My Yellow Bandana

The bandana in all of its just-washed glory.

Whenever I find myself packing for an adventure, I am always sure to bring my yellow bandana. Purchased almost a decade ago in high school from the dollar store, it has become one of my absolute travel essentials. On numerous rock climbing excursions it has held hair out of my eyes. On freezing nights camping it has been one extra layer to keep my neck warm. The soundtrack to countless morning runs has been better heard with this bandana holding my headphones in. Here in Haiti it has served as: accessory, hand towel, face towel, bandage, sweatband, water-bottle-leak-mitigator and luggage identifier. This week it adds another title to its résumé: handkerchief.

Last Thursday in clinic it seemed like everyone had la grippe. Friday I began to sniffle and by Saturday it was all I could do to carry around this ever-helpful and increasingly gross bandana as the head cold made itself known. The weekend passed with no end to the mucus in sight. Dr. Wolf and Miss Cherlie graciously and adamantly insisted I stay home from clinic Monday and I sniffingly obliged. It was rough blowing my nose every three minutes and feeling like the quintessential mouth-breather, but sitting out on the balcony, eating mangos and chatting online with friends and family certainly improved morale.

Several hours in however, I decided to take a lesson from my utilitarian bandana and make myself useful. — I realize in rereading past blogs that I have discussed neither the Water Project, nor my involvement in it and it is now necessary to break from my bandana analogy briefly to discuss one of my primary occupations here.

The Water Project is an initiative to better the understanding of water, sanitation and public health in the areas surrounding the Centre de Sante de Gatineau. Communities chose men and women to be trained in public health promotion by Friends for Health in Haiti in partnership with Johns Hopkins University. These local “promoters” then teach their community members the importance of treating water, washing hands, and proper waste disposal, all in an effort to prevent the spread of cholera and other water-borne illnesses.

The Water Project promoters began working in their communities in October 2013. Each of the 12 promoters in 6 different localities kept a log of their activities. They recorded the date, where the encounter took place (in the street, marketplace, someone’s house, a church or a school), what subject was discussed or demonstrated (treating water, using a tippytap, hygiene, protecting water sources, germ theory, etc.), and how many people were present.

Gemy oversees these promoters and has been collecting these records. He comes over most weekends and for several hours at a time we sit, code data and enter it into Excel. This is Gemy’s first time working with a computer and he has taken to it rather well. Mango breaks and sugar-cane Coke make the work less tedious, but it has still been many weekends spent swatting mosquitoes and trying not to stick to the plastic table cloth on which we work.

We now return to my Head Cold Monday Morning…

I opened the monstrous Excel spreadsheet and began to sort, analyze and copy-paste. By the end of the day, I had an 8 page report with color-coded graphs, tables that summarize the promoters’ activities, and a discussion that made me think those days of data entry were really worthwhile.

I wound up staying home sick on Tuesday as well and happily polished the report, all the while wiping my nose with my trusty bandana, grateful for its reminder to always be useful, no matter the circumstances.

***Future aspects of the Water Project will hopefully include capping local springs to prevent contamination of these vital water sources. Just today Gemy and I walked into a local (only a 2 hour walk away) community to photograph and GPS water sources to aid in future grant proposals. I used my -now clean- bandana to prevent my water bottle from soaking my bag as it is thankfully no longer needed as a handkerchief.

The water source in Jean-Pierre. Gemy and a local inside the stunning source. The sign on the tree reads, "don't forget to treat water before you use it."

Yesterday's roof-pouring bucket brigade. Over 120 men came to heave cement in 5 gallon buckets up to the roof of the residence. It was quite a sight to behold!

Nearing completion of a 12 hour job. These guys left their homes at 0400 and were still singing away by 1800 as they piled into the back of the dump truck for the ride back down to Jeremie.