photos and update

Haitian snake oil

HI EVERYONE I am having a frustrating time with blogging, please bear with me, I don´t now whether you have received multiple copies of an entry that I can´t seem to brighten the print on so it is basically illegible.  Please excuse the nuisance.  I am going to carry on because now I am over a week behind in entries and I have wasted hours trying to fix the last one.

I am so heartbroken to hear bits and pieces about the storm, aching for NYC.  Our few days of flooding is nothing iin comparison to this blitz.

Oven

finished product, great when warm with some strong sweet black coffee

My notes in kreyol, sorry can´t turn them around

Last night I slept in the clinic residence and was awakened at 6 am for another birth.  This one, although another first baby, went quickly, I am watching and helping, learning the routine.  The next episiotomy will be mine.  Most women get pitocin to hussle the contractions, speed up the birth.  The nurses act as midwives, confident, skilled, compassionate and joking away as we slide on the mix of blood, betadine and amniotic fluid that misses the big bucket.
The clinic was bustling this morning, several wounds to sew, a crazy girl came in, another case of kout wanga or being possessed by a spell someone cast, as I explained in my last entry that you most likely could not read. Her family had tied her hands in front of her so she couldn´t hurt herself or anyone else.  We had run out of IV valium, so I gave her promethazine to help her sleep and my translator, an ardent evangelist, advised her to go to church.

Psycho photo from my bike, shot by mistake

A bit difficult to get a history on this woman who was a deaf mute that nobody  knew

Me and Jeramy studying kreyol and english, respectively

baskets for catching fish

Fresh catch drying in the sun on conch shells

Love truck

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)

fotos and more stories

Jeanne giving a talk about HIV prevention in the clinic.  There is no testing available, we have to send people to Pedernales -$$$.  The latest infection rate according to the UN is 1.9% of the population between 15 and 49

Beds are empty in the cholera tent.

Rode and Muscadin in the nurses office.  Now there 6 capable nurses with organized schedules and the obligatory whites.  When I was here before there were only 2 nurses, one who mostly napped at her desk,even though there was a cholera epidemic outside

My examining room.  We are using body bags from the cholera epidemic to cover the examining tables, which I didn´t realize until I turned it over and noticed the big long zipper!!!  I am writing my notes in kreyol now, thank God I have been seeing only 5-10 a day this week.

The door to my bedroom at Peter´s house

The outdoor shower feels great on a day when temps reach the high 90s.  The neighbors 15 feet away put on great music - boleros, salsa, bachata, merengue - to add rhythm to scrubbing

Here´s the squatter, brand new and clean as a whistle

Natalie and Rosmaris, Peter´s sister and stepdaughter that live with us.  They share the same bed.  Rosmaris, who is three, feeds herself as delicately as the Queen mother.  I have a book of kreyol children´s stories that I read to her.

Natalie getting coiffed by a neighbor in our jarden

Ezrameyel, Peter and Sylphan´s 14 month old antchoutechoute or wild little monkey who gets into absolutely everything

Rosmaris waiting for dinner last Sunday - rice, beans, fried chicken, yucca, "sauce."  Very special because of my arrival.



Let´s talk about food.  This morning for breakfast I had some spaghetti floating in a thin red sauce with a few light green peppers.  Good enough, especially with strong sweet black coffee, served on the porch of my domicile.  I bought 5 little bags of home roasted peanuts on the street on my way to work that tasted great with my second cup of sweet mud when I got to the clinic (another upgrade from last time).  Then around 1:30 Sylphan delivered my lunch - yanm, which is more like a fibrous potato, again with the light red sauce, this time accompanied by a fish skeleton for flavor, decoration maybe? Tasty enough but I was done after a few bites because it is hard to have an appetite when it is a breezeless 98 degrees.  However the sweetened, watered down natural orange juice she brought me is a godsend.  Tonight on my way home I bought some pen or white hamburger looking rolls, fresh baked in a home oven, still hot.  For dinner we shared 3 of the rolls between 7 of us, with labouyi or porridge, made from cornmeal, milk, cloves and vanilla.  Eating is a family free-for-all with no one having their own specific plate, however I play defense in hopes that Ezramael´s grubby mitt (haha gotcha Romney) won´t approach mine.

Things I have learned to do:

Ride sidesaddle on a motorcycle when I am wearing a dress

Drink a 40 oz beer, a Dominican fria grande, freezing cold by myself in less than 30 minutes, still on my feet and ready to roll onward.

More witchcraft:

    The other day a neighbor brought her 2 yo child over to be checked by me because he had a little scar on the left side of his neck.  I was trying to understand what the problem could be because it just looked like a well healed wound from long ago.  Sure enough, I later found out that when the chuild was only a few days old his mom found him one morning in a little pool of coming from a neck wound.  Outside the bed she found drops of blood leading out the door.  Do you believe in vampires?

      Peter started talking about zombies again when he took me to his cornfield.  When i asked him if he is worried that people will steal his corn which is ready to harvest, he said that often you see zombies standing in cornfields, watching them for their owners.  It seems they are most used for the boring-ist of jobs.  Pete also said you always see zombies in Haitian factories, and also for some reason in the drugstore.  You can tell they are zombies because their voices are always very nasal, sort of like a snorting.

Some new favorites in the kreyol lexicon: 

Blofe  liar

Twompe  deceive

Zengzeng  bother

Gaga  simpleton

Fizi  firearm

These Haitians are tricksters by nature.  HOllywood should do some recruiting here.  Yesterday evening I happened to drop by the clinic and this teenage boy came panting in, totally out of breath, looking just like he was having an asthma attack, being held up by 2 family members.  I asked his sister if he had asthma and she said yes.  So I immediately gave him a nebulizer treatment and even though he was still heaving heavily his lungs were perfectly clear.  I thought hummm, he was burning hot, 104.5 degrees.  20 minutes later he´s in bed with an IV, positive for malaria, resting quietly.  I wasted time and a nebulizer treatment because I did not recognize his dramatization of the fear he was feeling - my bad!

N'ap ale anko ( here we go again)

Bonjou tout moun anko - Hi from Haiti to everyone that is interested in continuing the ride or jumping on the bus while it¨´s smoking up the hill!  I got to Pedernales, in the Dominican Republic on the border of Haiti, about one week ago.  Although I had done my best to prepare by word of mouth that I was coming, and was told last February while making a brief visit back that I was most welcome, what appears is often not at all what is, especially veiled by the cultural smokescreen.  I was received politely last Thursday, but told by the chief doctor of the clinic (LaMartine) that he would have to meet with his staff to see how they feel about me starting.  He said he would get back to me the next week!!!!!  Wow, enough fire to hard boil an egg in this gringa´s boiling blood!!!  Wait in this dusty cowboy town for who knows how long for who knows what?????  I took a few deep breaths and nodded in agreement, circled around the health center to meet everyone.

 Things have changed considerably since I left mid-March of 2011.  The non profit organization, Batey Relief  Alliance (BRA), with which I was allied last time I was here, had not succeeded to take over operations of the then woebegone clinic.  Although contracts had been signed between BRA and the Haitian Ministry of Health, hands shaken, press releases sent here and there; in the end there was some kind of power struggle and BRA was sent packing.  Today things look considerably cleaner, better organized, more manpower, everyone dressed in startched white, including me, the only person sweating bullets in this uniform in 90 degree heat with a ceiling fan that only reaches 1 on the scale up to 5.  I got the greenlight to work the next day, after meeting with the head nurse who knew me well and couldn't understand why I wasn't starting right away.  So she got the wheels rolling andhere I am back in the knack, sewing up lacerations, seeing babies with high fevers, funny rashes, pregnant women, people possessed by spirits and writhing in paroxysms of pain like in an old fashioned grade B horror movie.  However I am feeling content with a little more kreyol under my belt and understanding the routine much better than last time.  By the way, although the cholera tent is still standing out in the backyard, there are no patients now and haven't been for some time.

I am staying in Haiti with my translator and his family- no light or running water, but it is kind of like camping in luxury.  His wife does everything for me - she cooks cleans, washes my clothes, she even followed me into their rustic shower to help me bathe until I told her it was not really necessary.

I'm sorry if this blog is a little helter-skelter, I have to reenter the DR in order to have wifi and I am attempting this on a i-pad, so the curve is a little high.  I am going to try to post some photos

Mesi anpil St John's

USE OF FUNDS FROM ST JOHN’S

Medical supplies and overweight charges………………………………………………$160

Medications purchased in the DR......$626

HIV and syphilis tests………..………….…$471

Food for orphanage………...........……..…..$56

Boat to Grand Gosier………….……………$120

Aid for special patient problems……..$292

Total…………………………………………………..$1725

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.

Update on the Gods

I´ve been waiting to write this desciption of the Haitian pantheon until I knew a little more, gathered more information from varied sources, but I keep hearing the same stories, so I guess I will just relate what I have heard so far.   There are many wonderful books on the subject that go into fine detail which I will leave up to you to search out if you are so inclined.  Maybe because I work in the line of blood and injury, I am told repeatedly that accidents happen because the Lwa, the Haitian gods, are hungry for flesh or thirsty for blood.  So some motorcyclist doesn´t mangle your leg because he was carrying 100 pounds of coconuts and a few stalks of platanos at 40 mph and you happened to be in his way, but because the Gods are constantly looking to feed themselves, and you did not feed them daily with prayer and libation.   There´s also the possibility that someone out there wants to get back at you, so they paid a Gan Gan or Mambo, male or female voudoo priest, to get the gods pissed off at you and pay you  a visit.  One of the most feared goddesses is LOUGAROU who flies around at night in the form of a turkey and looks for newborn babies.  One guy I met could hear her on the roof of his house, making noise in the middle of the night when his daughter was a baby and had to put a bwa pini or wooden cross at the door with a bag of tobacco seeds attached to it.  My translator told me that Lougarou visited his little brother the other night who sleeps next to him.  He saw him in a dream trying to pursue his brother but woke just in time to scare her away.  He feels he has special protection because he belives iin Jesus who makes you impermiable to the Lwa.  Other male and female flesh eating and bloodthirsty Lwa are Bizango, Sanprel, Zobop, Dambala.  People do not go out late at night in Anse a Pitres because this is the time when these Lwa are out on the prowl and it is very, very dangerous to walk around.  I didn´t know this but I somehow survived when I went out dancing and walked back through town, which has no electricity, at about 11:30.  It seemed serene to me, sky packed with stars, streets silent, but as the Haitian proverb goes, "what you don´t know is bigger than you."

Besides all these bloodsuckers, there are a few colorful superstars, and they are not all bad.  There are at least two female goddesses named Erzuli; Erzuli Frida is the black goddess of love, she is capable of giving you love, riches, power and a break in life.  Her day of the week is Tuesday and her favorite color is pink.  You can see altars set up for her with bright pink satin, perfume and lipstick., sweets and cakes in different shades of pink and of course,  lots of hearts.  Erzli Danto is her white counterpart, her day is Saturday.  There are a handful of saints - Miguel and Rafael that are good spirits that protect you from these bad spirits as do Oganbatagi, a warrior that bears a sword and Ogon je rory,  who protects the whole family from bad spirits.

One of the most famous characters is Baron Samedi.  BS is chief of the graveyard, and if you want to get someone out of their grave to turn them into a zombie, you have to get clearance from him.  He is kind of a sexy trickster, smoking a cigar, wearing a top hat, tails, sun glasses, and a bare chest.  Apparently Papa Doc and his tontons macoute, or henchmen,  used to imitate his likeness to get their point across. 

I´ll leave it at that, not being any expert.  Things at the clinic truck along, now my wonderful buddy Julia is here, another nurse practitioner from New Mexico who I met years ago here in the DR.  She is adapting brilliantly...The woman with the hideous eye is recovering well from surgery and soon will be fitted for a glass one.  We found out that her husband is a curandero, or folk medicine man of questionable rank, and put some drops of chlorox in her eye which might have explained its bizarre condition.  The woman who got her hand machete-d is also doing amazingly well except that she lost so much blood that she has a hemoglobin of 5.7!  We are seeing her everyday to change her bandage, give her painkillers and iron.  She can move her fingers! Her story also changed - the guy who went after her with the machete was actually going for her neck and she put up her hand to protect herself.  He apparently was bothered by something she and his wife were talking about.

My daughter Nicolette is arriving in Santo Domingo to join me for a week.  I am leaving tommorrow on the 5 am bus, trying to buy some meds and medical supplies while I am there.  Can´t wait to give her a big squeeze and turn her on to this wild world.

A few more closing favorite words in kreyol:

Dodo   sweetheart
plop plop   quickly
roket      hiccup
bouche flobop  toothless              I have a long list and could go on.......