roof was done. and bc i had to lift all the buckets above my head, i was covered from head to toe in cement. we all were burning up but it didn't matter bc it was really neat how it all came together and was really efficient. and it looked great!

i've been so impressed with how the entire mission is run. it is like an ant hill with tons of people everywhere working hard in the hot sun to get things done. everyone has a task and NO ONE is lazy. nothing is easy, but no one complains.

the 5 of us interns each have a schedule and are assigned to a different task and leader every day. basically, if there is something dirty that needs to get done, they call on the interns. we all joke about who had it worst that day...girls and guys have it exactly the same (mal was operating the bobcat the other day) they rely on us a lot, but we also get special priviledges which is nice, and we get to spend a lot of time with the people at the top. seeing all the great things that MOH does provides the ultimate motivation to always work as hard as we can...i am grateful that i am able to be a part of it all!

after lunch we hopped in the truck to do some work on the new property they had bought a couple towns north of titayen. MOH is going to expand to the new property which is 70 acres right near the ocean. right now it is like a safari with tons of animals and trees and haitians working the land....our job was to find the property markers which was quite a task considering it was like walking through a jungle. and it was so hot and sticky and buggy, i imagine it is what a rainforest is like. sarah stepped in/sunk into something that made her entire shoe pitch black, and a massive thorn went through the bottom of mal's sneakers all the way to her foot. there were some haitian boys who knew the land and they helped us out a bit. i carried a little boy named samuel on my back for a while until he basically started slipping off due to all the sweat. he was also covered pretty good in concrete. i really enjoyed this job bc everything was so beautiful and we got to see a lot of crazy looking plants and a whole slew of different animals. the new property is really flat so to the east you can see all of the beautiful mountains and to the west you can see the crystal ocean. lawrence said that clearing all this land would be the interns' next job, but i think/hope he was kidding!

we got back around dinner time and i ate my weight in spaghetti and meatballs. i think i will be pretty sore tomorrow, so it is great that it is my first day off! i will probably spend it in the clinic. i've gotten sick the last 3 nights....what they call the "haitian sensation"...it wakes you up in the middle of the night, but then i always feel fine in the morning. i must be getting some of the water in my mouth when i shower...it's been happening to all 3 of us...they say it's just part of intern's right of passage...

we are all going to bed early tonight...it is especially hot and muggy today, very difficult to find a way to cool off.... sometimes the only way to escape the heat is to go to sleep!

peace :)

one week checkpoint.

I can’t believe that I’ve been here for over a week already. It’s gone by so fast, but I feel like I’ve experienced so much since I’ve been here. Today I was in the clinic again, but I was with dr. jenifer for the first time. She is the chief Haitian doctor at the clinic. She is young and energetic and amazing at her job. She speaks in kreyol, writes in French, and explains everything in English to me.

The first case today was a real heartbreaker. The woman came in obvious pain and completely keeled over. She was only 35 but she looked much older. I could tell that half of her body had been burned when she was younger. She was bleeding all down her legs…her gynecological exam revealed that she had been pregnant, but the baby had aborted…dr. jenifer was able to pull part of the fetus out and explained to the woman what had happened. The poor woman started wailing and crying, so upset that she could not catch her breath. Dr. jenifer explained to me that this woman had been trying to get pregnant, but she did not know that she had conceived and has drank an “Infusion” (an herbal tea) for pelvic pain. Voodoo, which infiltrates all of Haitian culture, is a major impedance to medicine due to the reliance on herbal medicine and witch doctors. Certain herbal teas are used for a variety of “women issues” and she had been given one that also served as an abortifacient. Thus, her agony was caused much more by her grief and guilt than by any pain she was feeling. She was completely inconsolable.

We saw a lot of patients with malaria and typhoid fever. They both present with similar symptoms…headache, fever, malaise, weakness, abdominal pain…one of the key characteristics of malaria is nighttime fevers…if they say their child has fever just at night, you can be pretty sure they have malaria. Today we saw a 1 month old with malaria…the baby was so skinny and febrile, but she never even cried. Dr. jenifer says that often if someone has malaria, they also have typhoid fever and vice versa. I don’t know why that is, but I thought maybe it has to do with demographics…I meant to ask about that. We also saw a little boy who had crusty lesions all over half his face and eating away at his ear and hair…apparently it was a staph infection that had gotten really bad. Another example of waiting until something gets really bad before seeking medical attention.

The man with the gas gangrene did not come back today.

Dr. jenifer is great bc she wants me to be really hands on and to try everything. Someone will come in with an infection and she will turn to me and say “what would you prescribe Dr. Britt??” I’m starting to get the hang of it bc there are a lot of repeat diagnoses…lots of STDs, parasites, worms, malaria, typhoid, pregnancies, infections, gastroenteritis. She taught me how to give a gynecological exam and showed me how to tell if someone is pregnant by feeling the uterus…then she had me do it! the patient was a young girl and I was a little nervous bc I didn’t want to hurt her, but it turns out she was pregnant and I was able to make my first diagnosis! Maybe TMI, but I thought it was pretty cool…

One pregnant lady came in who looked like she was about to burst and dr. jenifer told me that this was the first time she had seen a doctor in her entire pregnancy. I was able to palpate the baby’s head and low and behold, there were two in there! Not only was she about to have twins but she would probably give birth today! So much for prenatal counseling.

The afternoon was not nearly exciting bc we were assigned to working outside in the hot sun sorting through a broken down trailer of supplies filled with massive rats and tons of cockroaches. I think I will have some thick skin after this trip! They work us hard here, but they also treat us really well. I think that I will never want to leave.

I am working construction all day tomorrow, so I am drinking a lot of water tonight and going to bed early. Thursday is my first day off and I think I will shadow dr. jenifer again.

I am so grateful for all the experiences that I have every day here. And even more grateful for supportive family and friends that have enabled me to do this! Bonswa…

a touch of haitian reality

quite the day in the clinic today. depressing. two patients came in with malaria...one was an old man and the other was a child. the man could barely stand unassisted and the blood smear showed that he was pretty far along. it's almost as if malaria is the default diagnosis here. the treatment is fairly simple, just 3 days, 10 pills (chloroquine), which is why it is such a shame that so many people die of the disease...but here people wait til things get REALLY bad before taking the long trip to a clinic which are few and far between. there's no concept of preventative medicine here, so it is more of a battlefield-like triage where you have to deal with the most salvagable and work from there...

two women came in today with huge masses in their breasts and we sent them off to port au prince for more testing. i asked what would happen if they found out that the lumps were malignant, what steps they take for cancer here... it turns out that basically you know you have cancer and that's about it. one of the girls was only 14 and she thought it was bc her father had hit her there. it sheds a little light on why 2/3 of Haiti's population is under the age of 25.

a mother returned with her sick baby that we had seen on friday...she had been diagnosed with pneumonia and had gotten a prescription for 4 meds. when she returned today (3 days later) the child was hanging flaccid in her arms like a baby doll. she was burning up and it was as if she was dead in her mothers arms. it was so sad to see that. apparently the mother couldn't afford the meds on friday so she found the money over the weekend and bought them today. meanwhile, her child had not eaten anything since thursday, could barely breathe, and was severely dehydrated. the way the clinic works is that there is a nominal fee, but if the patient can't afford that then the mission will pay for it. no patient is ever turned away and the only reason for the small fee is to discourage those who are not really sick. if this mother had let us know that she was already unable to feed her other 4 children at home on friday, then the mission would have paid and the child would not be in the shape she was today. we were lucky bc it could have been much worse...

today i got a major dose of haitian reality and what a death sentence any infection could be. dr. cheryl had me go into a side room with one of the haitian nurses (who only spoke kreyol) to watch her change a patients dressings. she told me that it was something that she thought i should see and that i should understand that it is a haitian reality. the patient was a boy who looked to be a little younger than me and both his ankles were wrapped. at first i thought that his legs were completely atrophied because all i could see was his skin and bones and then i realized that his whole body was like that and he was completely starving. i introduced myself and he smiled and told me his name. he of course only spoke kreyol, but it turned out that he was only 22. then the nurse started unwrapping his gauze and what i saw was the most disturbing thing that i had ever seen in my life. he immediately looked at my face to gauge my reaction which i tried unsuccessfully to mask. his skin had been completely eaten away to the bone on both ankles. what he had was a clostridia infection (ie. gas gangrene, ie. flesh-eating bacteria) which had literally burrowed holes into his legs, exposing all the deep tissues. his skin was completely distorted around the gashes and he was oozing from everywhere. i tried not to react to much, but my breath was caught in my throat. i helped the nurse prepare to clean and i tried to comfort him, he was calm and ready. the nurse poured hydrogen peroxide all over his legs and it fizzed out of the gashes like a science fair volcano. his whole body tensed up in pain and he made a clicking noise in his throat to stop from crying out. i held his hand bc it was the only thing i could do. the nurse took a break and his whole body relaxed a bit. the next step she had to physically rub out the wounds which consisted of actually digging into the pits. i've never seen someone in so much pain EVER. his whole body contorted in agony and he was sweating and screeching as she dug in. he was squeezing my hand so hard i thought he was going to break every bone in it...it was like he was convulsing and it was a struggle to keep him down. at one point i was able to pry his hands from mine and let him grab my leg instead so he wouldn't crush my hand. i've never felt so helpless and unable to help someone. i felt like i was witness to a torturing that i was just letting happen. i felt all the blood drain from my face and i broke out in a cold sweat and had to catch myself on the table. it seemed like forever before the treatment was over, but i think when it was through we both breathed for the first time. and then he actually looked at me and apologized...i hadn't even realized that i had started crying, but i was at such a loss for the whole episode. no anesthesia, no explanation, no fault of his own... a starving destitute haitian who will probably die from this infection very soon. his prescription of clindamycin at this point is a joke and even if he were in the U.S. his prognosis would be bad this late in the game. the fact that the only thing that brought him to us was that his body had been eaten away to his bones is the epitome of the haitian approach to obtaining healthcare. this boy will know nothing but severe pain in the short amount of time he has left, and chances are that he has known nothing but pain thus far. he probably does not know that he is going to die. the staff at the clinic have been hardened by what they've seen, but i'm still fresh and it is difficult to handle. it's so trite to say that it's not fair, but it is just one of those things that didn't have to be. what's worse is that it happens all the time. i guess the only thing that i can do is hope he comes back and be with him for his treatment and try not to forget this moment. i sat with him for a bit in the waiting room and held his hand...i don't know anything about him, and i definitely could never understand, but hopefully he felt cared about. does anyone know how to act in such a situation?

at the end of the day when we were closing up a man came in who had been in a motorcycle accident and apparently had broken his leg in two places. his foot was retracted medially in an odd configuration so dr. cheryl had to straighten it out and stabilize it. sarah (the other intern) and i had to clean and dress his wounds (arms and legs) and neither of us really knew what to do, so we just did what we thought was logical. the man must have been in a lot of pain, but he didn't really show it...just a wince every once in a while. dr. cheryl splinted him up and then had to leave for a meeting...sarah and i stayed and fitted some crutches for him and waited around for someone to come get him. the whole time we were trying (unsuccessfully) to give him instructions in kreyol....and then at the very end he grinned at us and said "i speak english, you know." he was totally messing with us the whole time! everything lightened up after that and we learned some more kreyol. he would have to wait a day to go to the hospital in port au prince bc they wouldn't accept him at this point (pretty much everything in haiti closes at 3 so people can walk home in daylight). basically if you have an emergency in the evening you're screwed.

i'm a little overwhelmed how messed up things can be, but i have to remember that there are reasons for everything, even if it unapparent to us right now. it's disheartening to think that i really won't be able to do much for like 6 more years, i just hope that i can stay focused.

that was a long one. another big day in the clinic tomorrow. peace and bonswa.

l'eglise de la mission de l'espoir

this is a picture from crossing the river yesterday...

today was the hottest day we've had yet...my fan must have died some time in the middle of the night bc i woke up in drenched sheets and mosquito bites all over. i guess i was really tired to have slept through all of that.

the other two female interns are my roommates. they each have a bottom bunk and i have the top bc i got here last...we keep most of our stuff on the other top bunk so that the rats don't ruin our clothes...we had a big one in our room last night. our room smells really bad like sweat and dirt and we have a bunch of critters, but i think we are all used to it by now! one of my roommates is a hippie from canada (mal) and the other is a preacher's daughter from kasnsas city (sarah); it is a great mix and we all get along great. they're both so nice and free-spirited.

today was church day and the service was quite an experience...it lasted over two hours but was really fun. the service was a mix of french, english, and kreyol. the church was full of people f/ the surrounding communities. a lot of the people wore dresses and hats and the little girls all had first communion-like dresses on...it was so cute. there was a little preaching, but mainly singing the whole time...a lot of swaying and shouting and clapping and singing...everyone was sweating but we all were having a good time. the little old ladies kept on coming up to us and kissing our cheeks...it was very sweet. the whole scene reminded me of old southern baptist services that you see in the movies. part way through the service the kids left for children's church, so i went with them and it was really fun bc they sang fun songs and did the kreyol hokey pokey again. most of them spoke french so it made things easier. its so confusing bc it so quickly goes from kreyol to french to english, sometimes they're even mixed in together. the service had a big band and everyone was so friendly and sang so loudly....it was really beautiful to see everyone come together like this.

after church, the other interns and i went into town for lunch with our two guards/interpretors Cadrak and Wiki. they are two haitian guys around my age and they are super nice. they know their way around really well and are super protective of us. cadrak is just finishing at the university and wiki graduates high school on friday...but somehow wiki is older than cadrak. they speak french and english and kreyol and they are a lot of fun. we are planning a surprise party for wiki next sunday after church.

we rode a tap tap into town which is the main way haitians get around. it is basically a truck-type thing that has two wooden benches in the bed and is mostly covered all the way around but open on the back. it's hard to describe but i have pictures. you'd be amazed at how many people you can fit in that thing! people are hanging out the back and sitting on the roof....basically if it's going your way and you can find yourself a spot, then you jump on. if you reach the place you want to get off you tap the ceiling really loudly, which is why it's called a tap tap. it's also really cheap. the roads are really bumpy...i hit my head twice on the way into town, but we were so packed on the way back that i couldn't move if i wanted to!

we drove to the village cabaret around where we went yesterday but today it was less crowded bc the market wasn't going on. for lunch we went to a place called yoltay's which is basically a shack (nowhere has floors) where there were skinny wild dogs running around, chickens, naked dirty children, and junk all around. i had a bug in my water and we shared forks. they only serve one plate which is less than $2 but you can choose your meat. they boil the plantains instead of fry them...they taste like potatoes, not like the sweet mexican ones. i ate goat meat for the first time and it was really good...i was pretty full after that meal...

afterwards we walked through the town a bit. they sell plastic packages of water on the street which are basically ziplock bags that you bite a hole in with your teeth to get some safe water. the icecream here is really good, so we found a place called "snack bar" which was behind a broken down gas station. it was more like an actual bar...one woman was at the counter and the place was filled with loud men watching the spain/new zealand game. of course everyone stares at us like we're aliens, but they all were nice enough. we were even able to speak french with some. they cleared a little space for us; it was really wild inside.....mal and wiki and i decided to get a beer and it was less than 60 cents apiece! they are called Prestige and come in bottles that look like medicine bottles. it was pretty hoppy and really really good.

the ride back was really crowded and the hottest its been yet. we took the dreaded walk back up the hills to the compound drenched in sweat. cadrak taught us about the citadelle which was built by henry christophe who was another leader during the slave-rebellion...he told us there are 365 doors on the palace and is an 8th wonder of the world. it is pictured on the 1 goude coin.

cadrak and wiki are great...really nice and funny. i feel safe with them bc they always know what they are doing and really protective. they also teach us a lot and help with the language. i'm excited to surprise wiki in a week.

this evening was pretty hot and sweaty and sarah got sick again. we had mac and cheese and hotdogs for dinner. another group got in today so things are loud again and i have to make sure i get in the shower before the water runs out. i scyped with ricky and tiff this evening which was fun to hear someone's voice from home.

tomorrow i am back in the clinic all day, i'm excited to be back on schedule...

riverwalk...

i don't even know where to begin today, but i'm exhausted! we left the compound early this morning and travelled north, away from Port au Prince, through the "market". my impression is that Port au Prince and the really rural areas are the worst, whereas the market area seemed a little better bc at least there were cars around. it's all relative of course. they told me about this part of the city called Cite Soleil which is one of the most dangerous places you can go. it is what makes Haiti the 4th most dangerous country in the world. we obviously don't go near there but apparently it is a span of 4 blocks with over 100,000 people. they say that there are so many people that it would be impossible for everyone to lay down at the same time bc it is so packed. i believe it, especially after what i saw driving through Port au Prince. it used to be even worse, but as soon as aristide went into exile, the US military came in and took out a lot of the gang leaders. at least that's what someone told me. now it basically has no rule, and it is often where kidnap victims are taken...

ok, back to the market. we travelled past the town and pulled off to a side road and drove a bit up the side of the mountain. once it got too steep we all got out and started climbing. the scene kind of reminded me of Forrest Gump's run across the county, bc every time we passed a shanty in the woods children would run out and join us. "blan! blan" they'd just run ups and grab our hands or hold onto my skirt and just continue walking with us up the mountain. by the time we got to the first river there was a whole pack of kids. we waded through the first river which was above my knees, but it felt really good because it was unbeleivably hot and humid out. we had to carry the littlest kids on our backs and hold hands with the other "timoun" (children) bc the current was strong. most of the timoun did not have shoes but their feet must have been used to the rockiness. it was probably about another half hour before we reached the second river which was wider, deeper, and had a stronger current. it felt good on my muscles.

finally we reached a remote town deep into the mountain and kids ran out from every direction to follow us. a lot of the kids had kwashiorkor (protein deficiencies, swollen bellies) and many had hair faded to orange bc of vitamin deficiencies. they were all really excited to have visitors though.

JR, our translator/driver, gathered them around for a morning of singing, dancing, stories, and games. we did the hokey pokey in kreyol. the kids were crawling all over us...i was sweating from head to toe, but i barely noticed the heat bc they kept us so busy. they really loved my digital camera, especially taking pictures and then seeing what they looked like...i doubt any of them had ever seen a mirror. they also kept touching my skin, like somehow mine would feel different than their's...

there was an old man sitting in a bucket nearby observing and one of the boys ran into him. the man got up and started beating the boy, kicking him really hard, but the boy just laughed and everyone around laughed. it was sad that i didn't really know what to think.

lots of people were bathing and cleaning clothes in the dirty rivers. there were skinny animals and cattle everywhere. lots of mules and wild boar. one horse was so skinny and had been worn so hard that i could see his hip bone protruding through his skin. i saw 2 dead dogs on our walk.

we started our descent around noon and again most of the children followed us. one of the girls i was walking with spoke french so we were able to talk the whole walk down. it is amazing how immersion really makes a difference in language, and it definitely was a relief from kreyol! french is the language they teach in schools, so this girl must have been a student. she had a very large family with lots of animals. she wanted me to teach her how to count in spanish!

we drove part way back through the market place and then we stopped and got out. we had to be very careful here bc it is not super safe and there are tons of people around. i can't even begin to describe the stench of the market...there were lots of fish and meats and heads of animals...tons of bugs and stray dogs and we were basically walking through streams of urine and feces. everything is really cramped, so you have to walk single file in and out through the different vendors. people were grabbing at us, but we had to keep walking.

finally we turned down one alley where we came to an orphanage that is supported by MOH. it wasn't nearly as nice as the orphanage on the compound but at the very least the children were mostly dressed and they seemed to be better nourished. the kids here were exactly the same in terms of clinging to us and again they loved my camera. when we got there they were starting a meal and i watched as they shared a single spoon between every 2 or 3 children...just one bite and pass it to the other person. after they ate we did the same activities that we had at the village. they all spoke french and kreyol, so it was a lot easier to communicate. one little boy was attached to me the entire time, but i don't think that he could talk. he had the cutest smile and wouldn't let go of me when it was time to leave. i really wanted to take him home with me.

JR did some free-styling with the drums and there was this one little girl in a white church dress that i swear could break it down better than Beyonce.

when we finally made it back to the compound i was the sweatiest, smelliest, dirtiest i had ever been in my life. still no electricity, but the cold shower felt good. we had hobo packs for dinner which i didn't know existed outside of my dad's grill. same name and eveything. i had 2.

we have church tomorrow morning and then us interns are going to eat in town somewhere that hopefully won't make us sick. 8 goudes in a haitian dollar, 5 haitian dollars in an american dollar.

and my laptop screen is attracting every bug in Haiti.

Kij an yo rele sa an kreyol?

today i worked in the clinic all day and there were some pretty sick people. one girl came in who had recently had both typhoid and malaria and that wasn't even what she was complaining about. "...only in Haiti does a child cry out that she is hungry in the midst of getting a spinal tap..." people here let things get really bad before they take the long trip to the MOH hospital...thus there can be multiple unrelated diagnoses for one patient. they actually have a really great lab here where they can do all types of tests, as well as most of the common prescriptions. blondy is the name of the pharmacist...he is haitian and he likes to quiz us on our kreyol. he also knows everything about every drug. there was also a man who had broken both his legs but had been casted at another haitian hospital...when we looked at his x-rays today it showed all parts completely out of place....basically his leg had just been casted, but parts of each femur were actually laying parallel to each other. bone had started to reform in the wrong places so it is likely that he will never walk again. Dr. Cheryl is sending his x-rays to a dr in the U.S. to see if it is still possible to set his femur back in place...

it finally rained here and it rained a ton. the dirt paths that we use up and down the hill got so washed out that all the stones are exposed. it makes for a rough ride on the atv or motorbikes, so i've been sticking to the climb. last night we had a haitian dinner and i had about 17 servings. basically rice in black bean sauce with fried plantains and something else that looks like coleslaw but is super spicy. they fry pretty much everything here bc it is cheap. tonight we had enchiladas and for lunch we always have pb&j and pringles. they said that i'd get hungry when i was here, but i'm always stuffed after the meals. we eat mangos every day with breakfast and they're awesome.

in the afternoon i worked in the clinic and did medical inventory...there is a dentist and a podiatrist coming soon so i have to learn the ropes so that i can assist them. i did a lot of running around looking for people and getting meds. i learned some more kreyol from the interpretor today...a lot of kreyol is the phonetics of french....for example, tois would be twa, or ca is sa, or besoin is bezwen, but some of the vocab is completely different. it is also difficult bc they speak in extended contractions, so it all kind of meshes together. the etyology of the language is really interesting because it is basically a product of Haiti's rocky history. haiti was originally a colony of african slaves which had been ruled by the spanish and then the french. bc the slaves had no education, they just pulled their own language from what they heard from their masters which is why the language is often phonetically french, with a touch of spanish and even some english. it is written how it sounds bc the spoken form came first, only recently followed by an inconsistant written form.

haiti is an extremely proud country bc it is the result of the only successful slave-rebellion that led to an independent nation. they overthrew the french under the leadership of toussant l'ouverture and ultimately dessalines. there are lots of holidays commemorating this feat, and it is really neat to see the pride which the haitians maintain...there are lots of statues and renditions of these events, along with paintings of the duvaliers.

"jaspora" (ie. diaspora) by wyclef jean speaks to preserving this pride.

tomorrow is going to be a great day bc all 4 interns are assigned to the groups and we are going on the "riverwalk" in the morning. this is basically where you hike for an hour up the mountain and then wade across a river to a remote village and play with kids. i can't imagine anything better than that! in the afternoon we go into the city to deliver supplies i think...we are basically responsible for whatever they tell us to do....sometimes it's hard, but we also get to do a lot of things that the group people can't do. sunday we have church and then us interns are taking a guard and interpretor and getting off the compound for a real haitian dinner. i'm excited for that. i have clinic monday and tuesday, construction on wednesday, and then i have my first day off on thursday.

i really love it here, and i'm surprised at how naturally i've fallen into such a lifestyle. the haitians seem to find blessings in many little things. dr. cheryl expains that the haitian has no sense of organization or plan...they live day by day...if they have enough food to eat from morning til night, then they have been successful and they won't worry about tomorrow until the morning...

now time for bugspray and bed. bonswa!

Rats and Roaches

when they said there were big rats i didn't realize that they were ones that could eat my cats. these things were MASSIVE...they can't even put cats in the warehouse bc the rats would kill them. they said they're so huge bc they ate through all the boxes of the protein powder, but i dunno if they were joking or not. i was working in the warehouse with the other intern and every time i moved a box i held my breath that one wouldn't crawl out on me. it was sick. and there were plenty of huge spiders, but not like the tarantula in the bathroom. one time i was holding one of the large boxes and 3 cockroaches crawled out and it took every inch of will in my body not to drop the box. i didn't want to look like a baby but i felt like i was on fear factor. they were joking that they were gonna lock me in there as a new intern hazing ritual. the clinic was closed today so we did a bunch of dirty work...hauling garbage, trudging up and down the hills, stocking medical supplies...i look like i have the chicken pox with all the mosquito bites i have. its really sad bc the haitian customs officers came by and took a bunch of supplies and left the place a mess. it is really disheartening.

i'm excited bc tomorrow the clinic opens back up and i will be working there alongside one of the doctors. 3rd world medicine has to make due with what they have, so i will be learning a lot. they see a lot a crazy things...lots of parasites and STDs, etc. i'm also picking up some kreyol from some of the staff...it's not too hard bc a lot of it is similar to french. my french accent is also improving. Dr. Cheryl is awesome and i love working with her...she is young and energetic and she makes me work hard.

my roommate says that i sleep-talk and it scares her. i met some OU fans in the new group and they bust me for going to UT. i saw two boys in town with Texas Longhorns t-shirts on....it was weird to see that.

there are men with guns surrounding the compound, so i can practice some kreyol with them if i am walking around...they laugh at me bc i am so bad at it. some other group members are sick, but i still feel strong...

that's all for now...just critters today, learning how to not be a wuss.