An Exam?

This afternoon Patrick and I went to a nearby clinic to seek out a physical exam by a doctor there in order to complete some required paperwork for our adoption dossier. We didn't do much research in finding a doctor, and our lack of effort landed us in a bizarre encounter.

The physician we saw moved at the pace of molasses. She seemed befuttled why we were there, staring at the form that needed filling out. After taking some time to explain to her that I felt good, had no physical complaints, but just needed a “clean bill of health” to give to the adoption agents, she seemed satisfied enough to commence. She reviewed the required labs we were to get for the adoption paperwork slowly. In the "history taking" of the exam, she practiced her bare-bones medical English despite the fact I was talking to her exclusively in Creole: "You have asthma?" No, I don't have asthma. But that apparently was all she knew, because she didnt' ask me any more questions about my health history. She asked me to remove my shirt and commenced with a brief and bizarre exam. She investigated my eyes and external ear with a magnifying glass, she patted my back, my chest and my stomach with her stethescope, not leaving it on my skin long enough to hear anything, but dancing it around up and down my body as if she had a stamper and was tattooing my body with colorful ink. She measured my height with a tape measure, and that was it.

Patrick reported only getting the magnifying glass exam. She had been much more interested that he was a pastor, and asked him detailed questions on why we were adopting, why he was working in Haiti, and when he first met Jesus.

Unconventional is one word for our bizarre experience. I know for a fact that there are a lot of capable, smart, well-trained doctors in Haiti. And maybe she was one, but it just didn't translate well. Regardless, we are healthy. And the paper is signed.

Solomon

Solomon's personality is ever emerging as the weeks roll by. We are having so much fun. He dislikes vegetables and stares at us with cute defiance when we try to bring a spoon full of stinky green things to his face (he has learned to whine closed-mouthed to avoid mommy's sneak attacks). He giggles when we look at him just right, when we squeeze his fat thighs or zerbert his tummy. He loves to grab and explore faces with his little hands. He waves hello and gets overly exicted when he sees Daddy coming (both arms swinging wildly in the air).

HELLO Daddy, I missed you!!!

Playing in his Baby Tent. Its almost like camping. Hot, occasional mosquitos, tent. Yah, its in his house, but still... camping.

Cool Dude.

Mr. KU man in shades who loves to stand and practice walking.

Escaping his throngs of admirers at the school in the ever-present arms of mommy.

Graduation

Tonight we attended graduation for the CONASPEH highschool students. In order to graduate, the students not only had to pass all classes at CONASPEH, but they had to pass the state exams as well.

After an hour and a half wait due to a highly anticipated and followed soccer match, the night started with a ceremony that included a march, a class song, and presentation of the students. Each graduate was introduced based on their positive attributes and what they hoped to do after high school. The class included several hopeful doctors, a musician, a diplomat, a computer programer to name a few.

Certificates were presented, solos were sung, gifts were given, photos taken. After the main ceremony, the program expanded into a sort of talent show where we were entertained by rapping, salsa and tango dancing, solos sung, and lip sinking to Whitney Houston. The outfits were elaborate, the crowd enthusiastic, and the talent endless.

Here are a few pictures of the night.

CONASPEH staff waiting for the graduates!

Graduate March

Class Song

Patrick's Godson
Patrick and I had been designated God parents by a couple of the students in the class. Patrick has gotten to know his translator well and is helping him with planning and applications for university.

My Goddaughter
A girl in the class with hopes of going to medical school asked me to be her godmother and to help her look for applications for medical schools in and out of the country.

Primary School Graduation

Today we attended the graduation for the students finishing primary school. The students were all doning caps and gowns and they stood in front of their proud parents, family and teachers. The graduates paraded in, sang a class song and were introduced to all in attendence. The students were presented based on their strengths. For example, "Jonnie is kind, patient, funny and good at singing." They then announced what each child dreamed of being when they grew up. We had a group visiting this week, and one of the members of the group was designated "Class Godmother" and asked to give a graduation speech. I have to commend her on her spur-of-the-moment readiness and poise. She delivered a beautiful graduation speech that was full of inspiration and spiritual influence. Good work, Hope.

Here are some pictures of the day.



As Patrick and I waited outside of CONASPEH for the graduation to commence, we noted some kids not lucky enough to be in school. Beautiful children, but much too familiar with hard work and waiting for something to happen.

This child likes to do tricks for us after work... cartwheels, flips. He loves to try to make Solomon laugh and delights when we have a cookie or cracker to share with him.

This strong little man was hauling a bench to a church. No complaints despite the load that was 4 times longer than his 7-year-old height. He posed proudly as Patrick documented and praised his enormous strength.

Empty Pockets

I was awakened this morning by a phone call at 5am. It came during that precious hour between Solomon waking and our alarm going off. But I mustered the will power and had a sleepy conversation with Silvia--the woman who helps us take care of Solomon during the day. She was calling to report that her grandchild was sick with diarrhea, had a fever and she wanted to know if I would take her and her family to my clinic this morning.

I'm not proud to say my immediate reaction was annoyance. It came out of a week where I've fallen into feelings of powerlesness and frustration after being handed arm-fulls of other peoples problems I just can't solve. I have a few sacred hours at home where I like to only attend to the needs of my self and my family. I felt an invasion of my American-born privacy as I blinked sleep away from my eyes in the dim light of morning. Guess my servant's heart still needs work.

My schedule these days has me bouncing all over the city and local countryside, going from makeshift clinic to clinic: today I was scheduled to be in a random part of town in a zone I wasn't famliar with. I told Silvia the predicament and asked if she could instead visit a clinic near their house. "There isn't one" she said MEANING "we don't have money."

Initially I left it at that. No, I couldn't take her to the clinic. She'd have to figure out what she'd do. I hung up the phone trying to salvage a few zzz's. But of course I couldn't sleep; I started worrying. This was likely a preventable serious illness I could intercede in. My nursing student haunted me. Does the child really need to suffer because I can't be flexible and give up some personal time? I called Silvia back.

We agreed she could bring her family to our house at 5:30 in the morning for me to evaluate the toddler as I readied myself for the day. I had to sacrifice nothing but an earlier rise than planned. Yet I felt annoyed. My morning ritual of a quiet morning of coffee, of pattering around the apartment, playing with Solomon and talking to Patrick was interrupted by a call of duty earlier than I was happy with.

Truth is, I've had one of those weeks where I feel near tears, emotional and sort of done. I have felt spent, exhausted by the ever-present need and my inability to really do anything substantial about it. Patrick had one of those weeks last week, so as usual we are yoyo-ing through our tolerance and our perspective.

Everything is so hard here for so many people. Everything. And sometimes I'm exhausted by it, exhausted by endless need, by requests for money, food, clothing, laptops, scholarships, medicines; exhausted by palms open reaching out to us. There are days I feel like my cup is overflowing; I can respond to requests with love and respect, offering what I can and being honest about what I can't do. Other days I never have enough and I just want to hide. This morning I woke up feeling the later.

Life for so many here is hand-to-mouth. Few have the ability to save money for hard times. Take Silvia for instance. Despite the fact we pay her almost double what other workers in her line of work earn, it doesn't stretch far with the 9-person family she supports. What are all the other "lucky working people" doing? I don't know if anyone else in her family works... but they are in an awful situation. And today Silvia brought her grandson to me for help.

I am often left wondering where to draw boundaries. This is not the first encounter of the like. We struggle with such questions with all we know: teachers at the school, pastors in churches, workers of the orphanage, people in the markets, students we teach, street kids on the corners, passersby. We are pulled aside multiple times a day and offered stories of tragic situations and hope that we can help in some way. What do they have to loose by asking? Nothing. The truth is, "blan" in this country often means free-handouts, aid, money. And who can blame a woman holding a sick child for asking for help in the most obvious place she can find? I can't. But if I pay for medical treatment for one baby, why don't I pay for my patient's children and my teacher-friend's child at the school, and the rest of the sad eyes and gaunt stomachs I see during my daily commute?

As much as I know saying yes to all requests is enabling, patronizing, impossible and directly contradictory to what our work here is trying to do, saying no also feels uncomfortable and selfish some days. After 7 months, I still haven't figured out an emotional peace with it all.

Silvia arrived later this morning with her grandchild in her arms. He was crying, but mostly because a strange doctor was examining him. I was reassured I didn't have to shuttle them to the hospital, and instead pulled some meds from our mobile clinic pharmacy, made up an oral rehydration serum for them, and took them home with instructions about fluids and rest. All were reassured, and after washing my face and starting some coffee, I got over my selfishness from the morning hours. Had I awoken in less of a fog, I would have offered to be generous enough to make a house call. Next time maybe. I'm still learning.

We had a busy clinic today after returning to a mobile clinic site we'd been to last week. I was able to see some follow ups which made me happy. I saw some interesting pathology and didn't feel like my work was for naught. On my errands this afternoon, I stopped by a "dress shop" to find something to wear to a wedding we were invited to. The shop resembled a dry cleaners with all the clothing wrapped in plastic sacks to protect them from the dust in the air. I told the sales woman (who had been sleeping on the floor) that I needed a dress for a wedding. She sprang into action, probably relieved not to be bored out of her skull. She immediately pulled out a mini-wedding dress. Nope... not my wedding. She then pulled out some bridesmaid-esk dresses and commenced in telling me how fabulous I looked in everything (not true). Is Haiti where bridesmaid dresses go to live again? I think so. Anyway I eventually found something that would work in addition to some humor for the day.

Patrick wonders why I don't blog more often when I'm struggling with living in Haiti. Maybe because I know there will be a bright side, a perspective that will blow through soon and that is more fun to pass on. But I decided to write today because truth is, it is hard to find balance some days. There are many moments when I'm not proud of my initial reactions. I'm not always at my best. I'm not always a good servant. I struggle with selfishness and self-defeat. But I'm working on it.

And so today ends like many here. With moments of frustration, questioning, and doubt intertwined with hard work, sweat and moments of laughter and hope. Its the hope that keeps us going. Or maybe today its more the fatigue that makes us too tired to be frustrated any longer. So tonight, I'm grateful to be good and tired. The morning might just bring a fresh outlook as I start another day.

Church

This last Sunday we had the honor of returning to what is becoming one of our favorite and most familiar churches in Haiti. The church in City Solei has the most basic of accommodations, but compensates with its ferocity of spirit, its inhibited voices rising in the morning air, its faces of every generation filling the pews. This church is the one we spent our pre-Christmas service with and the one that seems to embrace us no matter when we drop in.


This child spent a long time entertaining Patrick SANS mustache (Bentrott) and WITH mustach (Villier) through the beginning of the service only to fall asleep in Patrick Villier's arms as the service wore on.

Patrick caught me in back in the "women with babies" section. The last 3 pews in the church are filled with women with young women. We all feel free to feed babies, change diapers, comment on how beautiful each others' children are and dance to the music. Its my favorite seat of ALL the spots of the church.

Little girl distracting herself with Patrick's photo taking.

An Empty Desk

Today we received news that one of the nursing students passed away.

Last week, a girl in the front row raised her hand during a lecture I was giving on anemia. She had a question about a friend who had a lab test done. When she told me the result, I almost didn't believe her. Her red blood cell count was staggeringly low. The student wanted to know what she could do for her friend, what medicine she could give, because now her friend couldn't stand up, wasn't thinking right, and had stopped eating.

Needless to say, the lab level she announced to me would leave most of us unconscious. I told her that her friend needed to go to the hospital. She needed a transfusion. She needed help now. My student lowered her eyes and admitted that the friend's family had taken her to a hospital earlier when she was still walking and talking, but she was sent home. And she didn't have enough money to go back.

After class, the girl and the president of the class stood up and announced that the "friend" was one of their classmates. They then collected a little bit of money from everyone in the class so that they could help send their classmate to the hospital.

This morning, the nursing director informed me that the student had in fact made it to the hospital, but died there this morning. She didn't have any more information beyond that. She showed me her picture. I knew her face. She was a student that came to class each day, asked good questions, seemed interested and stayed involved in class discussions. And she wouldn't be coming back.

I'm left stunned.

I'm stunned because it wasn't that long ago that she was sitting in class. What had happened? Had she felt bad for a long time and just kept getting up each day doing what she needed to do? Had things gone bad all of a sudden? So many people here "tuff it out" through so much pain, so much sickness. I am constantly fooled by patients who come in to my clinic, sit down conversing, looking well, sounding well and end up testing positive for illnesses that would have landed me in bed immobilized. In fact just today a young man sauntered up to me and handed me a lab test I had ordered 3 weeks ago. I teased him for being late, thinking the tests were likely negative if he was handing it over grinning sheepishly. But no, he was positive for both malaria and typhoid, and yet he stood their smiling at me, joking about how long it had taken him. "How do you feel?" I asked shocked. "Not so good," he responded with a toothy smile. Instead of downplaying list of symptoms patients give me, I am starting to learn to read into them, looking deeper. Because a young woman sitting in class one day might not be with us the next.

Patrick and I have had our moments of questioning CONASPEH's methods. They do things in ways Americans don't always understand. They start one project after another, well before earlier programs have been fine-tuned and polished leaving a menagerie of projects underway that all need attention, all need money, all need personnel and materials. Instead of narrowing their focus, CONASPEH ever seems to be broadening their outreach, extending services and projects to meet the ever prevalent needs in their community: primary and secondary education, health education, theological education, micro loans, scholarships, house and church constructions, orphanages, feeding programs, clinics, labs, pharmacies, and child-sponsorship.

But today I'm reminded why.

They are ever immersed in need. They see their students come in hungry, they know families can't afford to pay simple tuition, they watch promising youth fall into ruts due to lack of job or opportunity to continue education. They hear the stories of families' homes destroyed by floods, of their neighbors battle with starvation and disease, and of students lost to untimely death.

It is easy for me to get happily caught up in all the projects CONASPEH has underway for health education and outreach. Lately I've been immersed in lesson preparation, subject discussion and grade-totaling in class. Clinics have been busy, and weeks have been a bustle of running here and there attending to one thing or another. At the end of the day, I go home and settle in comfortably with my family, insulated even in Haiti to most of the realities the people all around me face.

So today offered a very tragic reminder for me of the urgency of the situation here. Tonight I slow down and send up a prayer.... a prayer that one day outreach be sufficient for the need, that systems will rise up and support the people they serve. I pray that one day a student won't have to sit in class fighting to stay focused for the dizziness in her head, but instead take leave and go to the health center where she can get the diagnostics and treatment she needs affordably, and later return to class better, stronger, and ready to take her life forward.

Some day. Because it isn't so today.

Patrick's Musings

Patrick’s Musings

1) There are so many visible differences between Haiti and the United States that one need not think very hard about how the two nations vary from one another. However, there are other, more complex differences that can only be discovered when one obtains a working knowledge of Kreyol. For example, the other day at CONASPEH I was talking with a student when I noticed a professor and a large group of students laughing loudly. They seemed to be making fun of a girl who had recently cut her hair very short. I assumed they were teasing her about her haircut, which turned out to be somewhat accurate. When I showed an interest in the conversation I was informed by the laughing professor, “Li pa gen plim.” Plim is a word that means pen or feather, so the sentence would translate as, “He doesn’t have a pen or a feather.” That didn’t seem so funny to me. As I was thinking about why a student not having a pen or a feather would be funny the professor noticed my confusion and offered a visual explanation. He touched under his armpits and around his midsection and explained to me that plim was also a word used for body hair. They were teasing the girl because she cut her hair so short she must have also cut off all pubic hair too. This was the big joke. I immediately felt uncomfortable until I noticed that the girl who was being teased was laughing as loudly as anyone and was clearly not bothered by the teasing. I informed the professor that if he worked in an American school he would be looking for a new job. He found this equally amusing and said, “Wi, men se konsa an Ayiti.” “Yes, but that’s how it is in Haiti.” Indeed it is. There seems to be no topic that is considered embarrassing, inappropriate, or taboo. My best educated guess is that when you live on top of each other and in such an open and communal environment like most Haitians do, then things such as sex and nudity become significantly less private and guarded. My theory seemed to be confirmed the other day at the beach. After swimming in the ocean I entered the communal outdoor showers located in a not so private area. As I was rinsing myself off the woman in the shower next to me pulled her swimsuit top off and continued about her business. Amazed at my good fortune, I thanked God on the spot for those cultural differences that make each country unique.

2) While I am in favor of communal showering I do have my limits. One of the students at CONASPEH tested these limits recently. The young man, roughly 16 years-old, entered my office and showed me a small handheld DVD player that a family member living in the States had bought him. He was very proud of it and asked me if he could plug it into one of the outlets to recharge since the CONASPEH generator was running and the school currently had power. I agreed and told the student to have a seat while he waited for the DVD player to charge. Then I continued grading my New Testament exams while the student sat in a chair and began watching a movie that was already in the player. After a few moments I noticed that there seemed to be odd sounds originating from the movie. I asked the student what movie he was watching. “Porno,” he replied. “Porno?” I asked. “Porno,” he replied. Thinking that it was unlikely that the student would enter a pastor’s office and openly watch an adult feature, I went around to the other side of my desk to check it out. Sure enough, the student was watching porn. I explained to the student in my broken and insufficient Kreyol that it was inappropriate for him to be watching this type of movie, especially at school, and even more so in my office. Fortunately, he seemed to understand my reservations about this. He packed up his stuff, gave me a big smile, and headed on to his next class. On a related note, I am working on my “Birds and the Bees” speech in Kreyol as we speak.

3) On a more serious note, teaching in a Haitian seminary has been very difficult at times. The conservative and other-worldly theologies of many of my students have often come in direct conflict with my own personal theology, as well as the theology that CONASPEH has encouraged me to emphasize in my teaching. This is has created some uncomfortable and challenging moments for me. For example, after giving a lecture on the liberation theology of Elsa Tamez, and specifically her understanding of sin as something that happens not merely on a personal level, but also within the political and social structures of a society, I found that most of my students seemed unimpressed with this idea. I asked them to give me feedback on Elsa Tamez and many of them went on and on about the heaven that awaits believers in the next life and of course, atonement theology (the belief that Jesus died for the sins of humanity and that one can only be reconciled to God through belief in Jesus’ atoning death). While I think that Christianity has historically failed to understand the original Jewish imagery and symbolism that was used in the expression of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of God, I understand where this belief comes from and have long ago comes to terms with the meaning it does and does not have for myself. However, when I pushed my students further and asked them if we could somehow determine with complete certainty that there was no afterlife would Christianity still be relevant to the world we live in? Every single one of them said no. This was devastating to me as my belief in Jesus as a radical social critic and revolutionary who advocated on behalf of the least of these was a big part in my own calling to serve in a place like Haiti. Yet a large part of both liberation theology and the co-mission model that Kim and I strive to operate within insists that impoverished and oppressed populations have a privileged position in terms of interpreting the Gospel. This means that overly privileged people like myself must listen to and take seriously the theology and beliefs of others. Some days this is easier said than done, especially when I believe that the “pie in the sky” theology of American evangelical and Pentecostal Protestantism that was brought to Haiti, has functioned as yet another form of First World colonization. Yet it’s easy for a highly privileged outsider like myself to encourage the Haitian people to work for social change because my risk is not their risk, and my cushy life is not their life. These are some of the challenges of doing and living theology in the Haitian context.

4) The other night I dropped by Solomon’s old orphanage so that his biological mother could visit with him. Afterwards I gave a ride home to one of the workers at the orphanage that Kim and I have befriended. This woman lives in one of the numerous Port-au-Prince neighborhoods that are tucked away off the main roads of the city. After turning onto a narrow road from a bigger, much busier street, we drove for about a mile passing small cinder block homes where children stood in the doorways, men played dominos, and women did each other’s hair. There were goats, dogs, and the occasional pig picking their way through piles of garbage that had not yet been set on fire for the day. When we reached our destination I parked the car, grabbed Solomon and followed our friend through a maze of alleys that contained tiny concrete houses, vendors selling their goods in any open space they could find, and children playing everywhere. The amount of people in this little neighborhood was staggering. There were people in every doorway, on every roof, and dozens of others seemingly standing around. After a couple of minutes of walking we climbed half a dozen steps to our friend’s small two room house. She proudly introduced me to her new granddaughter who was only three months old and to two of her adult sons, who along with their girlfriends, and another granddaughter, were living with our friend. For those of you counting, that’s five adults, and two children ages 4 and three months living in a two bedroom house with two twin beds. As I looked out onto the neighborhood I felt overwhelmed at the opportunity to experience such a place as this Port-au-Prince neighborhood, and to catch a glimpse of the lives of the people who lived there. How did a guy from a small town in Iowa end up gazing upon the rooftops and alleys of this section of Port-au-Prince? This is one of the many amazing experiences that Kim and I get to experience because we live in Haiti and it made me feel good about the life that we have chosen even with its continuous struggles and frustrations. It also reminded me of a quote from my favorite novelist Tom Robbins who once wrote, “When life demands more from people than they demand of it - which is often the case – what results is a deep seated resentment of life.” Today I have no such resentment.

5) Today’s other quote of the day comes from a book I am reading by David Frawley entitled, “Vedantic Meditation: Lighting the Flame of Awareness.” I think it speaks to the ultimate teacher, which is another name I have given Haiti. Frawley writes, “To find truth we must be motiveless. This is to be one with the universal motive, which is to bring a higher consciousness into the world.” Here is to the seeking of such consciousness and to Haiti’s unique place in bringing it about.

TGIF

I'm a girl of simple pleasures. I don't need manicures or fancy things to really make me happy. For instance, this morning I was reminded just how lovely some simple things can be. Things like sleep, hygiene, hot coffee, free-time and not sweating.

Today is our first day off for several weeks after spending time with a string of visiting groups and busy days at CONASPEH. All I wanted on our coveted day off was to sleep in. Solomon agreed under the conditions that he could sleep with us last night. He told us this by waking us up every 15 minutes from midnight to 1 am after which we threw in the towel and brought him to bed with us. He immediately cuddled up against my side and fell into a deep, undisturbed sleep. The boy is a cuddler. I can't say that I mind that much.

This morning I stretched and smiled. I had slept. I had dreamed. I didn't feel exhausted. It was 8:45 and my son was still sleeping, arms stretched above his head, beside me. Miracles DO happen.

I also smiled as a fresh and cool breeze drifted in our bedroom window accompanied by the sound of gentle rain falling outside. I was just cool enough that a blanket over my legs felt good. HUGE smile. Last night I had gone to bed stretching all limbs in different directions of the compass trying to keep parts of my body radiating extraordinary heat away from each other.

Yesterday evening was one of those evenings that sets you up for enjoying simple pleasures. I returned home from a long drive into Artibonite where I had spent 5 hours on the road in an air-conditioner-less Galloper with windows down, letting the dust from the road-in-construction mingle with the abundant oil and sweat from my skin thanks to staggering humidity. At Pont Sonde, our team spent 5 hours in a dirt-floored clinic without water to wash our hands. So all I really wanted upon coming home last night was a cold shower. It was not in my stars.

Arriving home, I quickly discovered two giant laundry tubs, and our trash can full of water. Uh-oh. "We don't have running water... the pump broke," was the greeting from my husband who had just hauled all the water from our cistern in the driveway up two flights of stairs to fill our large containers permitting us to do such things as wash our hands, wash dishes, wash our baby, and flush the toilet.

The news wasn't a shock. These things happen from time to time, and being camping-fans, we usually adjust pretty quickly. Keep in mind its hard to complain too long and loud when running water is clearly a luxury of the rich in this country and most families all over the city and countryside have to walk to the river, to the well, to the local water tap to get water for the day. But spoiled me had really been looking forward to de-greasing.

So you can imagine how big my third smile of the morning was when I found water magically flowing from the bathroom faucet. I smiled all the way through my bracingly cold morning shower lathering and scrubbing and full of joy in the process.

The smiles kept on coming when I wandered out to the kitchen clean, cool, rejuvenated after a good night of sleep and found a pot of hot coffee waiting.

So here I sit, completely content. The air is cool. I haven't yet started sweating today which is just lovely. Feeling clean for more than 5 minutes after a shower is a rare treat. Solomon woke up sweet and happy after sleeping well last night and has been cooing and smiling and playing happily in his play chair.

Today's trip to the beach has been canceled because it is too cool. Even typing that sentence makes me smile. So instead I look forward to a day in with my boys, enjoying time together, enjoying nowhere particularly to be, enjoying an over-cast morning and fresh air. Happy me.

Reunion

When Patrick and I first met Solomon's mother, we were a little taken aback at her certainty that we were definately the people that were to take care of her infant son. She didn't put us through a grueling interview session, didn't demand to see our credentials. After brief introductions including how we had come to quickly fall in love with her baby boy, she seemed to know that all was as it should be.

She later told Patrick that God told her a pastor would find Solomon within the month of his residency in the orphanage. Sure enough, Patrick had fallen in love with our little king in January, just a month after his mother decided to place him there in hope.

At the time of meeting Solomon's mother (S), she also let us know that God told her we'd help her find her other son who had been adopted nearly 7 years ago to a family in the States.

I was doubtful at best. The U.S. is a huge place. If communication hadn't been established in all this time, maybe it wasn't meant to be. Maybe the family didn't want to connect to Haiti, maybe something had gone wrong with the adoption. There were so many possibilities.

We told S we'd try. We'd write a letter.

And so we did, feeling a little invasive while scripting it, but knowing that if a reunion was to take place, understanding would be reached.

I mailed the letter and soon forgot about it. Life gets busy like that.

But recently my phone rang... in the middle of a work day. I absent-mindedly answered, curious for the US number on my caller id.

It was Solomon's brother's US mother. She was intially shocked, but later thrilled with the connection, eager to establish communication with her son's Haitian family, happy that the brothers would one day get to know each other.

Connection.

Since then we've shared information and stories. She sent an e-mail to be translated for S, sharing an update on her son's life and gifts.

Today Patrick broke the news to S. "We found him. He knows about you and is anxious to send you a letter. We are talking with his family." S threw her hands in the air and skipped around the room praising God. She's never exhibited such outward exuberation before. A beautiful moment.

I consider myself a person of faith. I nurture a spiritual part of my soul that keeps me going through thick and thin. However, I rarely put God to the test in such specific ways, rarely put much stock in "messages from beyond." I found Solomon's mom's visions a little nieve and too hopefull initially. But she proved me wrong. Life proved me wrong. Or was it God?

I'm happy we were able to play a part in a grand reuion. Solomon's family is coming together over the miles, through diverse history and lifestyles. Patrick and I feel thrilled, honored and just a little haunted to be a part of it.

Fun Music

Thought I'd share some fun music. The first is my favorite song in Haiti right now. I can't help but dance to it. Forgive the music video.

But I find it humerous that we just looked up "zouglou" (part of the song's title) in the creole dictionary and it means "short and stout." Maybe that is why I like shaking my bootie to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GLI9TN1GbU

This is a song a friend sent to me. Also fun to dance to, the lyrics are cool and the video is really fun.

enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoaTl7IcFs8

***

Mobile Clinic

One thing can be said about CONASPEH’s newly formed Central Committee on Health… once they get an idea in their head, they GO with it. The members which include the young and enthusiastic (and working for free due to lack of funds) Dr. Charcot, Miss Fano, Francois Villier, and Miss Altena (director of the nursing school) as well as myself. All get along and are dedicated to health care, education and outreach. I cannot say enough how happy I am working with a team, a committee of professionals. After starting this missionary assignment and feeling lost, disoriented and yearning for a Haitian guide through an unfamiliar system, suddenly I find myself amidst a core group of intelligent, motivated, enthusiastic people dedicated to health care in Haiti. Brainstorming is brilliant, opinions voiced, information shared and action taken in the course of an hour. And after the meetings end, I love venturing out with my “teammates” on adventures in medicine, in the attempt to better serve the people of Haiti.

Our first meeting was a month ago where we brainstormed projects, outreach and ancillary training for the nursing school. Since then we’ve started a health membership program for the CONASPEH churches that brings in a little money to help purchase medical supplies. We’ve started a weekly clinic outreach in Pont Sonde. The first week of clinic was enormously successful, and our follow-up week had plenty of new and re-visiting patients reassuring us that our presence there is certainly valued by the members of the community.

Today was our first organized mobile clinic outreach as a team. Our destination was a small village church up the mountain from Carrefour. Dr. Charcot, Miss Fano, MIss Altena and 2 nursing students loaded into the Galloper at dawn and were off. After driving through packed markets, weaving through pedestrians, street dogs and pot holes, urging the Galloper up the steep and eroded path that served as a “road” to the small community, we finally parked in a huddle of homes. From there, we loaded up our supplies. I had a duffle of medicines on one shoulder, my bag of diagnostic tools on another. Miss Altena walked with a box full of pharmaceuticals on her head. Miss Fano carried the wound care equipment, Dr. Charcot another box of meds, and a couple of boys from the village helped us find our way to the make-shift clinic. The pastor who had arranged the mobile clinic lead us through a narrow walk way, weaving between cement and tin home, along a cliff face where the trail merged into the width of one of my shoes. Traversing the narrow walk way with bags the size of small adults was interesting, to say the least.

We huffed and puffed our way down steep banks, up steps in the hill made out of old tires and through a neighborhood of cinder block houses with life underway. We passed a mother braiding her daughter’s hair, a young woman breast feeding her infant, a teenager hanging out the family’s clothes on the line, men playing dominos and others just watching the spectacle of the strange train of people stumbling by. The mountains surrounding the village were patchworked with farmed plots of land, terraced up the mountain slopes.

We found the church to be a cinderblock structure wearing a tin roof for shelter and teetering on a hillside. The church members had cleaned an area where the children usually meet and made it into a temporary clinic. A man had been announcing our coming by bull-horn for hours before, and we were welcomed by a “waiting room” full of expectant patients.

The following hours were spent seeing the people of this hill-side town. The nursing students practiced taking vital signs and blood sugars with the help of Miss Altena. Miss Fano manned the pharmacy, and Dr. Charcot and I welcomed patient after patient, sharing an old cot as an exam table. We saw a young boy we suspected to have advanced Ricketts, a pregnant woman with dysentery, kids with coughs, old men with knee pain, an 80 year-old woman with severe curvature of the spine who complained of “getting tired” once in a while. We treated would-be malaria, anemia, and pneumonia. We suspected a case of Tuberculosis and another case of Sickle-cell crisis and referred as such.

The day was busy but fun, the mood jovial as all of the “team” involved was buried in the work we all trained (and love) to do.

We returned home tired and hot, but happy. Today we made it possible for people to get affordable medical care in a place where the walk to an established clinic is long and expensive.

Miss Fano is already busy scheduling mobile clinics in the weeks to follow. I’m excited about adventures to come. When day dreaming of being a doctor doing international work, I pictured myself a lot like we were today: hot, sweaty, hauling supplies over uneven terrain, seeing people who hadn’t bothered seeking out a doctor for their chronic cough, persistent fever or dehydrating diarrhea.

Today was a success. Rewarding. The journey is well underway. And I'm loving every minute of it.

Rivers Run

We are in the middle of the rainy season. Most days clouds build up overhead. Some days it rains… others the humidity just sits in the air like a steam bath. It is hard to even blink without sweating. When the rains fall, they sweep the air momentarily of dust, they send water pooling and running down the rocky streets, they fill up the gutters, slap the leaves of the palms and invite the birds back into the trees. I have to say usually, in a selfish way, I look forward to the rain. The air cools a bit, the mornings are more clear, the colors more vibrant. But I have a lucky perch on a 3rd story apartment. Such is not the experience for most people on the island.

Today we took a group of pastors visiting CONASPEH from Indianapolis on a small trip north along the national highway. Along the route, we passed the little villages that line the route, the markets, the donkeys with their loads and the farmers in the fields. We talked about the change in the vegetation that leaves cacti where tropical forests used to be. We noted the plantain fields, the beautiful coastline and the treeless yet grand mountains rising above us. We also passed numerous dry river beds. The river beds are filled with rocks that have washed down from their previous mountainous perch as a result of erosion. Instead of lush vegetation holding the waters into the soil, the landscape is swept baren by water traversing over rock, and the rock is all that remains in the beds. I’ve become accustomed to seeing these rocky river landscapes. Sometimes a little trickle or a calm small stream will saunter through, weaving around the white stacks of pebbles and sand that fill the river bed. Often you see children standing in the water bathing, women washing clothes, men wiping down their trucks and tap-taps or others gathering water and porting it on their heads back to their home.

On our return trip to Port au Prince this evening, the landscape had changed in the few hours since we left it. The clouds overhead had long warned of rains building. Although we drove back in a light sprinkle, evidence of heavier rains somewhere in higher elevation greeted us as we traversed the once dry riverbeds. We knew to look because a crowd from each village gathered around the bridges and banks of the river watching muddy rapids roar down the rocky bed, filling the bed bank to bank, threatening to surge over the edge, coming dangerously close to the bridge we were driving across. The difference was incredible. One area of the road was flooded with a foot of water, and the galloper had to inch itself through the raging current.

I was amazed at this sudden change, this flash-flood of sorts that came from rains falling in a distant place, but had the potential to ravage the tiny villages lining the river beds. And this was just an ordinary summer rain.

Puts hurricane season into perspective. Not hard to imagine how such devastation occurred from the storms. These villages line the coast, hug the river bed, and walk a tight balance between dry land and flash floods when the rains bring water coursing over eroded hills through dry valleys on its path to the sea.

Go hug a tree.

Continuity

Today we had our second clinic at Pont Sonde. After a “grand opening” crowd of curious patients on our first day last week, I wasn’t sure what to expect after all the fuss and novelty wore off. I was happily relieved to find an equally full waiting room upon our arrival.

My favorite part of the day came with patients who returned for follow-up.

After months of missing the continuity, the relationships I nurtured in my residency clinic, the fact I recognized patients returning after only a week away gave me cause to celebrate. I saw a young boy following up for an ear re-check, an old woman letting me know her pain was better with the Tylenol I so brilliantly gave her (insert sarcasm here), and a young woman letting me know she couldn't afford to get the lab I sent her for. It may take this country clinic to make me feel like a family doctor again. And I’m thrilled for it.

The patient of the day was a woman coming back for a follow-up for an infection. Last week Dr. Charcot saw her and asked me to come over and lend a hand. At the time, she was clammy, feverish and looked to be suffering. She showed us a huge hot, hard and swollen area along the length of her groin and multiple oozing wounds and smaller abcesses on her back.

We advised her to go to the hospital, but she told us quite frankly she had been suffering for 8 days because she couldn’t afford to go to a hospital.

Last week we prepared as best we could a pseudo-sterile environment, and preformed a incision and drainage of the large abcess on her thigh, praying that we’d do more good than harm. The woman was already suffering systemic effects of the infection, and was on her way to becoming really sick. We had to do something. After draining as much of the infection as we could, we loaded her up with several antibiotics and strick instructions on how to take them. And we asked her to come back, not knowing if she’d trust us enough to follow through.

But today she sat waiting for us with a smile on her face, her forehead dry and cool.

Her swelling had gone down significantly, her fever had left, and she felt good enough to give us hugs.

We of course did more debridement which cut her celebration down a bit, but she seemed to tolerate it well, trusting us to have her best intention in mind.

Not every intervention we try works, not every piece of education sticks. But when it does, when we can care for someone with bare-bones equipment, with the simplest of resources and at minimal cost to the patient, I’m reminded EXACTLY why I’m here.

For her.

What is that Sound?

Since we moved into our apartment in Feburary, Patrick and I have been “serenaded” by some mysterious wild sound made by something sounding too-close-for-comfort outside of our apartment.

I am quite disturbed to hear a noise and not be able to identify it. I am amazed how much we need to rationalize what we hear and see in order to provide comfort.

The noise, a mix between a call and a screech, sounded like something a monkey might make. But we knew there weren’t monkeys to be found in Port-au-Prince. So where did that leave us?

After sitting up with Solomon in the middle of the night, Patrick became convinced that the giant Haitian cockroaches which are all too familiar to our apartment must have vocal cords twice the size of their body. He was sure the sound came from our walls and therefore had to be our pesky invadors that we chase, spray and bat at with loveless distain everytime we see them.

Excuse me, but screeching cockroaches didn’t give me a “comfy home” feeling. In fact, I had to deny such an disgusting existence for sanity sake if nothing else.

So tonight, sitting with the internet handy, we googled the following questions: “Do cockroaches make noise?” “Do tropical rats make noise?” “Do ghekos make noise?” I am happy to report that despite their small stature, we are convinced that it is the small but loudly forceful gheko that has been screeching through the night to let us know that he is hear and hear him roar.

The following is the link to the sound we identified as our (now) welcome neighbor.

http://www.naturesongs.com/gecko1.wav

I have to say, I’m immediately relieved by our loud, but non-disgusting friend. I have no beef with the ghecko. He can skitter over our walls, and eat our mosquitos to his heart’s content. And if he needs to make a joyful noise, so be it.

I am reminded of the camping trip Patrick and I made our first summer in Colorado when we happened upon Elk mating season and encountered for the first time the Elk bugle. The bugle sound sounds like something out of this world, like a Switch at a cauldron, and when we heard it for the first time, we had no idea what biologic or etherial creature was making hte sound. Even the dogs didn't bark. But thanks to google, we identified and demystified the would-be witch roast and became enamored with the vocal range of the male Elk.

What did we do without google? LIve in mystery and fear? I'm grateful for it tonight as I"m a little less discusted and a lot more reassured by our oh-so-vocal housemates.