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.