Goat on the road

     Welcome back dear friends, to my first entry since last November, accompanied by the first rainfall today since that date.  After a searingly hot afternoon, dragging my sweaty body back across the border, I sensed the unmistakeable ozone scent wafting through the windows as I was chowing down an enormous meal of la pechuga, chicken breast with salad, rice and beans. I realized it was pouring outside; the streets flooded with torrents of brown water, whirling plastic bottles, leaves and other detritus of life moving at breakneck speed.  And me without my umbrella!

I returned to the Haitian/Dominican border a week ago - the first part of my month here involves teaching my colleagues at the health center in the little town of Anse-a-Pitres how to do cervical screening for cancer using a simple technique involving vinegar, a headlamp and cryotherapy for positives.

Community health promoters identifying my reproductive organs!!

This week I am doing three didactic workshops for promoters, doctors and nurses and next week will be doing practical training with patients coming to the clinic for screening.  Dr. Mary Gratch, a friend and OB/GYN from NYC is joining me to do a training on pelvic ultrasound at the same time. Cluster-teach Haitian style!!  It has been an arduous job translating Spanish PowerPoint presentations (175 slides), courtesy of an American organization that does similar trainings in Central America called Grounds for Health,  as well as other training materials into kreyol with the help of my Haitian nurse, Jeanne. My search for an organization that does similar work to partner with has been in vain.  Few non-profits access this far corner of SE Haiti, so the lone wolf continues to roam the hills.....

Last week I was joined by Lydia Marden and her daughter Sadie from my beloved old stomping ground, the State of Maine.  Lydia is a nurse practitioner (we've been best friends since nursing school in the 70s) and Sadie is in her 3rd year of medical school. We did some cervical screenings in a remote fishing village about an hour by moto from Anse-a-Pitres.  The "president" of the town owns the only recognizable business there, a bar of course, so we did the gyn exams on tables on the dance floor between the giant speakers, with a gorgeous cliffside view of the sea.

Sadie doing her exam between the Marshall stacks!!

our seaside clinic from out back

     Things continue to improve from my perspective here, granted I am an optimist, but you can't argue when you seen the decommissioned cholera beds, plenty of staff running around and new construction underway at the health center.  The addition is being built by a Spanish NGO, Arquitectos sin Fronteras, and will include labor, delivery, exam rooms and an operating room (can't imagine where the surgeon will come from) for C-sections, etc.   We thought it would be done by now but there has been a little hold up in the funding.  Solar panels now bring enough current to run a computer and the light for the microscope as well as a dull nighttime bulb in the little ER and a light trickle of water runs from some sinks.  

Off the job and hopefully not to come back during the rainy season

Arquitectos sin finanzas

goat on the road

more later, much love, Louise