several days lost in el ciclon

Hello  all yee faithful how are you???  Hopefully weathering the storm ok now that it is your turn.  I am posting my meanderings over the last week while out of contact, starting 10/25.  Thanks for the love, Louise

A woman came in yesterday who had been beaten up by her husband (he's in jail).  She was wet and covered with sand and dirt, hair totally wild and she was super bug-eyed, "Night of the Living Dead," each eye going in a different direction while having the closest thing to a real seizure as I have ever seen.  She was contorting her neck in a scary bizarre position, people were holding her down and the little emergency room was packed with family and rubberneckers.  Pulse normal, pupils equal and responsive, moving all extremities, a few nasty bumps and bruises, maybe a fractured arm.... Dr Demonsthenes, a 30 yo intern from Port au Prince who is working with me, sharp as a whip and a face of a 15 year old mumbles humbly to me, "um, you know, the Haitian people (pause), she is having anxiety.  We will let her stay here for a while and see if she calms down."  But others explained that she 

must have been cheating on her husband and he put a kout wanga, or spell on her.  She ended up staying for several hours and still did not calm down after getting hosed off in the tub for cholera pts (see photo) and IV Valium.  Her parents decided to take her across the border to get checked by dominican docs.  Demosthenes later explained that Haitians frequently don't trust their own doctors or hospitals and often seek something beyond their border, if they have the means. 

Woman with the kout wanga getting washed off in the cholera tub

Today it was raining for the 3rd day in a row, the sideshow of the hurricaine that passed between Cuba and Jamaica.  I've been drenched repeatedly riding around by bike and motorcycle.  Few people come to the clinic because they are deathly afraid of going out in the rain and getting sick.  "Cholera will come back with this weather" they cluck.  But today we had a birth which took many hours, the mother's first.  Since 6 am she lay naked and splayed out on the sickly pink colored plastic birthing table in 90 degree humidity as we fanned her madly with an old medical file and tpped on her belly like telegraph messengers gone mad, to help promote contractions.  "Mezanmi!!!" she would hollar.  The cranky nurse who used to sleep on her desk started slapping her inner thighs to get her to open up and bear down with all her might.  We're all cheering "puse, puse, l'ap vini," (push, push, its coming) and sure enought she did after 7 hours of pushing.  In the States she would have had a C-section before the morning coffee break.

Well, I never got to send the above entries because the internet has been down for a few days now due to the storm.  The dominican phone I have is not working either, but the Haitian cell provider is, kudos to something working better here than in the DR!  The howling wind and sheets of rain come in paroxysms, about 30 minutes apart, giving you hope that things might clear, but WRONG, back it comes.   Its so odd to be in a big storm without knowing anything about it - its strength, where it is headed,  its name - no persistent weather channel updates 'round here beyond just looking outside; its raining, it stopped, sky is deep gray, now its getting brighter, wind is slamming doors and window around, things are quiet and calm.  waves in the sea today are super high, you can hear the surf a mile away; We went down to the beach this morning to see for ourselves.  They needed to pull ashore this tremendous wooden ship that they use to transport people and cargo from Ansapit to Jacmel, so they placed seaweed under it and raised it up on some pathetic looking logs.  With the help of 40  men and women who pulled ropes  tied to the boat's bow with a series of rhythmic heave-hos, sure enough they advanced it tug by tug to higher ground.

Boats ready to go the 7 hours to Jacmel in happier times, several were ruined in the storm

More kreyol - grate tet - to wonder,  ponder, literally to scratch your head
Fwod - fraud
Pa chat  - to sneak around (to act like a cat)