Parting thoughts and images

Women parading, singing and dancing down mainstreet Anse-a-Pitres on the International Day of the Woman

RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN, THEY ARE WHO GIVE LIFE

Carnival street demons

Flapping papillon

Each pair of papillon would fight with these pirates, doing kung fu type moves

Carnival princesses

Arriving at Grand Gosier

Catholic church high on a peak overlooking the beach at Grand Gosier

Local department of justice

Large, pristine clinic in GG,  waiting for several years for doctors, electricity and plumbing

We did a "shake and bake" clinic in the facility, seeing 40 patients in 2 hours

A little cutie looking unconvinced even though I assure her "mwen pa gen piki," I don't have a shot!!

My colleagues in AAP my last day in the clinic.  Dr.  LaMartine is holding a brand new Dell laptop that Kathy Brieger from Hudson River Healthcare, my employer, donated, which will hopefully connect them to teleconferencing and many other functions

This will be my last entry for this year, as I had to leave abruptly because of the death of my dear 97 year old father on March 4th.  I am writing this from my desk overlooking the ridge of the southern Taconics, getting back home late last night.  I want to thank you all for following me and supporting me and I will certainly be back next year, God willing.  I feel like this place perfectly fuses my interests and abilities with their needs and future plans.

Last week was packed with adventure.  Tuesday was both MartiGras and the International Day of the Woman and AAP was bubbling, as you can see from the above pictures.  It was particularly moving to march and sing along with the women throughout the community, since I have personally seen and treated the sad results of so much violence against women in my short time there.  These proud, brave and capable women of all ages sang out this song, call and response style for several hours.  It's telling all the men; husbands, sons, president, deputies, senators to wake up to the abuses of women:

Fanm oooo  k'ap pase mize
Rele fanm ooo  k'ap pase mize
Misiye yo pa konnen si fanm ap pase mize
Menm gason nan kayla pa konnen se fanm ap pase mize
Prizidon pa konnen
Senate yo pa konnen
Depite yo pa konnen
Majistra yo pa konnen

Both Nicolette, who went to Benin with me when she was 13, and I were struck by how absolutely African their voices, song and styles of movement.  It is a long hard fight.

The Papillon troupe was a kick, they had these wonderful hinged wings made of wood which were ingeniously attached to their elbows with rebar so that they could flap them back and forth, making a scarey racket.  They marched through the street and then staged battles, 2 by 2 with a handful of rogues, all rather theatrical.

The next day, on the urging of Dr Alexandre, we rented a boat to go to Grand Gosier, an isolated community about half way down the coast to Jacmel, to do a clinic.  The place is rustic and beautiful, I fell in love with it right away.  Apparently there are about 10,000 people within reach of the place by burrow, boat or foot.  It is quite unaccesible by car, only really by dirtbike, but has a clinic larger than ours that was built by the Haitian gov't years ago and then recently given a big facelift by some NGO.  However it is still not up and running with a doctor, or regular care.  There is an axillary nurse, with the equivalent training here of an LPN, who does all the consults, suturing, delivering of babies, etc.  The evidence of melted candle wax on the windowsill of the room where I was seeing pts was a telltale sign that she does all this at night without electricity.  I left my headlamp for her with a dozen AAA batteries!!  Although the place is plumbed out with 5 or 6 toilets, showers, sinks, there is no running water either. There is enough room here for a whole operating room, lab, inpatient rooms, dorms for personnel, but the place is totally vacant.  Haiti seems rife with these kind of frustrating ironies.  The president of Batey Relief Alliance, the organization I work with which has taken over the administration of my clinic, has expressed  interest in taking this clinic over in the future.

I leave with many of the same unanswered questions I had when I arrived; is there really any hope for Haiti?  does a volunteer like me give more than she takes?  is what I do adding or subtracting to sustainability?  is this culturally right?  Yet the beauty, simplicity and grace of the people uplift you in this cloud of confident expectation that your doubts can't deflate.  I'll be back.