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.

.............

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.
........

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.

..........

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...

.........

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.

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…