last tuesday on the mission

good news, mal is feeling a bit better this evening...looks like the meds are working already. last night was a long night with the twins...between the 2 of them i was up about once every hour. it is exciting though bc it means they are healthy enough to drink. i'm so happy that the mission was able to adopt them...they are very lucky. i'm also grateful to even have a tiny role in the first few weeks of their lives. tonight i am on second shift which means i go to bed early and then i am on twin patrol from 1am-8am. they're so incredibly adorable, i don't mind sacrificing some sleep!

i spent some time talking to rachel (director of hope house) last night and she was explaining to me that it was rough at the hope house this year. there was an orphan named marenda that had been rescued as a child bc she had been left in a trash dumpster that had been lit on fire. her body was half covered in burns and she had a severe bone deformity or disease in her legs that made it difficult to walk (perhaps the reason why she was left to die). no one really knew what was wrong with her bc haiti does not have the testing that she needed, but she had been improving really well. in november she started to get sick with a cold that she couldn't shake and it seemed like she was beginning to get depressed. there were a series of tests that she needed to get done, but they were so hard to get that she could only get one at a time. meanwhile she was constantly getting worse, to the point which no one could touch her and it was even painful to turn over on the bed. in january, while they were still waiting on two more tests, she passed away at age 16. she had known pain and suffering her entire short life. they never found out what was wrong with her bc haiti doesn't do autopsies, but it could have been something entirely treatable had they known what it was. naturally it was a huge loss for the mission and just another of the many frustrations due to lack of resources. what is merely a prescription in the states may be a death sentence in haiti.

a side note on burns...many many patients who come into the clinic have burn scars from their childhood. brad explained to me that these are very common in haiti for multiple reasons...first, there are burn pits everywhere. bc there is no waste disposal system, most haitians just burn all their trash. coupled with the fact that i've seen children barely old enough to walk alone on the sides of the streets, it is not surprising that so many adults have burn scars. also, burning is used as punishment, as well as in voodoo rituals. in fact, a haitian woman in NYC was just arrested for burning her baby after she laid him in a circle of kerosene which she lit as part of a voodoo ritual.

...

today i was assigned to a group and we went to the beach. it was a beautiful day and the sun was strong. they are telling me that i am starting to look like a haitian. cody, roger, and i went out on a canoe and went snorkeling at the coral reefs. the water is bright torquoise and the corals were beautiful purples and oranges and blues...i can't believe that nature can make such radiant colors and they are hidden away on the ocean floor. we saw some crazy-looking fish and one of the haitians dove to bottom and picked me some really cool looking coral....soft when it was underwater and then almost instantly solid once it was exposed to air. we swam around for nearly an hour...i must have rubbed against one of the poisonous ones bc my arm started stinging and a patch of my skin started bubbling at the surface...it felt like someone was putting a lit match to my forearm. the bubble blisters stung in the salt water, but were barely noticeable once i was out. we canoed alongside the mountains and it was one of the most beautiful sites i have ever seen.

afterwards we went to the site of the new property, and as we walked through the rows and rows of tall banana trees, nearly 50 children appeared from all directions. they just come out of no where, half dressed with no shoes with their hands raised up for you to pick them up while the others grab your hands and legs. from what i've seen, it seems like the people worst of are those in the countryside. it is most often where i see children with protruding rib cages, swollen bellies, orange hair, massive skin infections. the little girl that i was holding had only a skirt on and she was sweating from head to toe. i could feel her raspy, clogged breathing with her naked back against my arms. it was a lung infection that you didn't need a stethoscope to hear. some of the other kids had really croupy coughs...but they all just went on like they had not a care in the world, just happy to have strangers "love on them" as they call it, albeit for a tiny amount of time.

i'm off to bed to steal some sleep before my baby shift. tomorrow i have a day off but i will probably spend it in the clinic with dr. jenifer. i can't believe that i leave so soon. i'm excited to see my family...it has almost been 7 months, but it will be so hard to leave. i've taken in so much in such a short amount of time, i don't know if i've digested it all quite enough. somehow i feel that many of the images that i've witnessed will be forever engrained on my brain and in my heart. i only hope that the associated emotion will remain salient far beyond my immediate memory.

the generator died today. perhaps we will have to heat up the babies' formula by candlelight? i will plan on sweating through my clothes again! peace and bonswa...:)

tu es malade??

ok so today was a little hectic. last night when i went to go to bed mal was in bed shivering uncontrollably saying how cold she was...i turned off the fan even though it was already so hot...she got up about an hour later sweating with a 104 degree fever...she also had really sharp stomach pains, so bad she was keeled over. we brought her to the hospital first thing in the morning...at first we thought it was malaria bc she hadn't taken her pills, then we thought it was dengue fever bc she had a strange rash on her body. turns out that she had a bacterial infection and parasites, so she went on metronidazole for the bacteria and albendazole for the parasites (blastocyctosis)....the poor thing was in so much pain all morning...it's a double whammy to have such a high fever in this heat. i tried to get her to drink water but she couldn't keep anything in. i stayed with her the whole day and worked on the curriculum and cleaned our room while she slept. she said she felt a little better this evening, but i still think she looks pretty bad. i will have to check on her every once in a while tonight...i think she wants to just sleep on the bathroom floor bc that is where it's the coolest...


i have baby duty tonight, so it looks like i'll be up most of the night feeding and changing the diapers of the itty bitty twins (now about 7 days old). they're both so tiny and fragile...hannah rose is 2 lbs and jeremiah is 3 lbs. the mission has officially adopted them...they had no choice bc if they didn't the babies would probably die. they are both so cute...i can hold each in one hand...i let them both sleep on my chest but they get so hot that it makes me want to dose off to sleep. their HIV tests came back negative which is good, but we think that jeremiah does not have enough surfactant yet...they are already drinking more which is a really good sign. they found out who the mother is and she is 18 and lives on the street...she says she doesn't want them and if the mission tries to give them back she will kill both of the babies.

ok, well i hear a whimper...jeremiah, hannah or mal?? gonna be a long night....bonswaaa :)

More voodoo interjections...

the question is not whether you believe in voodoo or not....its existence is a universally accepted haitian reality...the rich practice just the same as the poor, sometimes more vehemently, though maybe less publicly. even the most educated of haitians that i have talked to speak of voodoo as just a part of life. there is no question about it, evil spirits are a fact to these people. i can't discount what they believe as a reality, after all isn't that what faith is? we believe there are good spirits and angels, so why is it so hard to accept that there are evil spirits as well? is it possible to believe one without the other? i came here wondering how many people believe in voodoo, but it is not a question of belief at all. the question is whether you partake in the rituals bc everyone knows that the spirits exist.

my thought process is a work in progress. main point, there is no simple answer. i'm doing all that i can to not interject my own personal logic, biases, and knowledge base onto what might sound strange to me. we are naturally egocentric and want to be able to explain things away, but we aren't necessarily the ones with the right answers. their truths are just as real to them as ours are to us.

no straight answer

new record today...19 people in the mini tap tap. we had church this morning and all the little girls were dressed in their princess dresses and the boys in church outfits that were either too small or too big. for children's mass we did a coloring project and the two little girls that i had met at the hospital, sumetine and syndie, each made me a picture to bring back to my "mummy". wiki and cadrak had some ceremony to go to, so we came back to the compound around noon. it was so hot and there was no way to escape the heat and humidity...no electricity, no running water... so mal and i decided to take a nap until they came. bad idea to take a nap in the middle of the day... we both woke up completely soaked through all our clothes and in drenched sheets. yuck.

we planned on going to gwo papa poule for lunch, but it was around 2 so they were out of everything...wiki and cadrak took us out to the village and we stopped at Good Samaritan orphanage bc it is sarah's last day here and she wanted to say goodbye. i was able to see carnesise for the 4th time this week! we then went to yoltay's for lunch...the place with the skinny dogs running around and where you can hear the animals actually getting slaughtered. they were out of a lot of stuff too, but they had beef and i shared cow liver with wiki. i didn't love it. i looked exactly like the liver from the cadaver i dissected this year.

we spent a long time talking there bc it was sarah's last day w/ wiki and cadrak and it was sad bc we've all become really close. they're like our own personal body guards, brothers, and friends.

throughout this entire trip i've been asking different people questions about what they thought about haiti's leaders past and present...what they think about haiti's situation. i haven't written about it yet bc i wanted to have asked enough people to form some sort of general conclusion, but what i've realized is that EVERYONE has a different opinion. starting with paul farmer, then dr. cheryl, then brad, then as many haitians as i possibly could....each had different opinions on all the leaders. the only consensus was that preval doesn't do much. even cadrak and wiki, who are basically attached at the hip, had vastly different opinions on haiti's past.

it was actually pretty interesting as we delved into haiti's "situation" bc it got a little tense between cadrak and wiki. cadrak had explained that during papa and baby doc's rule it was good bc there was stict justice for criminals, but if you said anything bad about them people would come to your house and shoot or torture you. but overall it was safer. he said that he liked aristide bc he pushed hard for education and that all of haiti got books and even the poor people could pursue an education. but he pissed off all the rich people. cadrak explained that he wasn't perfect but that he was a good leader overall. he said that he would be friends with preval but he was a bad leader. he would not be friends with the devaliers but what they did worked. when wiki was able to give his two cents he said that aristide did some good things, but that he was "lucifer's secretary"...he was a catholic priest but under his reign there were lots of sacrifices....for example, if a person became educated and went to get a job, they would make a sacrifice (sometimes babies) to ensure a better future or to absolve them from a past sin (warped version of catholic penance). like the other sadrak had told me the other day, aristide was a follower of satan, thus haiti had been ruled by satan during aristide's reign. he explained that haiti's problems were not political, economical, or historical...rather, they were spiritual in nature. there is an internal war between satan (voodoo, catholicism) and christianity and it is the root of haiti's struggle. the entire time wiki was talking cadrak was interrupting in disagreement. he said "how do you know that aristide was lucifer's secretary? did you see it with your own eyes? yes, voodoo exists and there are bad spirits in the sky at night, but aristide led the nation, not satan. haiti is not just corrupt, the whole world is corrupt. you can only really believe what you see with your own eyes bc everyone says something different." like most/all of the haitians that i have met, both are strict christians, yet acknowledge the existence and reality of voodooism. it's weird, just bc you don't practice it doesn't preclude its existence. everyone believes in its evil, only some partake in it. no one denies its power. what i've learned more than anything as i've mined through the interpretation of haiti's past is to be wary of everything you hear. i came into this trip knowing only of paul farmer's interpretation which i had taken blindly as the truth. i now have seen vastly different opinions and who's to say what's right and what's wrong? who am i to say that it's foolish to think that aristide is lucifer's secretary? everyone has their faults, we all tend to want to see things through rose-colored glasses or the complete opposite. it is not so different from the way many view the past versus current u.s. presidency. of course we will never know the full truth about anything, but being aware of the fact that there is much i am unaware of is enough for me.

...

have i mentioned how great wiki and cadrak are? they always let us do great things while at the same time being really protective. they don't get anything for taking us out and they don't have to, but they've never said no. we always have a really good time. we are leaving next sunday up to them, since it is my last day. it will be one of my saddest goodbyes.

there were 19 people squished onto a tiny tap tap on the way home. great way to meet total strangers! we hung around the venders a bit...i was gonna buy a machete for my dad, but i figured it might be impractical. they sell massive ones even to little kids. mal bought a walking cane that had carvings of bones and snakes and a skull...i'm pretty sure it is voodoo, but mal doesn't care...she doesn't believe in anything, good or bad. we joke about being the black sheeps on the mission bc she's a non-christian and i'm a catholic. it's funny how it's so hush hush. sarah leave tomorrow morning and mal and i are assigned to the school. we are editing a curriculum which will be the curriculum for all of haiti eventually, it's pretty cool. dr. cheryl informed us today that we will only be working til 12 tomorrow and then spending the afternoon cleaning our room. both mal and i are super sloppy...mal collects shells and rocks and things...she's a nature wild child. between the two of us, it's gotten pretty bad!

tuesday i go to the beach with a group and i'll be able to hang out with venna most of the day. i have wednesday off, clinic on thursday, construction on friday, hope house on saturday.

bonswaaaaaa.

beach day with the girls

this morning it was a little sad to say goodbye to the NC guys bc i've had a really great time getting to know them. maybe we will keep in touch, or maybe it will be just another ephemeral relationship. either way, i am grateful to have been able to get to know the 4 of them and it was awesome to see all the great things they were able to do in such a short amount of time.

me and my two roommates and one of the staff all had the day off today so we went to the beach called Wahoo Bay, about 40 minutes away. it was my first time having been out there and it was really beautiful. we all had the unexpected reaction of feeling a little uncomfortable driving through the haitian slums to get to a fancy resort. i hadn't anticipated the uneasiness that i felt when i was there, it just didn't seem right. it's strange that people can vacation here while children are starving right outside its gates. the view, however, was absolutely breathtaking. the torquoise water on the backdrop of rolling mountains made every angle look like a painting. haiti truly is a BEAUTIFUL country.

the sun was strong as always, but it was nice to finally relax. there was a man on the sand next to us who was cracking open a fresh-lobster and he gave the giant claw to me and mal to share...so so good. the water was crystal clear and there were tons of coral. the water is really salty so it is easy to float on. i ate poulet creole for lunch...chicken, rice and beans, picklies, and plantains. mal and diana bought haitian paintings that they bartered from $35 down to $15. i slept in the sun for most of the day...

both to and from the beach the radio stations were playing michael jackson songs. even though everything else was in french, every couple of songs we'd hear his voice. i guess his talent really did transcend the borders.

it is interesting as you drive through the villages to see that despite the extreme poverty, there really is a sense of community amoung the people. there is something liberating about constantly expecting the unexpected. as a whole, haitians are nice people. generous, appreciative, and self-giving. for example, if there is a family just barely struggling to get by who comes across an orphaned child, they won't think twice about taking him/her in...it is just what they are supposed to do. i have visited the poorest of shacks since i've been here and no sooner than i sit down on the dirt floor does a child appear out of nowhere offering a shabby wooden chair that had been stowed away somewhere out of sight. starving families are willing to share their food, old women are willing to give up their shoes, children are appreciative merely of receiving attention. of course haiti has its share of iniquity, yet the haiti that i have experienced has embraced me. they are a good, hardworking, proud people. the pride that they have in their country is inspiring. i can't tell you how many times i've been told that haiti was the first independent black nation, how the rebellion was the first/only successful slave revolt. rather than an attitude of disdain and dissatisfaction, there are words of hope and promise for a better nation. i think some people in the U.S. could learn a thing or two from haitian pride and appreciation. i know it sounds so trite at this point, but we really don't know how lucky we have it. since being here, i've learned how incredibly naive i am when it comes to what people are forced to live without. people bathing in streams of mud, sleeping under banana leaves and in wheelbarrows, living with massive infections and broken bones, living amidst human and animal feces. for a mother to have one surviving child out of 4 is not unusual, for a child to die of a minor infection is not unusual, for twin newborns to be abandoned by a desperate mother is not unusual.

so much that i've seen i wouldn't have appreciated had i not seen it with my own eyes. i still don't think it's sunk in that people actually LIVE like this. i've gotten only a tiny snapshot of an entirely different world, but it is exactly that....only a snapshot between a wedding in texas and a homecoming in connecticut. i wish so badly that i could hold on to the smells, tastes, scenes, relationships, emotions that i am experiencing now, but they will all inevitably dull with time and distance. i can only hope that my time in haiti has made such an impression on my heart and mind that it will be impossible to ignore in the future. to be just off the coast of florida, yet a world away from everything i have ever known has taught me just how much i don't know. it has made me aware that there is so much that i am unaware of. hopefully, at the very least, it has disabled any complacency that i might otherwise have fallen into had i not taken this trip. to have known their names and faces, listened to their stories, worked besides them makes it all pretty hard to ignore.

ok, off to bed, church in the morning, sarah's last day on the mission...bon nuit...

ps--update: ok so after i wrote this blog i went to take one of the staff's dog out which i'm watching while she takes care of the twins. as i'm bringing him back up the stairs low and behold in the middle of my path is another big hairy tarantula. i don't know what to do bc i need to get back inside but there's no way i'm stepping over that...they're also known for biting curious dogs in the face. i went to go wake roger or cody up, fortunately they were still awake and came up with a 2x4 but then we couldn't find it...then i saw that it had crawled up the wall....they smacked it with the board and we all ran screeching like little girls. i'm sure it was a hilarious sight to see. i made roger squish it until i saw the guts on the board and only then did i pass. and here i am safe and sound, another one bites the dust.

bring on the smiles...

it was one of those days when you do so much that you realize how much more you could possibly do. when we got to the clinic this morning we found the entire place crowded out the door with people wanting to see the dentist. news had travelled fast! people with swollen mouths, bleeding gums, rotting teeth, painful abcesses. i can't even begin to imagine how painful it must be to learn to live with some of the problems i saw.

one of my favorite cases involved gabby. i think i mentioned him before, by he is the 22 yr old boy with sickle cell anemia who has huge painful ulcers down both legs that won't heal...he comes to the clinic every single day to get his bandages changed and his wounds cleaned. his disease prevents the ulcers from ever healing, so he is at the point that he can no longer stand and is confined to a wheelchair. the changing of his bandages is traumatizing to say the least...he screams and writhes in pain throughout the entire agonizing process...often he has to sleep on a stretcher afterwards bc the whole process is so draining on him. gabby in his wheelchair is a common site to see in the clinic and, without exception, he always has a huge grin on his face. just one of those smiles that is sincere every single time. the dentist made it a point to take a break from pulling teeth and draining abscesses to inspect gabby's mouth...then he took special care to fix all of his teeth and as an added bonus he went ahead and whitened all of gabby's teeth. i thought that his smile could light up the room before his teeth were fixed, but now he had a smile that amplified an alreadyinspiring personality. it may not seem like much, but if you could see him in his wheelchair with that huge radiant grin, then you would understand right away.

as many as the people we helped, there were many more that we were just unable to get to. we worked for 9 straight hours and the dentist pulled tooth after tooth after tooth....everyone was so thankful, it was like they were gonna start kissing his feet! one man had 6 teeth pulled. the dentist was unbelievable...his name is dr. craig and he is young and energetic. not a single air about him. he had brought cases upon cases of medical supplies, and he worked with a dental hygienist named Mckenna who was straight out of hygeinist school. they were both so amazing. i noticed that dr. craig took about 4 minutes to eat his entire lunch before he headed back to the room. he sweat through multiple shirts throughout the day and even continued working when the power went out for about an hour and a half. he truly wanted to do as much as he could possibly do in the time that he was there. yet despite having done so much, you could tell that he was so heartbroken by the fact that we had to turn people away. he would have worked straight through the night if it wasn't so dangerous to drive at night or if we actually were able to keep the generator running long enough. the type of guy you wanna hang around.

i learned a lot about dentistry and was surprised about how artistic the whole process actually is. i also learned that haitians DO NOT like needles! one 14 year old girl almost broke my hand with her grip before the needle even penetrated her skin....the poor girl's entire body was shaking the entire time she was getting worked on! almost everyone was as stiff as a board when they sat down with pure fear in their eyes. i think the kids were better than the adults! it's funny how people can come in with bones poking through their skin and there is barely a wince, yet get near their mouth and they're scared to death! though i'd be freaked out too if machines were coming towards my face when i had scarcely had even been around electricity.

the two girls from Good Samaritan, rosena and carnesise, arrived with the medical team, and they both had a tooth pulled. poor carnesise was crying so hard and every time i came near the

chair she would reach her arms up to me like "save me!" i felt so bad for her, the procedure looked really rough. i had to rock her for like 25 minutes after she was done just to try and calm her down. there was a lot of blood everywhere so i think she was pretty freaked out. another boy got so freaked out by the blood that he puked everywhere.

i told one lady that i liked her shoes and she said "i will give them to you!" and started to take them off. so poor in the first place, yet she tried to give me her shoes to show her appreciation. just one of those things that makes me say wow.

dr. cheryl's phone died, so i had to tackle the hills in the blazing sun whenever we needed something or to contact someone...it wore me out! in fact, i am half falling asleep as i write this now...

by the end of the day there was a garbage full of teeth, blood everywhere, and a whole lot of patients who had conquered years of pain after 30 minutes in a dental chair. i am so grateful that i was able to be part of that experience.

today was such a whirlwind that i'm having a hard time remembering all that happened. when i took the girls to the bathroom they were both in awe of the toilet...i guess i hadn't thought about the fact that they probably hadn't seen one before....it was so funny, at first they were scared and grabbed onto me, and then they just stared at the water getting sucked down. it was so cute. i lost my favorite necklace, but i figure one of the kids snapped it while hanging on my neck...i'm sure someone will find it and be very happy. one man in the waiting room asked me if i was an indian. another man had an abcess on his foot that basically exploded all over the floor. i got bit by 1000 mosquitos today and i smell really bad. i learned a little more haitian history and was recommended to read "written in blood" for more. i also wanna see the movie "cite soleil" about one of the neighborhoods in port-au prince. i practiced my french with sadrak and jr.

two of the haitian guys told me "i lost a friend yesterday"....in reference to mj.

it was hard saying goodbye to dr. craig, nurse jennifer, and mckenna. i always think about all the people who have been in and out of my life, and it is difficult knowing that this will be them as well. the relationships that i have formed here are short, but like so many others in my life are far from superficial. it is a whole different environment here, a mini chapter randomly inserted into my life...i've gone from being a complete stranger to a part of a family...i am able to be myself entirely here...there's no drama, no pettiness, no superficiality...just people united by the same vision and working hard for the right reasons. there are so many ups and downs that we are forced to ride together... we've all learned to roll with the tide and keep things in perspective. the reality of the fact that i probably won't see most of these people again is scary and makes my stomach turn. i know i should appreciate the fact that i was able to build these relationships at all, but it doesn't make it any easier. it doesn't seem right that you can open yourself entirely to someone else, be entwined in someone else's life for a period of time, and then never see them again. NEVER is a long time. i will be gone and all this will be going on without me just as before i came.

.........

can you tell i'm already trying to prepare myself to leave? haha. gulp. tomorrow i have a much needed day off and me and some others are going to the beach for the day...it will be a nice break. maybe i will have a beer and read a book.

peace and bonswa.

twins, teeth, and MJ

this morning was an eventful morning bc someone found two 4-day-old twins on the side of the road that the mother had left to die. someone called the mission and we took the tiny boy and girl in. the babies are so tiny, just the length of my forearm, but they were surprisingly healthy...they got a check-up and formula in the clinic this morning. i don't know what steps are going to be taken from here on out, but at least they are in good hands for the time being. it makes you realize how often stuff like this happens and how many innocent babies are left to die this way.

the clinic was really busy today...apparently the news is spreading that there is a free dentist in town. it's heartbreaking to have to turn people away. i was with the nurse practitioner again...we saw a lot of kids today....same awful diseases as always....we saw one little girl who had impetigo so bad that both her ears were completely encrusted over and partially eaten away. another little girl had rickets so bad the both her legs were so bowed out that it made it difficult to walk.

another thing that i've seen time and again is injured toddlers and babies who are brought in by mothers that don't know how the injury occurred. it's extremely common in Haiti to see tiny babies on the hips of single digit girls walking through the streets. siblings take care of siblings at a very young age. the mothers are pregnant or working or no longer living. it makes treating the child difficult bc most likely they will be right back in that high risk situation. we can treat an injury, but we can't change what the culture neccessitates.

after lunch was really great bc we went through the market in Cabaret and then brought the medical/dental team to the Good Samaritan Orphanage. i'm really beginning to know my way around! the story behind this orphanage is pretty interesting....it was originally located farther away, but had been destroyed by the trio of major hurricanes which so devestatingly tore through Haiti this past fall. most of northern haiti was completely destroyed by the flooding and the destruction is obvious. apparently the flooding had risen up over the walls of the orphanage and the pressure caused the facility to completely collapse around 2am in the morning. miraculously, all 120 orphans somehow survived (babies included!). but now they were all orphans again. when MOH found out, they came together and bought an old disco nightclub which they transformed into an orphanage. it is basically one giant open area with a dome-like roof...the kids sleep, eat, and live there now...

i've been to this orphanage 3 or 4 times since i've been here and there has always been one girl especially whose gravitated towards me. Her name is Cearnsuze and she hardly ever smiles, but she is always holding my hand, sitting on my lap, wanting to be held. she barely ever talks, today she actually fell asleep in my lap despite the loudness and excitement that was surrounding us. it's so cute bc sometimes she tries to scratch off my freckles. i don't know what it is, but she is always my little buddy when i'm in the area...her face is one of the many that i won't forget.

another thing i've learned about haiti....nothing ever starts on time, nothing ever works the way it should or when you need it, plans fall through all the time, and you have to expect that at least one thing will go wrong that day. issue #1: digicel, the poor world cell phone company towers were completely out today somehow, which made communication nearly impossible. #2. we waited for about 45 minutes before our vehicle came, but somehow it was too small to fit us all so then we had to wait again for something bigger. they came back with a full old fashioned bus to carry the 10 of us...it was the only vehicle available and working. issue #3. the dentist needed a small generator for giving sealants to the orphans, but then the generator couldn't fit on the bus, so we had to have that driven separately...somehow we found another vehicle, still no cell service, just a lot of walking. #4. when we finally got to the orphanage we couldn't get the generator to work....two mechanics worked on it, but it was shot. at this point i'm getting used to this kind of thing...you really just have to learn how to roll with it :)

we ended up having to brush all the kids teeth with flouride and the dentist triaged the children according to how bad their mouths were. it was really cute setting up an assemly line of teeth brushing, the kids really liked it. cearnsuze is actually being picked up by the doctors on the way to the clinic tomorrow bc she needs to get a tooth removed that is growing under her tongue. i'm excited to see her tomorrow morning and maybe i will be there to comfort her. kids in haiti are so tough and they barely cry about anything. fall down, get back up....get hit, hit them back...anyways, we were there doing teeth until about 5 so it was a pretty full day.

i let one of the little boys just take my camera while we were there and he ran around taking a ton of pictures. he was pretty young so there are a bunch of pictures of the floor or a foot or the ceiling or people w/ their heads cut out of the photo...i was cracking up when i actually looked through the pictures. he must have also accidently zoomed bc there was a whole series of pictures in a row that were just face shots, sometimes just a nose and an eye. there was one of me and it showed sweat pouring out from every pore. but he got some good ones...kids being silly, the ladies on the side preparing supper (the kids eat a plate of rice and beans twice a day every day), some action shots of the dental team. at the very least, i got it all from a child's perspective!

i practiced french with sadrak again today.

we got a ride back on the back of laurence's truck and came back to an overflow of a group of 25 people that had just arrived on the mission. goodbye to the quiet time! i don't think i would recommend a 1 wk mission trip unless it was your only option. it is more of a spectacle....there is just too much to digest in such a short amount of time...you spend more time taking pictures than actually taking everything in...i'm beginning to think that even a month is not long enough! i don't want to forget even one moment of the time i've spent here, and i feel i've been better able to internalize it more and more as the days go on.

we had haitian food for dinner and i ate too much as always. who knows when i'll be able to eat authentic haitian again! after dinner was really funny bc me, roger, mal, madame anise, and some other workers were outside and JR (one of our interpretors) was singing/acting out michael jackson (rip) songs....considering the thick haitian accent and the completely botched lyrics, it definitely had us all in stitches!

tomorrow is another full day...then on saturday 4 of us have the day off so we are trying to get wiki or cadrak to bring us to the beach.

yesterday was anti-malarial-pill-wednesday and i had dream after dream about crocodiles.

bonswa! on se verra demain!

lightning.

today was much better! it was a great start when i woke up and found out we were having madame amise's (the head cook) specialty......buttered homemade bisquits covered in chocolate gravy. yes unhealthy, but amazingly good.

i was assigned to the nurse practitioner and she was awesome. she has a lot of experience with travel medicine, and it shows. she works and lives in the inner city and has been all around the world working where they need help the most. she lived 2 years in russia practicing medicine and is used to using interpretors. she could very well have an ego but she doesn't. rather than speak to the translator, she actually speaks directly to the patient fully knowing that they don't understand a word she's saying....but i definitely think it makes a difference. she was very particular about what she was prescribing and double checked by looking things up. she absolutely maintained a high standard of quality care, regardless of the fact that she was in a desperate 5th world country. she taught me a lot about travel medicine and the avenues which i could take to do the types of things i want to do. there were a bunch of the regular cases today...malaria, typhoid, std's...one really interesting case of shingles bc the girl was only 14 which is really young.....but it was classic unquestionable shingles. dr. jenifer said that it probably means she has HIV.

one funny thing that happened today....i went to the lab tech to ask a couple questions about pregnancy tests, but it was hard bc he mainly speaks kreyol. somehow he thought that i was asking for a pregnancy test for myself bc later he told one of the doctors to send me back for my pregnancy test...kind of embarassing, but funny more than anything else!

the dental team here is awesome...they have a full room of supplies and 2 portable dental chairs. it is not surprising that so many patients have learned to live with mouth pain. poor dooney had to get a tooth pulled today and she was scared to death and stiff as a board.

i spent 2 hours with sadrak practicing my french...he is a great teacher and very patient and helpful....super intelligent, it is a shame he won't be able to continue his medical education bc of money.

we ate the chickens today....so good.

i don't even want to think about leaving here. i'm really bad at goodbyes.

i have to cut this short bc we got hit w/ lightning and who knows when power will be back...bonswa.... :)

too much ego for this clinic

today was a little rough. another medical team arrived today...a dentist, a nurse practitioner, and a podiatrist. both the nurse and podiatrist saw all patients, whereas the dentist gave sealants to all the children. i was assigned to the podiatrist and it wasn't pretty. he is the epitome of what gives doctors and americans a bad name. he came to the clinic in cargo shorts, a baseball hat, and a junky t-shirt and walked in like he owned the place. i doubt he would ever dress like that in an American clinic. his whole demeanor was condescending, chauvinistic, and self-righteous. one of the things that i really appreciate about the MOH hospital is that despite the fact that the patients are desperate for medical care, the clinic maintains high standards when it comes to patient treatment, confidentiality, and proper medication regimens. this doctor preferred to leave the door wide open while he saw patients so that he could get airflow. meanwhile patients were divulging their personal stories. when dr. cheryl told me to ask him to have the patients sit on the bed so that they could close the door, he replied (and i quote), "i think i'm going to do whatever i want, since i'm the doctor practicing here." For a man with such a huge ego, he had no idea what he was doing when it came to general medicine. he acted like he did, but i've been here long enough to know that he hadn't much of an idea what he was talking about. i ended up having to ask the pertinent questions and by the end of the morning i was writing all the labs and prescriptions and he was just signing. a woman with a vaginal infection came in and he actually said, "i don't do that stuff, you can get this one." people would come in with abdominal pain and he would say "it's just bc haitians don't know how to eat" when really it is most likely a parasite or typhoid. he would ask for fancy tests and when i told him that they don't do them here he said, "why not? that seems stupid, it's not hard." he completely did not understand the lack of resources.... he was constantly saying, "why don't they do this? they should run it like this. this place would be better if..." he overlooked peoples symptoms and prescribed cop-out drugs...easy symptom maskers.

the worst part is the way he talked about the staff at MOH who to me are beyond amazing. when i told him that i would check w/ blondie about a certain medication he responded bitingly, "you mean to tell me that a pharmacist is going to tell me how to treat my patients?? ha." when i told him i had to check with dr. jenifer about something, he said, "who is this jenifer person?"...i told him that she was the head doctor here to which he replied, "oh yeah? is she actually a real doctor or something like a chiropractor?" he was unprofessional, overly judgmental, and rude. "how do things ever get done around here? can't they do something about this heat? are they even gonna feed us here? pb&j, really?? can i get an extra pen or can they not even afford that??" he made me absolutely sick to my stomach. i wanted to tell him off so badly, but i had to bite my tongue. the only good thing about it is that i had to make my own diagnoses and prescriptions. but that should not happen. he in no way respects the standard of care that would be accepted in the U.S. he made haphazard diagnoses and he acted like everyone should be thankful that he is there...haitians are poor, i'm donating my time to their desperate bodies, so how dare they not be satisfied with this crappy medicine that i practice? they are lucky to have me. after all, I AM A DOCTOR. the whole thing made me so mad, my face felt on fire the entire morning. at least i have an example of someone that i never want to be like. self-righteous, judgmental, short-sighted, ego-centric, condescending jerk.

selfishly i don't want to work with him tomorrow, but i know that i might have to bc i've had the most treatment and diagnoses hours.

i learned today that haiti is considered a 5th world country which is basically a 3rd world country that has no hope bc of lack of resources. it is depressing that such a category even exists.

one of the girls here has typhoid fever and we can't figure out how she got it, so we're all being extra cautious. what's crazy is that she had gotten the vaccine before she came here, but apparently it is only 50% effective.

i feel like i've vented a little today, so i'm going to end with some nice pictures :)

just another manic monday

i will start by saying that today was the day for invading creatures....huge lizard and frog in the shower, baby tarantula in one of the bedrooms, and HUGE tarantula on the gate. this thing was as big as my full hand...i never would have guessed how much like a rodent these things look like in person....completely hairy and thick, i don't even know how it is classified as a spider. one of the guys caught it and let it go....the blurry picture shows the relative size...it was massive.

i was the only intern assigned to group work today, so i spent the morning unloading trailers of 50 and 100 lbs of rice, beans, and protein drinks. MOH feeds 12,000 children EVERY DAY. how great is that? it was me, cadrak, the NC guys...jason, john, grant, and james and a bunch of the haitian workers...over 105 degrees outside, even hotter in the warehouse. we got a lot done, but it was quite the sweaty mess along the way. both my ankles are swollen f/ some kind of biting ants that the warehouse if filled with. all the while, cadrak taught me more Haitian history. he is a wealth of knowledge and has an unassuming honesty about him that i especially appreciate.

we took a long lunch break and i helped wiki with an english philosophy assignment he had to do. i thought it was hard even though english is my first language!

we went into the village cabaret around 1....me, the NC guys, Cadrak, and another Cadrak that also works here. i will spell his name Sadrak to make it easier. i know sadrak bc he is a translator in the clinic and he also just finished his first year of medical school. i feel so bad for him bc he is unable to pay for next year, so he has to stop med school. he said to me, "i can't do it, so you have to do it. don't be a doctor who just studies studies studies. be a doctor who loves people." very genuine.

we rode to the village in the shawshank truck and the market was going on so things were a little crazy. bc there were only 7 of us we had a lot of freedom to walk around the market. sadrak made me stay w/ him the whole time bc i was the only girl, but i didn't mind bc he is nice to talk to. i've been wondering a lot about voodoo down here, so he basically taught me about that for an hour while the other guys looked around and evangelized through cadrak's translations. voodoo is fascinating, interesting, and disturbing all at the same time:

Catholicism is the major religion of Haiti, although it has been so intertwined with voodoo and folk practices that it is barely discernable as catholicism as we know it. as a side note, i've sensed a lot of anti-catholicism since i've been here...."you know, catholics worship Mary!" and apparently there are two distinct groups: catholics and Christians. this struck me as odd, bc i've always considered myself both. i still do. learning how catholicism has been bastardized by voodoo, however, has shown some light on these sentiments.

sadrak explained to me that voodoo is still widely practiced and that Catholic priests and voodoo priest are one in the same in haiti. he told me that sometimes people have to sacrifice their babies to be absolved or cured...other times they drink potions of urine and other things. he told me that "priests are constantly putting spells on people. sometimes at night the voodoo priests come out and turn sinners into rodents." he also explained to me that he had a friend in med school who was the smartest in the class, so the classmates went to the voodoo priest to do something to him bc they were jealous. he was tempted by a beautiful women to read this book which had a voodoo spell in it that made him go blind. he was only cured when he went to another catholic priest who performed and exorcism of sorts...but it was painful and there was fire involved (some stuff lost in translation). He also told me that he grew up going to the Catholic school and he was always taught to make the sign of the cross, until later on he found out that it was evil, so he doesn't do it anymore. i asked him what it meant but he said he didn't want to tell me bc it was too bad and bc my heart was "innocent". i said something about the vatican and he said that they were just like voodoo priests too. he said, "did you ever notice how priests whisper when they make the sign of the cross? they are whispering spells and curses when they do that." he said that some catholics are Christians and some are not. also, that Catholics in the states are different than catholics in Haiti. there are catholic churches and voodoo temples and they are one in the same, except for the fact that the temples are dirtier. some of this stuff sounded so crazy to me, but he said it all so matter-of-factly that i was captivated by his every word. he truly believed the components of voodoo, while at the same time recognizing that it was inherently evil and wrong. sadrak is very intelligent and well-educated, thus this isn't a case of poor man's desperate superstitions. he despises it, but he doesn't disbelieve it. it is merely a fact of life in haiti. just another thing that i will probably never understand. sadrak and i are trying to get to work together tomorrow, so maybe by the evening i will know a little more...

back to the market. we made our way to the place called Grace House which is in the midst of the slums and no longer visited by the groups. cadrak and sadrak were a little hesitant about letting us go, but one of the guys was insistant so we ended up heading over. it is the type of place where people are peeing in the streets and children are taking care of children and people look like they're dying on the sides of the roads. the grace house is (was?) supported by MOH and was described to me as a place where people go to die. kind of like a hospice but with no nurses and barely enough food to eat. actually i don't know what it provides other than a roof to cover over 50 of the dying and forgotten. the place itself is mainly one big room w/ a space to cook and one or two beds. it was absolutely filthy, there were bugs everywhere, starving dogs running around, people laying on the ground in pain. there were some children around, so while the guys were ministering and giving out kreyol bibles, i took some time to play w/ the kids. they all seemed a little scared at first. one of the little boys looked like he had been burned and was wrapped in a bandage around his chest. there was another boy who was quiet and looked weak...it wasn't until is started to tickle him that i realized that he was merely a skeleton in a child's t-shirt. none of the kids had eaten in a while so we gave them some mangos from the market. the whole scene was heartbreaking, yet in the midst of it all, kids are kids, and they all manage to laugh and smile. i am constantly reminded of how strong kids are and how they are able to appreciate even the smallest things in life. it amazes me.

after leaving grace house, we traveled to Good Samaritan orphanage where i had some more kid time. the little kids were eating, so i found some of the older girls and worked on my french with them. they giggle every time i pronounce something wrong, it's really entertaining for them! they also liked taking pictures of their best model poses. we played with the kids a bit more, the guys told bible stories, cadrak fell asleep on a bench, the girls tangled up my hair, and then it was time to go...

when we got back i walked around the compound a bit which was a bad idea in the heat, but beautiful anyways. i thought about how hard it will be to leave in 2 weeks and how painful it is to think of never seeing some of these people again. i really appreciate the haitian unbridled honestly and i've become close with some of the workers here. i've learned so much from them and they've really opened their hearts to me. part of me wants to distance myself a bit so the goodbye isn't so hard, but i don't know if that is being cowardly or practical. i guess i will have to deal with it when the time comes...

i'm in the clinic the next 4 days, i really hope i'm w/ sadrak again tomorrow.

i will probably have nightmares about tarantulas tonight. peace and bonswa :)

lazy sunday...

I love sundays! everything is so relaxed around the mission, even the staff gets to wind down a bit. all the big groups left yesterday so there is finally some quiet at night. the only other people here are a group of 4 guys from north carolina. they are all so nice and funny and really active, we all hit it off right away...it should be an interesting week!

the church service this morning was really beautiful. the excitement of the sermons and songs is contagious and everything sounds so beautiful in french and kreyol. the kids are pretty much let loose in the church and they randomly find laps to sit on and arms to grab and snuggle up on. my little church buddy's name was rebecca and she was probably about 7 yrs old. she had a yellow dress on that i'm pretty sure was formerly someone's costume for Belle from Beauty and the Beast. really thick costume material with sleeves and all. that's one thing i've noticed about here...for special occaisions like church or the graduation, everyone wears their best clothes which for women often means someone's old wedding dress or something that was someone's discarded prom dress in the states. it doesn't matter if it is a dress made of velvet, if it is the nicest thing you own, then you wear it to church. back to rebecca...she hung onto me throughout the service, but as soon as i sat down for a break she laid herself across my lap and fell asleep. of course the church was as hot as hades and all of us were sweating, but it is a whole different story when a child falls asleep and completely sweats through their clothes. she had completely soaked her yellow dress. another younger child with a red and black velvet dress (probably an old christmas dress) fell asleep against my right side and sweat was pouring down my right arm. the kids never complain, i guess they are used to it. a visitor from ohio passed out right in the middle of the service...

we then went to children's mass which is always pretty fun, but i had to leave early bc i was supposed to be "sick" to bait wiki and cadrak to our place. we had made a no-bake oreo pudding cake last night and so then mal and i cut up 5 mangos while we were waiting for them to get there. we also decorated the room with balloons and streamers. wiki was so surprised when he got there! he does this thing where he smiles and shows all his top and bottom teeth, it's so cute. he was like "what?! for me?!", he really couldn't believe it. we ate cake and mango and talked and wiki played the guitar. it was really funny bc when we were about to leave to go into town wiki turned to me and said "so brittany, are you feeling better?"...we all started cracking up, but he was completely serious! then he said, "so you LIED to me?!?! on a sunday!?!". that just made us all laugh harder...

afterwards we all piled into the back of a pickup truck with cody and roger and the other 4 guys f/ NC and went to get lunch at Papa Poule's in town. i had chicken and plantains and rice and beans and picklies. picklies look like coleslaw but they are really spicy...really good when mixed w/ everything. after eating, i went outside for a bit to get some air and there were some kids hanging around outside. they were really wild, but cute as always. they kept on doing kung fu moves and wanted to take pictures of everything. for a second i got nervous that one would run away with my camera, but they never did and i felt bad for thinking that. at one point a little girl grabbed mal's sunglasses and she hadn't even noticed until the girl's dad dragged her back with the glasses in her hand. mal said that another time she had put her sunglasses on a boy and then he had disappeared for a while and she just assumed they were gone....but hours later when she was getting back onto the bus the little boy comes running up out of no where and gives them back to her. i thought that was a cute story. anyways, back to Papa Poule's. the tallest of the little girls took my water bottle and told me to take a picture of her like she was an american with water.... she did a little model pose in her ripped skirt and tank top, it was so funny, i know she was going for some type of movie star.

when we returned to the compound i walked around for a bit...very hot as usual. i bought an awesome hand-carved wooden statue from some old ladies for my grandpa; it is a man carrying a fish on his back. i also bought some cards made out of banana leaves.

ham and cheese on hotdog rolls for dinner. and pringles and little debbies of course. processed food bc it's cheap. the NC guys are really outgoing and they organized some dodgeball...one of the guys tried to teach cadrak how to swing a baseball bat which was a hilarious sight to see. he's never seen baseball played, nevermind know how hold a bat!

the chickens are getting fat. i think they will be dinner on wednesday.

it was really nice tonight bc it was just all of us and the 3 families that live here. we've all gotten so close living in this type of environment, we bust on each other a lot and have a good time. they've really taken us under their wings. mal, sarah, and i did the dishes for the day and someone had an ipod player and we blasted the dixie chicks in the kitchen. it's the first time we've had something like that.... it was so weird to hear american country music in haiti, in the dark, on the side of a mountain. the guys said that we look more natural on the construction site than in the kitchen...i believe it! i really love the dynamics here.

i tried calling home using scype to wish my dad a happy father's day...it didn't work too well bc i didn't know where to talk into and they couldn't really hear me, but it was good to hear my parents' voices.

tomorrow all the other interns are assigned to the school, but i am assigned to work w/ the NC guys. we are probably doing some type of construction project bc they all do construction, but i think it will be fun bc they are all really enthusiastic and a lot of fun to be around. i am in the clinic the whole rest of the week. there is a dentist coming on tuesday that is going to give all the kids sealants at the clinics and local orphanages...hopefully i'll be working with him a bit. that's all for today, nothing too exciting...but that's half of what i love about sundays.

a little sun, a little storm

we just got hit with a killer storm, it felt like the whole place was going to collapse! we've finally got some power...

today was an awesome day at the beach with the kids. the truck pulled up at about 9am busting at the seams with the Hope House kids; it reminded me of the prison truck from shawshank redemption...blue with benches and the whole bed caged in. getting into the back of that was like stepping into a lion's den... the kids swarmed us and it made for a very hot and sticky ride. like every other ride it was very bumpy and we had to drive through water twice.

the beach that we went to was property owned by Brad and Vanessa (the owners of MOH). It is absolutely beautiful...crystal blue ocean with banana and almond trees...a solitary canoe out on the deep ocean...for a moment i felt like i was on vacation!

three girls were assigned to me...Doony (8), Bernadine (9), and Meeslyn (10)...they did not let me rest for the entire time we were there! the only time we were able to get out of the water was to eat. the rest of the time they were hanging all over me bc they didn't like when their feet touched the ocean floor...it was quite the workout! The HH orphanage kids are all really well disciplined and naturally are much healthier than the other children that we have been around. MOH is very strict with them and sets a lot of ground rules...they are all very lucky to have been taken in by MOH.

the kids taught me how to crack almonds and i taught them how to catch crabs.

it was a long day of lots of water games and plenty of sun. we're all pretty sunburned despite reapplying sunscreen continuously...the sun here is so strong! this is certainly the most tired i've been since i got here.

we spent the rest of the night planning for wiki's surprise party. i am the bait bc i am going to be "sick" in my room when it is time to go out to lunch. i'm too tired to write more tonight, but i will be much better tomorrow. bonswa.

Graduation, market, and school bus

<---Wiki on the left, cadrak on the right. I feel so lucky to have been here for the MOH graduation today. Only 2% of Haiti's entire population graduates from high school, so it was a really big deal. the entire service was in french and there was a lot of singing and clapping and excitement. most of the speeches revolved around thanking all those people who had helped make the education possible and when the names were called it was the parents who stood up and everyone in the assembly applauded to the parents/families. there was a lot of talk about going out and making a new haiti. it was really exciting and i was so happy for all the students to be honored this way. it was especially nice for us bc Wiki graduated today and we were able to congratulate him and see who his parents were. we all took pictures with him (and cadrak of course) and when i congratulated him he said "i've been waiting for this day for thirteen years". and i know that wasn't an exaggeration. he is a great person and i think that he will do great things. i can't wait to surprise him on sunday! this afternoon i went to the market with the other interns and we bought some mangos and other random stuff for the party. roger, the other male intern, bought two live chickens that he is going to fatten up for us all to eat. the kitchen ladies are really excited; i'm kind of curious to see if they really do run around once their heads are cut off. bc there was only a few of us, it was my most intimate experience of the haitian way of life that i've had yet. i wish that i could take pictures of all that i see when i'm in the midst of the haitian people, but i know that that would be beyond rude... often when we are in town there is a lot of "blan! blan!" bc there are never any white people in the slums (ie most of haiti) and kids will run up to us trying to sell stuff or see if we have anything. today there was this one kid hanging around us about 13 yrs old...he didn't say anything, but just kind of stood at a distance wherever we went. the boy was all skin and bones and covered with dirt from head to toe. he had two completely different shoes on....one green croc which his toes had broken through and a girl's red sandal. he had a nice face. i smiled and waved and he shyly did the same. no matter where we went i could feel his eyes on me...not in a weird way, just kind of like he was curious. i remembered that i had a package of crackers and peanut butter in my bag, so i gave it to him and he thanked me and put it in his back pocket. he continued to stay with us most of the time we were there, never saying anything or asking for anything, but for some reason he was the only thing i noticed for the longest time. i don't know why this image struck me so hard, but i was frozen in the moment between me and a boy who's life was a world apart from mine. venna, a young female interpretor, had accompanied us into town and we squished into a tap tap filled with 15 people. i was exactly in the middle, and it was hot. after we had finished our shopping venna said we could go to her "house" which was nearby. she was so excited to bring us there and show us around. the structure was actually a lot nicer than the shacks i had seen around, but it was still pretty shaky. it consisted mainly of one small room with a side space with a hot plate which she called the kitchen. the picture that i attached shows both the her shower and her bathroom. on the left is the white bucket that she uses as a shower, and the green bucket to the right is her toilet, which she described to us as her bathroom. she was so excited to show us everything. she takes care of her sister and her brother and also another girl whose whole family had died and she had taken in. there are also 3 other boys that live there who have no where else to live right now. she said its hard bc it's expensive, and we figured out that it costs about $250 american to live there for a year. later this night i found out from someone else that she had been robbed 3 days ago and they had stolen $150...her house savings.


a side note on stealing. if a haitian is caught stealing from the market, the townspeople will catch and lynch him and that is considered social justice. put tires around him and light him on fire. in the cops' eyes, that is what the thief deserved and retaliation is expected. if someone hits someone while driving he won't stop bc if he did there is a good chance that the mob of onlookers would kill him. not to make haitians sound like savages, just illustrating how the people take justice in their own hands, bc there is nothing coming from the top.


while the others were inside talking i was outside with the kids letting them play with my camera. two of them had no pants on and all were filthy. they were really REALLY funny. i would show them the pictures and everytime i pointed to someone they would all say the that person's name in unison, it was so cute. they really get a kick out of getting to see what they look like. it's pretty funny to see their reactions.


one easy game that i've found that most of the kids like to play is the one where one person's hand is one the bottom and the other's is on the top and the bottom person needs to slap the hands on the top before the other pulls away. i tried to teach this to one of the little boys....he wasn't quite getting it, but he was having a lot of fun with the hand slapping part so i just went with it. the kids were all around and i heard someone yell "friend! friend!" from nextdoor and there was a boy probably around 17 in an open house. he put both hands out palms up, so i knew he wanted to play the slap game. i went over with my entourage of little half-naked kids and we started to play. the only thing was that when he slapped my hands, he slapped them HARD. it would make such a loud noise that all the little kids around us were in stitches. and when i finally got him, they all cheered! it was quite the spectacle. by the time we were done, we had drawn a mini crowd and my hands were red and throbbing. i have not laughed that hard since i've been here; it was the the kind of deep laugh that doesn't even leave room to take a breath...


on the walk back, one lady tried to give me her baby.


i don't know if i mentioned this before, but when i was riding through port au prince when i first got here i saw a rickety old mini bus which said "Groton Public Schools" on the side which is the name of where my dad and relatives teach. but then of course i realized that there could be lots of grotons, so i didn't really think about it. well today when we were getting ready to hail a tap tap back i amazingly saw the same bus parked on a side street. i walked up to it and sure enough, on the bottom it said Groton, CT!! How unbelievably CRAZY is that? I'm in haiti, and somehow i run across a bus that is from the small hometown in my tiny little corner of connecticut. wild.


we ended up walking back to the compound which wasn't too far, and it was nice to appreciate all the beautiful haitian landscape. lots of banana trees and rolling green mountains. animals and farms and villages.


we had hobo packs for dinner again, i eat way too much here. we also made a million pb & j sandwiches for the big orphanage beach trip tomorrow. we are each in charge of a group of the kids, so i'll have my hands full . i'm becoming really close with the other 4 interns...we have a lot of fun together, especially at night. the leaders are always busting on us, trying to see who they can give the dirtiest job to. lawrence has begun making us chase the truck in order to jump in the back (not easy in a skirt!). both him and dr. cheryl are really frank with us about everything...it's nice to be in a what-you-see is what-you-get type of atmosphere.


sweaty and full and tired...off to bed. it's been a good day, i'd say one of the best.

day off, kind of

today was my first day off, but i spent it in the clinic shadowing dr. alex for the first time. this morning we got a "talking to" bc yesterday when we went from construction to the new property we didn't change out of our shorts and back into our skirts. apparently girls in haiti do not ever wear shorts (i hadn't noticed this), so we are not supposed to wear shorts in public. someone had commented yesterday "oh, i thought those girls were christians"...this idea made me laugh, but i also understand that i just do not understand the culture yet and am still looking through euro-americocentric lens. i think i'll refrain from any shorts from this point on so as not to offend anyone. honestly, the thought never even crossed my mind, but apparently it is a big deal.

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one thing that's been bothering me is that i've noticed that i've become less and less phased by the drives through the villages. they are still just as distressing as that first ride through port au prince, but it has begun to elicit less and less emotion. i'm surprised at how easily this has happened, but at the same time it has given me a different perspective. i think this must be one of the important realizations of staying an extended period of time. it helps for the mind to let go of some of the raw emotion to make room for pragmatism. my thoughts have gone from "this is so awful and sad, how does this happen??" to "this is so awful and sad, what is it that these people need the most??" it is a subtle difference, but you need a healthy dose of both to first understand what is wrong and secondly maximize your impact. feeling guilty achieves nothing, so there is no reason for it. getting angry achieves nothing, unless of course it serves as an impetus for a plan of action. when i asked lawrence how he and dr. cheryl decided to move their family down here, he explained that she was the more emotional one, while he grappled with what was and wasn't practical. both aspects were absolutely necessary to make the transition down here, and it is evident in the amazing things that they have achieved together... emotion as a tool for motivation, and pragmatism for optimizing a feasible impact.
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dr. alex is a great teacher and he is able to make diagnoses extremely quickly. often he will have diagnosed the patient before even physically examining them. again there were lots of malaria and typhoid cases... i finally realized why the two often present together. mosquitos breed in stagnant unsanitary pools of water which the patients drink....typhoid from the dirty standing water, malaria from the prime mosquito breeding ground. simple as that. i've also begun to pick up on the tell-tale signs of certain infections and diseases, as well as the best drugs and combinations of drugs to prescribe.

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the day ended with a case that completely blew my mind, something that few if any doctors have seen. the patient was an older man who was a poor farmer in the outskirts of town. he had been in a car accident (or hit by a car?) 7 months ago, but had no money to pay to go to the hospital. he had acquired some old crutches and had been dealing with the extreme pain for over half a year before he came to the clinic. he was a sweet old man and he had seen dr. cheryl a few days earlier ...she said he came in and said "one of my legs is shorter than the other"...she asked if he had pain and he said "yes, some". sure enough his one leg was way shorter than the other and she felt what she thought was his greater trochanter far above his hip socket. she sent him off for x-rays, with which he returned today. the x-rays, however, showed that the head of the femur (ball) was completely in place in the socket and that the femur had broken at the neck and had shot up nearly to his waist line. the break had somehow miraculously just missed the femoral artery which would have caused him to bleed to death almost immediately. it had been so long that the displaced femur had become imbedded in the tissue, while the head remained in place. he had adjusted to the pain so much that he was actually able to sit despite the fact that he no longer had a joint (i don't even know how this is possible). he had not been able to afford so much as a single pain medication/ibuprofen in the 7 months since the accident. he will have to have surgery, so i'm sure dr. cheryl will do her best to work something out. unfortunately, the last of the naproxen had been given to the man in the motorcycle accident two days ago, so the best we could give him was ibuprofen. dr. cheryl asked if he could afford the 50 goudes (~ $1 american)...he said hesitantly that he could, then she said, "well you will really need twice that amount. do you have enough for that?" and he again hesitantly responded that he had enough (~$2). then she asked, "if you buy this medication will you have any money left?" to which he responded, "no, but i will buy the medications." fortunately, cody (one of the male interns) picked it up for him, for which the man was endlessly grateful. so basically this man had a broken bone nearly protruding far from it's normal position, must have been in agonizing pain for the last 7 months, and only now had he found the money to make the trip to the hospital with the complaint that one leg was shorter than the other making it hard to walk. there are so many unbelievable aspects about this case, i don't even know what to think. it seems to defy logic in every way, yet we have seen it with our own eyes. only in haiti.

the man with the gas ganrene did not come back today.

i spent the rest of the afternoon with blondie, the pharmacist who i think is absolutely brilliant. not only does he know every drug and dosage, but he knows every mechanism of action, every contraindication, every susceptibility, and every bit of biochemistry involved. he is the perfect person for the position bc when certain medications run out, he is able to come up with alternative treatments while they are waiting for reinforcements. today he put me to work in an all-french pharmacology book finding antibiotic contraindications for possible alternatives for some of the antibiotics that we are running low on. he also educated me on some inside aspects of haitian healthcare and its present outlook. he explained that all HIV/AIDS and TB treatment in Haiti is free and that there is an excellent HIV/AIDS hospital in Port au Prince called GHESKIO (Groupe Haitien d'Etude du Darcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes) which is funded by the Bill Gates foundation...the only problem, however, is that a lot of the meds need to be taken with certain foods to be fully effective which is a problem in a country where so many people are starving. he also explained to me that cancer is equivalent to a death sentence because there is no chemotherapy or radiation in all of haiti. it made me think of that young girl with the large lump in her breast a couple days ago...

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well that's it for today. i'm really excited for tomorrow bc it is graduation for the schoolchildren and it is a really big deal. then in the afternoon i am assigned to one of the groups, so we will probably do something in town. i've especially been looking forward to saturday bc i think the interns are chaperoning a beach trip for all the Hope House (orphanage) kids....

it's been a busy day. peace and bonswa.