Already Two Weeks In!

Hey hey everybody! Thanks for the patience with the slight delay in posts. The goal is to try to have something new every Friday since we don't have clinic over the weekend. However, routine here is hard to maintain.

The architect who designed the new clinic and lab/residence is coming to check on things next week and do some carpentry. In order to prepare for his arrival, Friday was a Work Day. We drove up to the site early Friday morning, gloves and tools in hand. For the next 8 hours we shoveled mountains of clay and gravel to smooth out the land around the new buildings. We piled up trash and dried-up bamboo to burn in giant bonfires we could see from the road half an hour away from the clinic. The day was long and the work sweaty, but I feel like it broke down the small cultural barriers between me and the rest of the crew. Swinging a pick all day earns a girl some street cred!

Earlier this week was also a change from the routine. On both Tuesday and Thursday, Clif, Jemi (the community health educator) and I ventured into the country surrounding the clinic to meet with promoters of the water project and inform them of the meeting on Saturday morning. We journeyed at least two hours in each direction both days, up and down countless hills and valleys. We passed capped springs that people come to from miles around for water. To walk into the rural countryside with the tiny footpaths and tied up goats and free range chickens everywhere was such a joy. The Oregonian hiker in me was ecstatic.

Today is our one day of rest this week as we spent Saturday at the clinic meeting with 15 promoters and discussing their efforts at educating their communities about the importance of clean water.
I'll be spending it at the nearby beach. It's pretty rough. :)

This upcoming week should be a bit more calm, clinic Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and then guests arriving on Sunday. But, as I've learned from previous trips and am continuing to be reminded here, roll with whatever happens because in Haiti you never really know what the day will bring. 

Week 1 Musings

Hey everybody! I made it to Jeremie!

I'm staying in an insanely beautiful house with an ocean view and a balcony I can't get enough of. Dr. Katie, Nurse Cherlie, Cherlie's mother and Cherlie's nephew Clifton are all in the house and yet the place is so large there are still so many empty rooms. We all eat breakfast around 7: white bread, PB and coffee. Shortly thereafter we leave for our hour drive up into the hills. The road is brutal. It takes 6 gallons of diesel to get up it in the 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser. I can see why this type of vehicle is so popular here. On Wednesdays we have the day to work on house repairs, pack medicines and prepare for whatever's next. That said, this Wednesday I went into town with Dr. Katie and Clifton to buy internet access and then spent the afternoon floating in the Caribbean blue on a nearly deserted white sand cove. Tough luck!

But we're working too: we saw 17, 38, and 51 patients on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, respectively. We saw everything from a little girl with a likely left humerus fracture secondary to a fall, to an older man who was last seen 2 years prior. At that time, Dr. Wolf had suspected tuberculosis. He went to the hospital for a TB test. It was positive and he followed the 6 months of treatment as prescribed. He stood before us fully recovered and even 11 lbs heavier! A true success story.

The most frequent complaint is hypertension in the form of headaches and “tet ki vire” or dizziness. The problem stems from a salty, low fluid intake lifestyle and medical noncompliance. Dr. Katie explained that when people receive bad news the often stop taking their meds because they’ve heard of people dying after bad news secondary to taking their meds. Unfortunately, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. People arrive in hypertensive emergency and the causes are plenty: pa gen kob (no money), they feel well, can’t make it to clinic to refill their meds, they sell their meds, they don’t want to take them, or worst, they believe a rumor that convinces them to stop taking them.  For each, the treatment is the same: refill of their meds, an explanation/reprimand and encouragement to go to the hospital in Jeremie if their symptoms worsen or persist.

I’ve really enjoyed my time here thus far. We work long, hard hours, but my responsibilities are minimal. I’m the first moun ki kap pale Kreyol asse byen  (person who can speak Creole well enough) and take vitals. This is a great relief for Cherlie (the nurse) whose current responsibilities include intake and med consultations/outtake. I do intake now and she has the freedom to speak at greater length with people, as Haitians are wont to do. She also can give more young women advice, as older women are wont to do! I love being able to do this as the backlog in the wait time is due to the MD consultation and thus I have no reason to hurry. Instead, I can ask patients about their symptoms and past medical history and try to understand their responses without the pressure of having to do anything with the information except say “ok, tell the doctor what you told me, because I’m not the doctor, no?” This always gets a smile for some reason. I don’t mind one bit. 

Hope you're all well. I'll try to add pictures soon.

En route

Happy New Year! I hope this season finds you healthy and in the company of those you love. I'm  grateful to have spent the last month doing exactly that, from Eugene, OR to Vista, CA.

I now find myself in Dallas, TX awaiting my second of three flights that will eventually take me to Haiti.

If all goes well you can expect an average of a blog a week. I'm still unsure of what my internet access will be once in Jérémie, but I can promise my best effort!

Thank you all for the best wishes and encouragement along the way. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me soon!

Lanmou,

Hannah

P.s. I hope you enjoy my last California sunset until March!

An Update

Bonjou Bonjou!

I'm back in Eugene, trying to finish a thesis in the next 3 weeks and also tying up loose ends from the Haiti trip y'all accompanied me on. One of the things I have to do is prove I was actually there, so this is the list I came up with; it left me feeling incredibly blessed to have had such a diverse and unique experience.

While there I worked with:

King's Organization in Port-au-Prince for 2 weeks doing hospital administration (translating documents and making employee name badges) and teaching English to the children in the orphanage.
http://www.lumiereministries.com/KingsOrganization.html

PAZAPA in Jacmel for 3 weeks working with mentally and physically disabled children, assisting at the school for the deaf, and doing minor office work for the director, with whom I stayed.
http://pazapa.org/

Forward Edge International in Carrefour for 1 week serving with my church in a tent village helping to build a security perimeter and translating between my church volunteers and the locals.
http://www.forwardedge.org/opportunities/haiti.shtml

All Hands Volunteers in Leogane for 3 weeks volunteering with Haitians and other internationals building schools, making bio-sand water filters, painting murals, economic development at a women's co-op, playing with kids at an orphanage, and rubble removal.
http://hands.org/2011/03/08/help-build-a-school-in-haiti/
(I'm actually in this movie! You can see the back of my head as I'm painting a quote on a school wall).

Haiti Foundation of Hope in Terre Blanche for 10 days translating for the nursing volunteers, working in the pharmacy and around the clinic: doing sonograms, giving shots, and talking patients through procedures.
http://haitifoundationofhope.org/give-hope/
There are two great video clips on this website too that show where we were and how you can get involved too!

For those not already on facebook - here's a link to my photos!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=353390&id=729155967&l=628a18c901

Until next time - possibly this July!

Ana

Home...sort of

Well, I made it! I landed in Miami last Sunday, March 13th and then later that day in Houston, Texas where I was blessed to spend a few days with my brother and cousins. We watched Dumb and Dumber and Inside Job, a documentary about the Wall Street direction of our government. Welcome to the U.S.
Pat (my brother) and I also learned how to shoot a 1911 Springfield pistol and an AR-15. Welcome to Texas.

Wednesday March 16th I arrived in San Diego to the waiting arms of Joshua. Welcome home! (Sort of). The past 5 nights have not been spent consecutively in the same place and I'm still, in a sense, living out of my backpack. All of this to say, it's been an absolute blessing to be home and to have so many people with whom to share stories and memories and to contemplate the big "What's next?" question.*

One of the highlights of being home was going to Journey Church with Joshua's family and hearing Pastor Edouard from Carrefour, Haiti! It filled me with such joy to hear Creole and to speak with him and his translator after the service. It was such a high to have to come down from that I feel as though this may be the beginning of the infamous "Readjustment Phase" - the questioning, the frustration, the reminiscing and the checking of plane ticket prices for a trip back in the summer!!!

Much love to you all and thank you for all of the prayers that got me home safe!

*At this point, the "What's Next" question looks like it will be answered with a return to San Diego this summer to live with my best friend Ashley, look for a job and begin taking Nursing pre-requisites at a community college. Si Bondye vle : )

The Last Round of Goodbyes

I knew that this last week would fly by, but it is still hard to see it ending so soon.

This week has been full of scrubs and hand sanitizer and "take these and come back in June." I have renewed interest in medicine and am considering pursuing a nursing degree. I was able to do so much hands-on (with gloves) learning here, I made and gave shots, removed IVs, changed IVs, held tiny little babies while we gave them shots, and comforted so many people during their operations, giving them consolation that the pain was only going to last a little while longer. I have seen the most beautiful smiles, showed women their babies inside of them and helped them calculate their due dates. I've counted pills and passed out chocolate, held hands and danced with two tiny old women on International Women's Day.

One woman in particular will always stay in my heart. Her name is Laurencia and she is married with 5 children. She came in on Monday morning with a cyst on her upper inner thigh; it truly resembled a testicle and caused her quite a bit of pain when she sat down. She had had it for the past 9 years after her 3rd child was born but it had only recently begun to hurt. I wandered into the operating room right as she was lying on the table and was asked to translate what Dr. Bill and Critical Care Nurse Levi, were about to do. I wound up sitting on a stool at the head of her bed, holding her hand and talking with her for the majority of the operation. She smiled the whole time, and it lit up the room. After the operation was finished we gave her some money so that she could pay the moto driver to go extra slow on her way home to Gonaives. I was struggling to imagine how she would straddle a motorcycle for a 12 mile ride on bumpy dirt roads after having this surgery in her groin. Gratefully, Pastor Delamy corrected us by explaining "this ministry has vehicles for many reasons and taking her home is one of them." We told her to keep the money and use it so that she and her husband could come in and get his feet checked out. (She had asked if we could give her cream for his excema. Thankfully, Dr. Bill said no, because when they both came in Thursday morning, it was not excema that he had!) I walked into the clinic Thursday morning and there she was, first in line and greeting me with her beautiful smile. She told me that her husband was waiting outside, his name is Markeuty, and that I should find him. I walked outside, said hello to a man with a huge smile and then turned to face a crowd of perhaps 70 people and thought "how am I going to find her husband out here?" I simply said "Markeuty?" and of course, it was the man with the huge grin. The entire time we treated him - including a very painful foot bath, he smiled. The two of them have to be the sweetest couple in all of Haiti and I was absolutely blessed to have met them! And to think they are only 2 out of the 900+ patients we saw here this week!

We're leaving Terre Blanche tomorrow morning to stay the night at Kaliko, a hotel on the beach just north of Port-au-Prince so that we might catch an early flight on Sunday. It's going to be hard to leave this place.

The past 10 weeks have been some of the best weeks of my life. I am grateful for all of the friends and memories I've made and will cherish them always. I'm also terribly grateful for all of the people here who are now praying with me that I can find a job in the States that will enable me to "vini anko byento" (come again very soon).

Si Bondye Vle.

Next stop... Houston?

I can't believe it but I'm at my final destination (sort of).

My last few days in Leogane were rather eventful, the morning after I posted about my crazy weekend, we had an earthquake at 4:10am. It was small and didn't last very long, but it was enough to get hearts pumping and minds racing. It was either a 4.6 or a 3.8 (magnitudes different I realize, but in Haiti news is all "yo di" (rumor) and I'm only repeating what I was told). I was in the middle of some strange dream and proceeded to get caught in my mosquito net while trying to escape my bunk. I wasn't panicked, thank the Lord, but I was a little shaky afterward and spent the rest of the morning lying in the middle of the courtyard watching the stars fade and praying for all of the children who are growing up in such unstability.

The next 3 days were full of concrete and power tools and lots of laughter but all with the tinge of sadness that is becoming all too familiar. I left Leogane this morning at the break of dawn and spent the entire day in a car going to, waiting at, and going from the airport all of the way up north past Gonaives. This is an absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking, heartbreakingly beautiful country and I am very happy to not be sitting in a car right now! I will be spending the next week speaking Creole and taking vitals for up to 1,000 patients at a rural clinc with a team from the Northwest. This should round out my experiences rather well as I will now have some medical experience to add to the list of responses to the ever-popular question "so what have you been doing in Haiti?"

This has been quite the whirlwind adventure, and I'm still struggling to believe I've been here over two months already. Everyplace I have gone now, I have been invited, begged even in some cases, to stay longer. Everytime, I have had to say no after wrestling with the temptation to throw it all in the wind and cancel my return ticket. I am glad I have said no and kept on with this journey, but now the end really is in sight. I leave Haiti a week from Sunday and I am praying that between now and then God will prepare my heart for leaving and also prepare me for the culture shock of visiting a cousin in Texas!

Thank you all for the prayers and continued love and support. I'll try to post one more time before Texas, but if not...next stop: Houston!