A salute to my beloved friends and family back home with an intelligence (?) report and mission update. Due to who-knows-what snafus in the techno infrastructure, I´ve had a ·$%& of a time trying to get the pictures up and this off to you. I wrote the text last week.
November 8th, 2013
It´s been a wonderfully productive week working towards getting the clinic up and running in Marjofre. Last Sunday Phil and Patrick appeared in Pedernales, president and vice prez of the non-profit we have started to help move the clinic along, Hispañola Health Partners. We had a meeting with the department head of the Ministry of Health of Haiti (MSPP) of the SE province which was surprisingly positive. After 3 hours on motorcycle and 6 hours in car to get to Jacmel, we agreed we would be happy if he were just THERE and didn´`t blow us off. Instead Dr Ted Lazarre was enthusiastic and supportive and after we abide by a few not-to-impossible-to-fulfill requirements, we can expect them to partner with us in the upcoming year or so. That would help enormously in making the clinic eventually self-sufficient; MSPP would provide a doctor and nurse, a network of trained community health workers and the usual services (or lack thereof) of family planning, maternal child health, vaccines, TB, HIV and cholera prevention. We would continue with salary incentives to keep good staff, as well as supply the clinic with meds, equipment and a functional lab.
Passing through Port Au Prince for the first time, we buzzed along the outskirts as fast as possible en route to Jacmel. Both hammered by the earthquake, i can´t say either place looks any worse than many other metropoli in the developing world, the usual piles of rubble seem like nothing out of the ordinary. Jacmel however is a seaside town of distressed majesty, gorgeous colonial buildings in various stages of crumble with salt air and intoxicating breezes/stenches coming off the freckled light blue bay.
JACMEL
Phil, Patrick ad I stayed there for an extra day and Fritz and his jeep returned to PAP to pick up a team of Haitian dentists who were packing themselves, folding dental chairs and all their equipment to do 3 days of consults in Marjofre. We 3 had to deal with the devil to get to Marjofre by sea, which looks painfully close on the map, but the roads are barely donkey worthy. So at 7:30 pm in the drizzle we sought a ride to the dilapidated port of Marigo, where we would take a 6 hour open boat ride up the coast to Grand Gosier. (I have taken you there before a few times). The only wheels we could secure were motos just a hair above mo-peds, my and Patrick´s driver had to use my headlamp for a headlight. When we got to the boat, which is a hollow hulled wooden structure resembling the Nina or Pinta without any sails, I expected to see it cargoed up to the gunwales with charcoal and plantains but instead the hull was lined with bodies stem to stern, eerily reminiscent of those slave ship drawings. Chuckles ripped along the curled up bodies as they watched the blans stumble their way on board with their enormous backpacks and clumsy feet. When it started to pour, the mates covered us all with a huge tarp under which you could hear a symphony of snoring, gurgling, wheezing, coughing an whistling of passengers in different stages of sleep. I stood up (there was no more lying room unless I wanted to get really friendly) with my umbrella sheltering me from the storm and watched the sky change from passing clouds to a packed house of stars, then a second light-show below as the phosphorescence was showing off as the wake broke off the side of the boat. The captain sang as he steered the boat in full darkness, creeping along the shoreline, never more than 40 feet away from the white rocks, cacti and thornebush scrub that was emitting this warm fragrance of butterflies, herb, woodsmoke and dried fish. A mystery mix of life unknown.
We eventually reached the long wharf of Grand Gosier at 3 am and were greeted by our moto taxis who we presumed were going to bring us up the steep 8 km road to Marjofre where some comfy beds awaited us. But alas the road was too wet and we would have to wait, and anyway, a young woman in town was having a hard time giving birth to her first baby and they had decided I was going to help with that before I realized I´d dropped my flipflop into the deep water while trying to get off the boat. The mariners fished out my flop expertly and I was on my way up the cliff to the village. The 17 year old girl´s water had broken 24 hours before and her labor was ¨piddly´¨ as I think they used to say, 35 years ago when I worked as a midwife. Yet she was well dilated and almost ready to push, so I told her to walk outside for a while, meanwhile we hung our hammocks on nearby porches and tried to catch a few zzzzs. The baby´s heartbeat was great, so there wasn´t much for me to do, but ¨let God.¨ We left at dawn and her labor had picked up, I later found out she had the baby at 5 pm, in the company of an ancient matron or lay midwife.
We only stayed in Marjofre long enough to meet with the local clinic committee and see the dental and medical clinics going full swing, using a roaring generator for electricity and lugging water from the cistern.
Over the weekend I went to visit some old friends in Las Matas de Farfan and Elias Piña, along the Haitian/Dominican border, where I worked years ago. I visited the priest from St Teresa de Jesus, a jolly soul from Wisconsin who has been there for years. Just like a Dominican, he rips out his spanish in spitfire speed, all full of jokes and colloquialisms. In the same way he is supernaturally in touch with the community´s needs, and among thousands of other amazing things he has organized in the community during the last 25 years he has been there, his parish recently finished a vocational school for 432 high school students, in a former mansion of Trujillo, the notorious dictator, mowed down in the early 60s.
El Jefe was more prone to violating than educating young girls
On the 20 mile ride back to Las Matas de Farfan, our ¨carrito,¨or jalopy crammed with passengers, first got retained for 30 minutes because we were carrying some contraband garlic. I saw a few 100 peso notes pass hands with la guardia and we were on our way. Suddenly, at 50 mph the hood of our car flies up and hits the windshield, already worse for wear, now cracking it into a dizzying roadmap of crooked lines, brakes squealing, zero visibility. | |
| I´ll give 3000 pesos to anyone who finds an intact windshield in a public vehicle in this country |
a hip shot from the moto of the high rise tombs here in Haiti
Pretty grateful to Jehovah when I arrive alive, tank and all
November 15th : I just finished doing a whole bunch of cervical screenings in the mountain town of Thiotte, more later, much love and HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROSIE !!!!!
So proud of you and your mission. Wonderful that it will continue on with good support.
ReplyDeletePainting is amazing. Is it yours to keep?
Hurry home. I miss you and want to hear first hand ALL of your adventures.
Great photos, my friend.
xoxxoxo Carol