Some Numbers: Me + Haiti = ___

Just thought I'd try to enumerate some of the things I got to do while in Haiti! Let's see, I...

...helped take care of (at any point, not necessarily continuously or all at the same time)

     6 babies

     2 toddlers

     3 children

     3 teen girls (2 of which were pregnant)

...watched and helped with (sometimes even translated)

     13 deliveries

     countless prenatal/postnatal consultations

...learned how to

     measure the baby bump's size and compare it to its gestational age

     palpate the baby bump and figure out the baby's position

     listen to and measure the baby's heart rate, both before and after birth

     take someone's blood pressure

     provide lots of back-up assistance at births
     do the charting at a birth

     give nipple stimulation to a woman in labor who needs more contractions

     keep women in labor changing position and moving around

...worked with
     2 Haitian midwives
     2 Canadian midwives
     1 American midwife

...spent 10 weeks (69 days) in Jacmel, Haiti

There's plenty more to list and describe (especially in the "what I learned" category, of course), but I think this is a good little summation or summary. And this doesn't include all the things about Haitian culture I learned about... That would take too long to write out and describe in a list like this (so I just focused on the clinic). Good times! It's all been incredibly satisfying and fulfilling!!

Reminder!!

Just to reiterate... Here are some very affordable options if you're interested in contributing something to this incredible place:

Please take a quick look at OTP’s wishlist for 2012. It’s an easy, tangible way to help OTP in the coming year. Of course, they also really appreciate cash donations, monthly or otherwise! (Check out the website or send an email if that's your style.)

Thanks!

What will I miss? (or not)

After waking up at 7:30am to a kid practicing drumming on a big, echoey, plastic bucket next door (this isn't the first time)... I decided to think about some of the things that I'll miss, and some of the things that I really won't miss. This idea came first out of frustration, but then sounded like a kind-of nice/interesting/reflective post, so... there ya go. I'm leaving on SATURDAY, in just a few days, after all!! (so crazy.) These are listed in NO particular order.

Things I've enjoyed and will miss:

- all the people; Sarah, Melinda, Ninotte, Sabine, Gislaine, Shela, Cahle, Danaelle, Ismani, Dada, Franky, Linda, Marita, Craig, Brian, Yvette... the list goes on.

- constantly feeling like I'm in discovery/learning mode

- late-night hang-outs with the midwives after we put the kids to bed

- the nights and mornings that are blissfully cool, and made all the more special by how hot it gets during the day

- the busy times in the clinic that were filled with consultations, lessons on checking/feeling a baby (inside and outside of the mom), and births

- watching Danaelle do everyone's hair in the neighborhood

- Danaelle's cooking

- trips to the beach to swim in warm water, drink beer, and eat delicious fish & bananes

- Bassin Bleu; I would have loved to go there at least once or twice more

- all the colorful art!

- the beeeeautiful island, both on the beaches (when there isn't too much trash piled up) and up in the mountains, where green seems to stretch forever

- Sarah's affectionate cat, Cat

- speaking Haitian Creole, since by now, right as I'm about to leave, I'm finally speaking and understanding quite a lot (yay immersion!)

- the fruits (and fruit juices) of Haiti

- COCONUTS, fresh coconut milk, coconut meat (either young and soft or mature and crunchy), all coconut-flavored food and sweets...

- the relaxed, slow island lifestyle

- being a part of the clinic, helping out, knowing how it all works and flows

- getting to watch and help with the deliveries in the clinic

- tagging along on various adventures to places like Kay Joe, St Michel Hospital, the Alliance Française, clients' houses...

- the gorgeous blue of the Caribbean

- hilarious moments with Danaelle and Dada, those goofballs

- quiet moments on the roof, especially in the evening when it was cooler (and maybe there was a sunset over the mountains, too!)

  

 - having a great mix of English speakers (so I didn't ever feel overwhelmed or homesick for the mothertongue) and Haitian Creole speakers (so I was still extremely immersed and was able to practice/learn Creole really fast!)
- moto rides (aka Haitian taxis)

- sitting/napping/reading in the hammock at the volunteer house

- Ayiti (Haiti)

Things I'm really not sad to part with:

- the little drummer boy next door, who has woken me up early on numerous occasions

- the loud party music that blasts late into the night at the restaurant nearby

- the fact that people burn their trash sometimes (if they don't just dump it in the river), which a few times happened in the morning at my neighbor's... Melinda and I were "smoked out" of our own house, since the smoke came in the windows, woke us up, and sent us outside.

- people assuming I'm rich and trying to cheat me when I buy things (although I'm pretty good at getting the right price now, which can be satisfying!)

- everyone here calling me BLAN because I'm white

- the association between voodoo and everyday life, which can sometimes convince people to stay home with a voodoo priest instead of going to a doctor (this is often life-threatening)

- the trash that is scattered (or sometimes piled/heaped) anywhere and everywhere

- the humidity and heat, especially at its peak

- Sarah's puppy, Crab (and all the puddles it would leave INside the house)

- needing a mosquito net to sleep; it makes it even hotter!

- MOSQUITOS and all their dasterdly little bites

- the risk of getting sick with all kinds of exciting, different maladies

- the girls' DVDs, because every single one is horribly scratched and constantly skips or freezes

- COCKROACHES. especially the huge ones

- being just a little too long for my bed, which isn't ideal for the mosquito net set-up

- the frustration of a long struggle of a day with the kids (only sometimes)

- the risk of getting weird bleach marks on your clothes if you give them to Mona to wash

- struggling with internet and phone connections

Personal Health in Haiti

So... I hope it isn't awkward to talk about one's personal health on a blog. But everyone always worries and wonders about health and safety and whatnot when people travel to developing countries, so I thought I'd just enumerate my brushes with less-than-perfect health while I've been here.

I came with the knowledge that there was a huge number of big, scary things that could happen to me here, health-wise. There are the obvious, well-known ones - malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, dengue, etc... and then there are some lesser-known ones like leptospirosis and histoplasmosis (and I forget the rest of the long list). Before the trip, I had to make sure I was vaccinated against all the usual routine things, plus Hep A, Hep B, typhoid, and rabies.

I escaped the cholera because it seems to be a bit less of a risk these days (or at least around Jacmel) and because we're always very careful about only drinking the super-clean, treated drinking water. I escaped all those nasty mosquito-borne illnesses (malaria, dengue, etc.), although I haven't got a CLUE how I did that*. There were days when I would look at my calfs and count over a hundred little pink bug bites - it was truly awful! Despite my use of Permethrin and DEET (on clothes and body, respectively), it wasn't until a couple weeks before I left that I started to feel that the mosquitos were starting to get tired of me. Ugh. That wasn't fun. (*I was taking chloroquine as a malaria prophylactic the entire time I was in Haiti, although I guess there's still a small chance of getting infected. Especially if you get bit as much as I do/did.)

Despite all the warnings about traveler's diarrhea and the like, I arrived and was essentially in perfect health for about 4 weeks! I suddenly got hit with a bad stomach bug that kept me in bed, unable to eat anything, and having diarrhea (even vomiting once) for about a day. It took me a couple more days to recover fully, but I was eating normally after that first day. It was far from pleasant, but it didn't last long. Melinda and Sarah took good care of me, and gave me pills of grapefruit seed extract and activated charcoal to kill off the bad bacteria in my gut. Not the end of the world, and not dangerous.

A couple weeks after that, I had the strangest experience! I was in the clinic, late at night, and we had just finished up with a birth. I had eaten plenty, and I'm always sure to stay super well hydrated, and I've never fainted. But as I was standing in the birth room, I very suddenly felt as if all the blood had just rushed, or dropped, right down out of my head, and I was certain that I'd fall over if I didn't go sit myself down first. I left, sat down, put my head between my knees... it helped a little. I drank water and lay down flat for a while, dozing off for almost half an hour. When I woke up, I thought I still felt a bit weak, but normal enough to go home to my real bed and sleep. The moment I sat up, I instantly felt SO cold and got goosebumps all down my entire body! I started shaking with cold... and this is Haiti, mind you, where shaking with cold in the summer is out of the question! The other really disconcerting thing was that my face was pasty white, and my hands were ghostly white, with a bit of bluish-purple under my fingernails! I was seriously cold. The way I felt at the time was like all the blood and heat from my head, arms, and legs had rushed out of them and into my core, which made my extremities SUPER cold and weak (or at least I perceived them to be) and made my core way too hot, as I discovered later. After curling up in a quilt, drinking some Emergen-C, and huddling into the smallest ball on the floor that I could, I gave up on getting warm enough. Instead, I curled up in a clinic bed, triple-wrapped myself in quilts, and finally went to sleep. I woke up asking Melinda for another quilt, but she correctly guessed that I was, in fact, just way too hot and needed to extract myself. I eventually was able to get the blankets off and started to feel more like a normal person in Haiti with a tiny fever. (By the way, this entire time of shaking and teeth-chattering, the thermometer showed that my fever was never very high! so weird.) I woke up the next morning feeling mostly fine, and by midday was feeling completely myself again! I had a slightly runny nose for the following 5 or 6 days, so I'm guessing it was just a crazy weird virus... There was a moment in the middle of the night that Melinda suggested it might be the beginning of malaria, but it THANKFULLY turned out to be a much nicer pathogen than that. whatever it was.

Other than all the mosquito bites, and those two bouts of short-lived sickness, the only other thing was this weird rash on the top of my left foot. It's about the size of a quarter, and only itched sometimes (very rarely, in fact), and has taken its TIME to heal up! Around the time it started, Sarah and Melinda were both struggling with a bit of scabies (i.e. teeny tiny bugs living in your skin, and whenever they pop up out of the surface, it makes a red/inflamed bump... hence the rash. gross, I know)... so I figured I had just caught a bit of that. Everyone agreed that that's what it looked like. Melinda came back from Canada with some permethrin cream, which is supposed to kill scabies off after a single application, so I used that on my foot and sandal (and also changed my sheets). Nothing happened. I used it probably 4 or 5 times over the course of maybe 4 days, and it didn't do anything! I tried a few other things, and... gave up. Time went by, and it eventually dried out and seemed to go away. Then it came back. Then it looked like it dried out again... We realized, as it was fading, that it was pretty round - it might be ringworm! gross again. My seemingly untreatable scabies/ringworm/mystery skin rash has taken its time but appears to finally be on its way out, after countless weeks!

...exciting! (?) gross! But all in all, it was really all quite manageable and low-impact. :)

Woah. Things just got real.

Well, I've officially surpassed what I ever expected to be doing while in Haiti! I spent an entire night as a birth assistant AND an English-Creole translator for a birth...!! 

Quick background: Sarah is about to come back, but Melinda and Ninotte had to leave for a midwifery conference and Ninotte's midwifery exam (Good luck!!), so another midwife has come for a short while to help hold down the fort. It's her third time doing midwifery work in Jacmel, and she worked with Melinda and Ninotte back when they were at Jacmel's other birthing center. This midwife, Yvette, is a lovely person who seems to have truly found her calling in midwifery, and it's been a delight getting to know her and living with here here! 

Yvette has a bit of basic Haitian Creole from her previous time here, but she didn't really have a chance to learn much in the past and it'll take a bit of time for it to all come back. This means that... in the clinic, as I'm the only other English speaker, I'm suddenly in the position of translator! We thought that maybe I'd translate in French to Gislaine, who could then translate into Creole, but given that I haven't been using my French at all... it turns out that it's somehow less of a headache if I just try to keep it in pure Creole instead! Crazy. 

So back to the story. Yvette and I were just getting ready to lay down to sleep in the clinic with the girls - we had put them to bed, showered, and had just turned out the light - when Gislaine called with the news that a client was in active labor! Yvette and I got back up, grabbed the birthing kit, our client's chart, truck keys, phones... Gislaine lives close by and managed to meet us outside the clinic by the time we had everything ready to go, and we all quickly piled inside. With Gislaine's directions, Yvette's driving, and also, suddenly, my first need to be translator, we made it to the client's house just as they were bringing her outside to meet us. 

Although it wasn't marked on her chart, it turns out that the client also goes by Yvette! ha! She and her brother got in the truck while her husband (boyfriend?) followed on his moto. The truck ride was uneventful, and she still wasn't very loud or distressed yet. 

While Gislaine checked Yvette-client in and took her vitals, Yvette-midwife and I made sure we could find all the things in the clinic that we'd be needing over the next several hours. At first, Yvette-client was pretty restless and uncomfortable, but it was only a matter of time until she found her zone, or rhythm. I think it helped her to have baby's papa there to support her, since Gislaine was the only other person she really knew in the room. And luckily for the girls sleeping in the next room, she mostly had a pretty quiet labor, only speaking in low tones up until right before the pushing started.

During all of this time, Yvette-midwife is in charge, making decisions and suggestions, while Gislaine and I tried to make ourselves as helpful as possible. We both helped with translation - when the sentence was simple enough as Yvette said it in English, Gislaine could relay it in her better Creole, but I still had to do a lot of quick thinking in order to communicate all of Yvette-midwife's other messages to Yvette-client! This is already way more Creole than I've spoken so far here, so as I thought about this all in retrospect (I was way too busy and focused to realize it at the time)... it's really quite shocking and lucky that it all worked as well as it did! 

We had arrived back at the clinic around 11:15 pm or so, and after only about 2 hours or so, Yvette-client was starting to push! She was very uncomplicated, other than an extra water-filled amniotic sac that made it a little tricky to feel the baby's position early-on. After pushing for a bit while lying on her side on the floor, with head and leg propped up, she changed position to be squatting on her feet and leaning forward against the bed (and later against her man). I think this helped the baby get a little extra pull downwards from gravity, because pretty soon after that, we started to see some hair peeking through! 

At this point, I mostly recorded notes as Yvette-midwife caught the baby and Gislaine was an extra pair of hands for her. And boy, was it a good-looking little boy! It was obvious that he was in great health right off the bat, and good-sized, too (about 7 lbs)! Hooray! We got Yvette-client down into a sitting position so she could relax as I held her little baby snuggled up against her stomach/lap. The placenta took its time detaching and coming down, but with a little encouragement and fundal (sp?) massage, suddenly it came right on down! We had been sitting and waiting for about 15 minutes before Yvette-client had any little cramps that she could use to push the placenta out, so it was a bit of a surprise when suddenly she took care of that placenta with one well-timed push!

The rest went off without a hitch, and we got mamma and baby snuggled in bed to rest for a while. Gislaine, Yvette-midwife, and I took turns helping take vitals or record the numbers every so often, and Yvette-midwife had a pile of forms to fill out with all the information and stats from the birth. But we got to bed eventually, and napped from maybe 4:30 am onwards. Yvette-midwife got up to burn the cord before I was up; I think I woke up around 6:30 or so to help out with other clean-up and preparations to take our client home. (Needless to say, we were getting pretty worn out by now.)

We needed to go down a big long checklist that OTP has in each file for a thorough postpartum education about mama care and baby care and what to expect over the next few days and weeks. This meant... more translation! SOMEHOW, we managed to get through it all, and Yvette-client claimed to understand everything. I'm still somewhat in shock that I had that much Creole in me. Language is cool!! Just sneaks right up on you before you know it. (or just sneaks right into your brain?) I'm so grateful to Yvette-midwife (and Yvette-client, for that matter) for her patience with me while I had moments of language confusion. :)

After we took our new mama home and got her settled, we dropped a sleepy Gislaine at home and finally came back to get some long-needed rest! I was still in the scrubs that I had put on as pajamas in the clinic (right as we were about to go to sleep; right before we got the initial call from Gislaine), so when I finally was woken up by Dada around noon... I was STANKY!! Seriously, I think that might be the worst I've ever smelled. Sorry to provide nasty, TMI-type information, but it was such an ordeal that I couldn't not mention it! Haiti's heat/humidity + all-nighter + birth + excitement + too many hours in way-too-hot scrubs... It's really not a good thing.

But all in all, it was a really satisfying, fulfilling, surprising, great birth experience! We got lucky with a client who was really good at being in her zone and just taking care of herself, and then a little baby who was just about perfect! I can't wait for our next birth... I almost hope it happens before Sarah gets back, just so I can practice my Creole again, big-time! :D Hooray for life. 

BEST ADVENTURE: Bassin Bleu

I had the most WONDERFUL adventure on my last Thursday here with Ninotte! Before coming to Haiti, I heard about Bassin Bleu and how I must go there while in Jacmel. It's a set of extremely BLUE freshwater pools up in the mountains near Jacmel, and one of the loveliest natural attractions around! I read that you need to take a Haitian guide and then you can either ride up on a donkey or take a looong hike on foot... but we took the modern option. 

Ninotte and I took a moto taxi from the clinic down into town, near the lower/Western edge of the city. There, we switched from our little, city-friendly, motorbike to a bigger, legit, motorcycle taxi. This guy took us all the way up to Bassin Bleu, or at least as far as you can go before the final 20 minute walk to the pools. This was the moto ride of a lifetime.

The first step of the moto ride now was to leave town and cross the river that flows by Jacmel and down into Jacmel bay. We rode along the edge of this shallow, slow-moving, greyish-tan muddy river until the driver picked our crossing spot. Ninotte and I got off so he could ride his bike through the river (!!) without the extra weight, and we waded all the way across! It got mid-thigh-deep at the center, although the current wasn't dangerous (only strong enough to threaten to steal my flip flops off my feet). I was the slowest, which was unsurprising and kinda funny - the driver stood there watching me struggle across after Ninotte arrived. ha.

Part of the river, near where we crossed.

A little further down, tons of people were washing clothes and bathing in this... :/

What?? There he goes...

We piled back onto the moto and we were off, once again! We were soon under thick, green tree cover - any hint of city left over from Jacmel was left behind before we crossed the river. There was an occasional hut with things for sale, or little shack and yard where some country dwellers lived, but it was the beginning of the jungle! Our road was long; I think the ride took about 45 minutes. We started climbing pretty soon, and the road was anything but boring! There were a few paved sections, but it was mostly some interesting combination of steep, bumpy, really steep, rocky, and steep. A few times, the driver asked us to scoot forward on the bike so its front tire could pull us up the mountain better...! There weren't many signs, but one of them said 22% (referencing the grade of steepness)!!

Despite the "excitement" of the ride, it was BEAUTIFUL!! After a ride through lower-down jungle and one very tiny one-block-long rural town, we started going up and getting great views of pristine, luscious, green hills and mountains. It only got better and better! Finally, we got way up to the top and paused at an incredible vista - it looks out over Jacmel and the bay. Pure glory! (But it also shows how the truly dirty river flows right into the bay, full of trash, pollution, and things that we don't want to mention...)

The gorgeous view of Jacmel - note the brown smear coming out of the river

We continued on, back down again (but only slightly), until we finally reached the little group of buildings at the trailhead for Bassin Bleu. There was the requisite touristy art shop, and then a bare-bones little office (i.e. completely empty room save for one little desk, a paper, and a pen). After some arguing between two potential guides (this took a while), we finally set off to the pools!

Here, we had to cross a tiny bridge made of a hollow tree trunk

Who needs guides, anyway? Ninotte takes the lead!!

Awesome tree in the jungle

BANANAS

One of a few old houses along the way that are long-since abandoned.

This one is much more intact than the others.

It was only about 20 minutes on foot, through jungle, across a river, past a couple of old ruins, through some more jungle... and WOAH. They weren't making anything up when they named the pools for their BLUE color!! There were a few pools in a row, each flowing into the next. We worked our way up to the best one at the top.

The first pool...

The second pool...

I thought this pool had the best name. YES.

We had to work a bit harder to get up to the final, most incredible pool. After climbing a long set of stone steps, we reached a point where the guide attached a sturdy rope to a root and helped us each climb down the rock a short ways, placing our feet in each little pocket in the rock as we went. Then we went up another little set of steps carved into the rock, and...

Preparing the rope at the top

Ninotte, crossing through the water to the next set of steps

BAM. We rounded a corner and saw the beginning of the final pool: bluest, deepest, coldest, cleanest, and complete with a huge, dramatic waterfall and some rocks to jump off. The rock walls around the sides went up quite high, even with the top of the waterfall on all sides, so this was a shady, hidden-away, little spot of heaven. We stripped down to swim suits and got in - and the water was actually cold! After swimming in warm-ish ocean water (almost too warm for comfort, sometimes) all summer, this was such a pleasant, welcome shock! I decided as we left that it was, quite literally, the perfect temperature for swimming. It starts out cold but is just perfectly cool, not ever seeming warm but not cold enough to actually ever get too cold and force you out. I COULD HAVE STAYED FOREVER.

SO BLUE. SO REFRESHING. YES.

I jumped in and swam across, feeling successful...

until I saw where the guide was trying to get me to climb (look up) - NOT A CHANCE.

Pure. Bliss. Pure bliss. PURE BLISS. 

Ismani's Delivery!!

Ismani's big day finally arrived! Late on Friday night, we could tell that she was starting to go towards actual labor, and it seemed like her water might have been leaking slightly already. I almost slept in the clinic with everyone else, for fear of missing out, but Melinda assured me that it wouldn't happen until at least the next morning.

When I arrived in the morning, Ismani was still not ready to go, but definitely on her way. She wasn't making much noise yet, but you could see the pain of the contractions on her face as he squatted against a chair or against Melinda. Meanwhile, around 7 that morning, another laboring woman had arrived! This woman, Yvette, was making those characteristic yells and even crying with some of the contractions as she walked around the clinic. When Ismani started yelling, too, we had quite a chorus going on! Ismani's moaning at one point was the most musical I've heard yet. In Haiti, it often takes on a rhythmic, repetitive, sing-songy quality; we're all trying to figure out why/how almost every single woman here makes the same (or at least very similar) sounds during labor! One of the classics is "Me zanmi woooo" and it somehow always has the exact same rhythm no matter who says it!

Melinda helping Ismani through the early phases of her labor...

Melinda kept Ismani in her room in the clinic for most of her labor, just to help her center herself and turn more inward to let the labor progress naturally. Most of her laboring was done on her side on the floor, but she had her own little position changes, too. We tried to minimize the number of people in there at a time, because there was quite a crowd of people who cared about her and wanted to be there (Melinda, Ninotte, me, Sheila, Danaelle, Dada, Mirland with her baby...!). 

Ismani labored a lot with her back (a phrase my mom taught me on the phone the other night), so she was in a lot of back pain and needed lots of massaging. She mostly wasn't very amenable to doing anything we asked, like drinking a cup of juice or water, or like having an internal exam, which certainly made things difficult! A little while after the birth, Melinda said she's had enough of these teen births (Ismani just turned 15) because they don't have the right attitude or the maturity to agree to do things that are necessary to one's (or one's baby's) health, albeit uncomfortable.

At the same time that Ismani was yelling NO whenever we nicely (or sometimes forcefully) asked her to please do something, she would calm down and alternate with very sweet, appreciative moments. She told each of us that she loves us, multiple times, and she would sweetly say "Thank you so much" whenever we'd do a tiny favor like hand her a cuvette so she could spit. ...Although those sweet moments still didn't make her more agreeable to doing what we asked. 

After a while, her yelling got very loud, and if someone wasn't there with her during a contraction, she'd scream for Melinda or Ninotte or me, even though nothing different was really happening yet. Time went on and on, and finally she was getting a little too tired out. She wasn't able to eat, so we'd been trying to keep her energy up with Emergen-C drinks, but we finally decided that she might as well rest for a short while. We gave her a little wine and milk (the wine puts a little pause on the contractions, allowing for a little rest), and... about 5 or 10 minutes later, she suddenly said she felt the baby coming! 

We got set up for the next step, and it wasn't long until the pushing began! And still... there was plenty of time left before the actual birth. As we were checking the fetal heart tones, they seemed to get a little low, so we brought our spankin-new oxygen tank in and put the mask on Ismani. We had to keep her on her left side as much as possible, too, because that also helps bring oxygen to the baby. At some point, despite the fact that we thought her water had already broken, Melinda, Ninotte, and I were all standing or squatting down below Ismani's legs.... and there was a huge, projectile SPLASH of amniotic fluid!! I didn't get hit by much of it, but Melinda was front and center, poor girl. She ran off to change her pants quickly, saying that she felt like she had been baptized! 

After a quick clean-up, we continued on. With Melinda ready to coach Ismani and catch the baby, and Ninotte at her side to take notes, help out, and hand Melinda tools, I positioned myself at Ismani's head to keep her drinking, keep the oxygen mask on, and hold her head up each time she pushed. In order to keep the contractions coming, after we had given her that wine that slows contractions down, I had to give Ismani nipple stimulation, too! Unexpected. ha. (Nipple stimulation causes the release of oxytocin, a hormone that causes and increases contractions.)

Pushing took a little while, and at some point we brought a mirror in so Ismani could watch as the baby's head/hair started to show a little. Dada and Danaelle both put gloves on so they could hand Melinda towels or do anything else of use (which Dada especially loved!), and Mirland came in to do the video taping. Ismani continued to tell us that she was going to die and that she couldn't do it and that she was going to break in two... but she did it, and suddenly there was a head, and then the rest of the baby (at 4:50pm)!

There she is!!

There were maybe 5 minutes of concerned, quick action on Melinda's part as she did some resuscitation; the baby was trying to cry, and really trying to breathe, but it was obviously in some respiratory distress. When Melinda's attempts to help it didn't seem to change much, Brian and Ninotte quickly whisked this little newborn off to the St Michel hospital to get checked out. Apparently, there wasn't a doctor working in the emergency department, so it took a little time to find someone to check out the newborn, but eventually a doc showed up and ... apparently everything was fine. They brought the baby back and she seemed to have gotten past any struggles, and was quite content and peaceful!

Happy new mamma!

Ismani named this little baby girl... Ismania. ha. That's NEVER going to be confusing. We took a few photos, tucked them together, and that was that!

All of the girls, very happy and excited about new little Ismania!

I'm feeling particularly attached to this birth, since it's

the one in which I got to participate the most (so far)!

Since the birth, we've had some struggles with getting Ismania to successfully breastfeed, although she seems to be gradually catching on. Her tongue doesn't seem to come out very far, which makes her latch a little less great and makes it harder for her to stay attached... but she'll continue to get better at it! Melinda's expert advice is helping Ismani and Ismania make great strides in that department. :)

Dada adores babies, and Ismania is no exception to the rule!

P.S. Just to wrap up the other woman's story - she seemed to be stuck at the same stage of intense but not-really-changing labor until we decided to go to bed, at which point Melinda and Ninotte explained that her baby was oriented towards the woman's right side, rather than the left. This meant that it would have to rotate all the way around before it'd be able to fit down through the pelvis, which can sometimes take AGES. (Ninotte once had a 3-day labor/delivery because of this same problem!!) I left to go to bed around 11pm Saturday night, expecting to come back the next day for the birth (or maybe it would beeven later) --- but she gave birth at hour or so later, just after midnight!! The baby just turned right around, really quickly! And everything was fine. Done and done!!

Interesting Cultural Assumptions

These are just a few of many things I've noticed since I got here...

During my time in Haiti, I've noticed that, as we watch a movie, tv show, or even just look at pictures of famous people, all the Haitians (especially the young ones) ask if all the black people are from Haiti. Every time we see one! I was on Obama's Facebook page today, and Danaelle looked over my shoulder. She first recognized Obama, and then asked if he was Haitian. After I explained his background, she saw a photo of Michelle Obama and asked the same question. This has happened with Beyoncé, Jay Z, and a ton of others - all the time. I don't know if it comes from being sheltered and not very well educated, and thinking that if you're black you're most likely from Haiti, or if it comes from some kind of hope to see a famous, prominent Haitian somewhere out there in the world. Interesting, either way.

Religion has also been interesting. It seems like most Haitians talk about, and believe in, the Christian God, and many Haitians go to church, yet at the same time... 99% of Haitians are still involved in their voodoo religion. There are a few Haitians here that I've talked to who say that they want nothing more to do with voodoo, and are "Good Christians" now, although even they still believe that there's some kind of evil spirit thing going on with voodoo. As for all the white people here, I don't know if I've met anyone who's white and not Christian here! I had a post that mentioned that, a while back, so I won't go into it. But the effect of that fact is that Haitians all think that white people are all Christian. I was talking to Ismanie the other day, and she was asking me why I wasn't scared to walk home alone after dark. She asked if it was because I believed that God was with me, and when I said no, she asked if I believe in God. When I said no again, she was incredulous! So surprised! So... that was interesting, too.

I haven't really run into any surprising assumptions surrounding health, but that may just be because people haven't been as outspoken about that kind of thing. During our classes, we definitely get a lot of questions and conversation, and some of that stems from misinformation, but I haven't heard anything very out of the ordinary yet. There are things like "Does having sex with a pregnant woman hurt the baby?" ...but that's a common question in the States, too, so... no shocker there. (For those of you who are wondering, the answer is no, it's perfectly fine. As long as you're gentle with the baby bump, and it's a normal, healthy pregnancy, there's no risk involved. If anything, it's good for everyone involved.) If anything, the most misinformation we hear about comes less from traditional practice and more from poorly educated doctors. I recently heard about a test given to doctors when a hospital hires them: In the States, they usually score 15-ish (give or take) out of 20 questions total (if I remember correctly...). In Haiti, they usually score about 3 questions out of 20. And that's after all the translations, so it's probably not due to language barrier. How's that for a concerning statistic??

Some... excitement... just down the street!

So I guess we're living in the ghetto! Well, not really. But we had some unwelcome excitement the other day, on our road.

We were all piling into the truck to go to the beach when... the truck wouldn't start. We all piled back out, and we were just milling about in the road next to the clinic, when we started to hear some people getting riled up down towards the intersection with the big main street. A small group of folks hurried past us, towards the noise, and a minute or two later, a much larger crowd went stomping and bouncing past in the opposite direction, bringing the ruckus with it.

A middle-aged woman was leading the charge, looking very serious and angry, and there were a couple of young 20-somethings (ladies) following, right near her. There was a big group of 15 or 20 people of all kinds following close behind, some angry, some excited and and looking anticipatory... We even heard a few laughs and whoops as the last stragglers passed by. This whole mass of people went down our dirt road a ways, far from the big intersection, and apparently the older woman and one of the young women had some kind of fight!

It was a very small amount of time before this whole crowd came flowing back to where it all started, because the fight started and ended very quickly. No one looked particularly worse-for-wear, but I guess someone had won... Other than those two, and their closest loyal support/allies, everyone was just very excited and having a grand old time! Our little group by the clinic hadn't budged from the spot, either to follow the crowd or to move away from it... we certainly weren't enjoying it as much as the rest of the locals.

One of Ziggy's many cousins stopped to chat and share all the details. It turns out that this was a love triangle quarrel of sorts! ...Yes, between a 20-something young lady and a middle-aged woman. They were fighting over a middle-aged man! Apparently, the man and woman are married, and have been for many years. The younger lady has recently started an affair with the man, which is what triggered this fight. (And apparently, this is far from the first time they've fought over this guy.) The real kicker is that this guy isn't really that great of a catch. He's not even employed, so he's been asking the younger woman for money that she works hard to earn, and then that money obviously goes into the wife's hands, too (because they're married)... and I guess that was the specific cause for this recent fight between the women.

...Really?? just... REALLY??? Both of these women are wasting their time on this no-good guy! And this is a common enough story, here in Haiti. Hooo boy.

These times, they be crazy!

I haven't made an update in about a week, simply because things are pretty crazy around here! At our peak, we might have as many as 18-22 adults and kids here around the house and clinic, not including any clients and their family members. Today, we're near capacity! In addition to those of us who live here (Melinda, me, Patrick, Danaelle, Ismanie, Ziggy, Dada), the employees come and sometimes bring their kids. Today, Ninotte, Sabin, and Gislain are here in the clinic, plus Gislain's one-year-old son Cahle (sp?). It's a Tuesday, which means Dada's mom Mona is here to do the clinic laundry, and she brings Dada's little brother Franky and baby sister, too. Paulo and Agenie (sp??), the two teen guys who help out around the houses and grounds, are always in and out. There's also a client staying at the clinic with her newborn baby, and she has a visitor today, which bumps up our number even more! Sarah, Patrick, and Nahima are all away, but things are still quite energetic around here!

Ever since Ziggy joined us and Sarah went away to visit good ol' Canada, things have been a little more stressful than usual. Sometimes a lot more stressful. It's a big, complicated combination of Ziggy being here and being difficult/challenging, Danaelle occasionally (oooor often) having some attitude problems, Dada taking cue from Danaelle, Ismanie somehow managing to be even more strong-headed than the rest of them, Sarah being gone (which turns us temporary people into the authorities... and the kids know how to manipulate that fact!)... Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of good times, too, and things are going well enough in the big picture, but we've had some day-to-day struggles.

It's especially troubling because it's becoming clear to some of us that this probably isn't the best place for Ziggy, at least long-term. He's definitely showing some good signs that he's starting to understand better what we expect from him, and he's also becoming quite affectionate, so we are thrilled about those improvements. He hasn't done anything so awful that we feel like he must go, now, but it's just complicated with the other kids. They try to put up with him, but it seems like they mostly can't stand him and will sometimes take turns trying to find excuses to lash out at him.

It looks like an orphanage might be a better place for him. I'd hate to send him home to his dad, because he was getting worse and worse beatings.... and that's why he started living here in the first place. At the same time, staying here doesn't look like a sustainable solution, unless he and the other kids can find a way to get along, and unless he can shape up his behavior a little better. Sometimes he's fine, but sometimes he just makes me CRAZY and we all go to bed in a foul mood. It can be tough. We're set up to help and take care of a few youngsters, but we don't have the energy or manpower to give Ziggy all the structure and one-on-one time that I think he needs to really change and learn. There's still a lot of fear and rage in him, and although it doesn't come out often, he doesn't know how to deal with it when he goes to that place.

We're all wishing we could do more for him, but at the same time, I don't think it's quite our place, our responsibility, or within our abilities. It's sad that this boy is caught between things, and needing SO much from the world... *fingers crossed*

The Family Grows!

 Up until recently, the list of people living here (in Sarah's house and the volunteer house) included Sarah, Melinda, me, Patrick, Danaelle, and Dada. Now, the family has grown to also include Ismanie and Ziggy, as well as Linda during the day!

Ismanie: A couple weeks ago, social services called Sarah with news of a 14-year-old girl who had been kicked out of her home when she became pregnant. I think she was staying with her aunt because her parents are out of the picture. Since Olive Tree Projects has taken in a few other pregnant teens in the past, social services called, hoping they could find a safe haven for this girl, Ismanie. Sarah agreed! Social services arrived soon after, with Ismanie in tow, and we got her all settled in. She now has a file in the clinic, where she'll be receiving complete prenatal care, and she has a bed in Sarah's house, where she now lives, eats, and helps out! She's got quite a spirit and sense of humor, and it's great to have someone Danaelle's age around. I think Danaelle was needing a peer and friend her own age. Ismanie came to us about 7.5 months pregnant, and is now due to deliver in a few weeks! I would love it if I could still be here when she has her baby, since we're all part of the same family now. :)

Melinda with Ismanie and her growing baby bump!

Ziggy: I've mentioned Ziggy and all his craziness in the past. He's the local neighborhood delinquent who hangs around Sarah's yard and alternates between making trouble and needing to come for a meal or drink of water. His dad is a drunk, and Ziggy's home life has always been a little... tenuous. A few days ago, Sarah found him lying out in the street, and he had clearly just received a beating from his father. This time, he had gotten kicked in the nuts, hard, and the poor guy was out of commission for quite a while. He spent the day sitting quietly in our house, and finally claimed that he'd be sleeping here. Sarah said no, and sent him home to his grandmother. The next day, we found him in the street, this time with big welts on his arms from the worst beating yet! After conferring with Ziggy's aunts, Sarah agreed to take him in, at least for a trial period...! None of us can quite believe that Ziggy is living here, since he's been such a pest so many times, but Sarah and he had a good long talk; he seems to understand that he truly needs to behave and help out if he's going to continue to stay here. He's certainly a lot nicer and more polite now that he lives here and has more to lose if he misbehaves. So far so good, for the most part!

Ziggy on a good day, enjoying a coloring book

Linda: Just under a week ago, we heard about yet another pregnant teen who doesn't really have a great place to stay. A few of the local boys have gotten to know her since she spends her days roaming the streets around here and trying to befriend people who might be able to give her part of a day's work now and then. She has a temporary place to stay, but the people giving her a space in a little hut (they're not even family) have told her that once the baby comes, they don't want anything to do with her. For now, during her pregnancy, she'll be coming around here during the day to join us for meals and any other activities, and she can still stay at her current home. Once she gets kicked out, if we haven't managed to find any family or friends who want to take her in, we might consider having her stay here for a while until she can stand on her own two feet. Sarah heard that Linda has an aunt who really wants to have a baby but can't (or at least recently miscarried), so maybe the aunt can take the baby and Linda will be able to keep her home, or perhaps stay with the aunt. We'll see...!!

(I don't have any photos of Linda yet.)

Quite simply... a Great Day in Haiti!

Despite the sad fact that Sarah is leaving tomorrow, today was just a slam-bang home-run of a day! (Sarah's going back to Canada and the States for a few weeks to visit family, do some OTP-repping, and hopefully spend some time at a midwifery conference. I might not see her again... until I someday return to Haiti...!!)

I knew that we'd be doing french toast for breakfast, since it was Sunday and Sarah's last day here for a while, so I got here in time to help cook the meal. To my surprise, when I arrived at Sarah's house, she was nowhere in sight and the girls were just hanging out, doing a little tidying up. Danaelle said Sarah was in the maternity center... for a delivery! Oh, exciting!

I headed next door to see if I had missed any of the fun, and... the baby's head was just about to crown! Yet the client had only been there for about an hour - she had misunderstood instructions, and waited until her water broke before she even called the clinic to say that she was in labor. Whoops. But she got here safely and delivered less than two hours after arriving, no complications or problems. It sure kept our jobs easy! She tried to look at what was going on down there, around the time that the baby's head started to be born, so I held a big mirror up so she could watch. She stayed surprisingly calm, although we had a pretty funny moment where she was moving her legs around in discomfort as she pushed, and momentarily tried to put one of her feet against Melinda's head for support! This client has sickle cell anemia, so we gave her oxygen during labor just in case (from our brand new oxygen tank, bought in the nick of time, only the day before!!), but it didn't seem to be a problem. :)

Another happy, successful birth out of the way, and it was only about 11am! Sarah and I came back to the house and cooked up a small mountain of french toast, along with a little make-shift homemade syrup to put on top. And what a tasty feast it was.

Sarah, me, Ninotte, Marita, and a new friend, Darlene

It wasn't long before we decided to go to the beach for a while, so we went and spent the first half of the afternoon swimming, hanging out with new and old friends (Marita finally came back!), and eating some of the best fish I've had since arriving here. The water today was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was so clean and calm, I could have spent the entire day paddling around in it! (And this is coming from a girl who used to claim to dislike the beach/ocean.) We finished the day at church on the beach, which remains the most beautiful beach I've ever seen... so we did a little more swimming around before heading home in the evening.

This is my favorite of the kids at the beach who sell coconuts. His name sounds something like "Windy" and he's got the best spirit and best smile! He also happens to look a whole lot like my cousin Andrew did when he was younger...

It was, quite simply, an absolutely, utterly, wonderfully, Great Day in Haiti.

Hurricane Isaac's THIRD birth... and a visit to Jacmel's Haitian hospital

So... on Sunday, as the hurricane madness was still winding down, we had a third client arrive at the clinic in labor! Melinda and I were still sleeping at the clinic, so we were woken up at about 3:30am by her arrival at the front door. Sarah and Ninotte came, too, so it was all hands on deck! This time, our client came alone, without a mother or boyfriend or sister; we were her only support crew. She already knew Ninotte well, and kept calling her over to hold her hand, even when Ninotte was in the middle of busily writing things on the chart.

We got all set-up as usual in the birth room, with the birthing kit, some "floor diapers" to catch any, um, spills, and a little stool for the client to squat on if she wasn't lying on the bed or standing/walking around. (The midwives are big on changing position in order to keep the baby coming, if things slow down too much.)

Continuing with standard protocol, Sarah started checking the baby's heart tones periodically with the Doppler. They were clearly way out of wack. Melinda had gone back to bed after helping get us settled in and ready, but she heard those heart tones from two rooms away, where she was trying to get back to sleep, and immediately got up and returned to join the party. Within the space of a minute or two, the baby's heart beat would plummet from a normal 132 to a low 72 (or sometimes, very briefly, even less) to 96 to 144 to 84. Then there'd be a few minutes of normal heart tones, interspersed with 5 seconds of 72 bpm again! Needless to say, we were concerned. 

Sarah thought that maybe the baby's head could be caught against the pubic bone, which might slow the heartbeat, but it was impossible to know what the problem was. After lots of the midwives' movement exercises, a few more internal exams, and a couple of massages, upwards of 45 minutes had passed. The heart tones seemed to have normalized! We continued on normally at that point, still checking heart tones... but after maybe 5 or 10 minutes, we heard that precipitous, brief drop in the baby's heart beat again. 

Finally, Sarah decided that the client needed to be taken to Jacmel's hospital. The three midwives whisked her off in the truck, as I cleaned up the, um, spills. Everyone was back within a half hour, and we heard later that the birth went off without a hitch! Everything was just fine. :)

Throughout the night (or should I say morning) so far, there had been quite a few moments of "Should we take her to the hospital? We aren't properly equipped to deal with certain complications, so we're legally bound to take her in if we see a problem. On the other hand, we know the hospital won't do anything more for her than we will do here, so... should we take her to the hospital??" All of us here know that the hospital occasionally has some more technology to deal with certain complications and issues, but their standard of care is AWFUL. People in Haiti hate going to the hospital, and will sometimes even avoid it at all costs if they can.

I got to see the hospital the next day, when we went to pick up our client (and healthy little baby boy!) and take her home. First, I was just surprised by the drive through town - I thought I had been into the center of town (and maybe I had), but we drove maybe another 10 minutes in the truck, past any part of town I had seen so far, before we got to St Michel Hospital. We only went to the maternity ward, so that's all I saw, but... there really wasn't much to see. We drove up a bumpy driveway, past a few rundown (maybe even abandoned?) little outbuildings, and parked in a gravely parking area. There was one ambulance parked there - a converted van with Ambulance painted on the side.

First, we passed the waiting area for the maternity ward. It was outside the building, just two looong benches covered by a roof that didn't look very waterproof. Those benches were FULL! There were pregnant women, a few of them in the early stages of those tell-tale labor moans and yells, and there were a fair number of various family members, too.

We just walked right into the maternity ward, which was a medium-sized room that simply had a couple of doors to the outside (no hallways or front desks first). No one stopped us or cared. The room had a mostly empty-looking desk on one side, and one authoritative woman standing near it, watching over the other side of the room (but looking pretty bored). The rest of the room was crammed full of beds - only 14 in total - with just enough of a tiny aisle between each one. Every bed was different from the last, in length, width, color, height, etc... some had sheets, some didn't. Almost every single one had a woman in it who had recently delivered or who was laboring away. Most of the beds had a chamber pot next to them (but not quite all). 

This room, as well as an even smaller room next door, was the entire maternity ward. The smaller room was the delivery room: it had three beds in a row, without curtains, where women would give birth (and maybe have to watch a woman next to them scream through a delivery before it was their turn). Patients in Haitian hospitals are required to purchase and bring pretty much everything on their own, including sheets, gloves, any medicine and IV bags/needles, etc. 

The infrastructure and available tools/materiels/personal aren't the only issues here. One of the main reasons that people try to avoid the hospital is actually how the employees treat the patients. I haven't witnessed it, but apparently, the nurses and doctors just yell at the patients! One of the Haitian nurse-midwives who works here at the clinic has been extensively retrained since she joined the Olive Tree Projects team - not in her medical technique or knowledge, but in her bedside manner. She's come around full circle now, and seems to have improved immensely in how she treats women/patients! :) Unfortunately, she has been getting made fun of, and even criticized, for her newfound kindness towards patients. Can you imagine??

Sarah told me this one story (which is more of an example and not an exception to the norm) of when she was staying overnight at the hospital with a client. In the delivery room, someone else (who Sarah hadn't ever met before) was delivering a baby. She said she needed to get up and walk or change position, but the nurses ordered her to stay put. When she disobeyed them, they said she'd better come back carrying a baby. Sarah went into the room when she heard this and found that the woman had just given birth on the floor across the room from the nurses. They were yelling at her to carry that baby back here, and they weren't interested in helping her because she had gone against their wishes! Sarah helped the woman (who, again, she had never met before) back to her bed with the baby. Everything ended up being fine, but it's just unfathomable to me that nurses would be so mean and unhelpful!!

So that's the healthcare system that Sarah and OTP are struggling to work with, here in Haiti. There are some better hospitals, but they aren't Haitian. The Cuban hospital in Jacmel is apparently pretty good, and can do quite a lot for people (they've got the infrastructure and technology), but they are unreliable in their availability. If you ever try to go on the weekend, or sometimes other times, they'll turn you away because they just don't have doctors then! Most of the times that we've needed to take a client to the hospital, they've been useless, which is a shame because they could be a good hospital if they just tried to have staff around more often.

The truly great hospital "near" Jacmel is actually an hour drive away, in another city: the Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Léogâne. If one of our clients needs to be taken to the hospital for any reason, and if there's time to get all the way there, that's always the first choice of where to go. But there is, of course, a risk involved in choosing the hospital that's an hour away, so sometimes we have to settle for St Michel and hope that they can do something good for the client.

Two Births and a Hurricane

Written on Saturday, August 25

Yup, Hurricane Isaac brought us two births in the clinic! (YAY! My third and fourth births here! And I got to be a little more helpful and involved these times since I'm familiar with their process here now! Sooo great!!)

Well, it wasn't quite a hurricane, because Isaac was downgraded to a tropical storm at the last minute, but it was pretty crazy! We had been watching weather maps for a couple of days so we were well prepared with lots of food, water, and buckets for leaks. Melinda and I stacked up our mattresses and belongings on the bunkbed and tucked a tarp around it all, and we locked up the volunteer house for the weekend. (It has one of the less water-proof, less storm-proof tin roofs.) Sarah's house and the clinic are both solid cement, walls and ceiling/roof, which makes them a great place to hide out during a big storm. Luckily, we're also uphill from Jacmel and therefore not really at danger of flooding (other than local pooling and puddling of water in the yard, which wasn't even that bad). 

Melinda and I "moved in" to the clinic on Thursday night in anticipation of the storm. We were woken a bit before 7am on Friday by... not a storm, but a client in labor! I heard that very particular type of hooting and hollering that I've come to recognize as the sound of a woman going into labor, which meant I'd better get up because I was sleeping in the birth room! I moved into the next room and slept for a couple more hours, as our client wasn't very far along. She didn't give birth until 2pm, so we had a lot of sitting around to do in the meantime. She was very vocal, so the transition to pushing (less hollering and more grunting) was pretty evident!

Meanwhile, maybe around noonish, another client arrived saying that she felt labor coming on! (Once again, I had to quickly move my stuff out of my second room - it was the second birth room. ha.) She was completely silent, which at first made me doubt that she was having real contractions... but it turns out that she's just a silent laborer! I nearly forgot about her until later that evening, she was so quiet in her room! 

Ninotte convinced the woman's husband to come in and sit with her at some point (husbands are hard to convince to take any part in deliveries here), so he reluctantly joined in the fun. At first, he looked uncomfortable and out of his element, but eventually he seemed to warm up to the experience and got pretty into it! It was a fun transformation to see. :) He was sitting behind our client and supporting her, making sure her head came forward with the contractions, helping her stand or sit, doing whatever we needed him to. After he got more comfortable with the experience, he started blowing on his wife's neck to cool her down, giving her a light arm massage, and just being generally great! A refreshing change from the minimal (or nonexistant) involvement that the male spouse normally has in deliveries here. By the end of the delivery, he had a huge grin on his face, was excited and happy, and gave me a big high five and a laugh. 

The birth was a little slow because the baby was face-up instead of face-down (a posterior birth! exciting!), but our client did great work and brought a happy, healthy baby boy into the world! Just as the baby started to come out, the rain started to hit, and by the time we had him cleaned and wrapped up, it was pouring!! The baby brought the rain, so the new dad was joking that they should name him Isaac, after the impending hurricane. Yet another successful delivery, check!

Our second client in labor didn't need much from us until later that afternoon. When Ninotte called Sarah in with the prediction that delivery was approaching, I followed and joined the party. This client's mother was with her, sitting next to her. For a while, it was mostly silence, with a few rare vocalizations coming from the woman. But she wasn't shy! When her mom got up to go across the room, the client sharply said "Mom!! Come back here!!" - her mom pauses but doesn't immediately rush back - "MOM!!!!" This woman was in the zone and knew exactly how she wanted things to be! 

As her labor progressed, she became more vocal, invoking Jesus, God, her mother, Ninotte... she kept asking "Jesus, where are you??" and telling Ninotte that she couldn't do it! Sarah told her that she knew she had some more courage, and that she COULD do this! Finally, she started singing for a short while... and she told us later that she thinks God came to her while she sang and gave her more courage.

We moved her from lying down on her bed to sitting/squatting on the floor, supported from behind by her mom. The whole time, I was very impressed with her mother, who kept an incredible calm (she had obviously been through this before) and maintained an almost constant smile! She had a great sense of humor whenever her daughter said something extreme or angry - she would just grin at the rest of us. Having her around and seeing how she was such a calm, warm, supportive rock for her daughter made me think how nice it would be to have MY mom at my delivery, whenever that day comes... 

Anyway, after our client received her second wind of courage, she got to working hard on pushing and it wasn't long before there was suddenly a new little baby girl in the world! We got mom and baby all wrapped up in bed and turned the lights down because the client's blood pressure was a little high, and left them to nurse and bond. Little did we know... apparently, the baby's nursing was giving the new mom cramps, so she decided to not bother! We found out this morning. How crazy is that?? We set her straight, and everything is fine, but... seriously? Yeah, I just won't feed my baby because I don't feel like it. Hopefully this isn't going to be a continuing trend! 

So meanwhile, it had continued to rain on and off ever since the first baby was born, but nothing crazy had happened yet. After all the clinic excitement died down, Sarah, Melinda, some friends, and I were all hanging out, enjoying Melinda's apple cake and a little Haitian beer. It was raining fairly hard, but suddenly there was a HUGE gust of wind that hit the house and blew a screen into the kitchen! We all hopped up, packed up our things, and dispersed to our respective sleeping places - this was it! Isaac was here! Melinda, Ninotte, and I were all sleeping in the clinic, so we ran around and made sure everything was ready to withstand heavy gusts coming through the building. We pulled our beds away from the windows, got our buckets ready, and sat down on our beds... It wasn't long before we were all up again, called to the next room by a bang of furniture, or called to the window by the sound of voices or a rattling roof. 

The wind was insane. It was just so loud!! If I lay on my bed, I could hear huge gusts of wind flying past, I could see the palm tree outside bending and getting pushed way down, fronds flapping yet somehow not breaking off immediately. The rain was hammering down but not as intense as it could have been; it was really all about the wind. We could hear things tumbling and banging around out in the yard next door, probably a combination of trash and random stuff in the yard... we were hoping it wasn't anything bigger. 

Things started getting worrysome when Melinda got a call from a friend who said the roof came off her kitchen, but not the rest of her house... we spent the whole night hoping that that was as bad as it would get for her - luckily, it was. She kept the rest of her roof. We also were worried about our neighbors' roof - we could hear rattling tin roofs all night, each time an extra crazy-strong gust swept past! It was quite dark out, but we could just make out the outline of a section of tin roofing that was partially coming off and flapping violently in the wind. I was so thankful, so many times, that we didn't have to worry about that kind of roof above our heads. (I have yet to explore the state of the volunteer house, although I think it'll be fine.) At some point, we heard a few guys outside the house dealing with the havock, and they were laughing - I said something like "well at least they can have a sense of humor about it!" - but Melinda said that they have to laugh in the face of misery, because they experience SO much of it. There's no other way to deal with it. We hollered out the window that our neighbors could come stay with us if they wanted, but they never needed to because, somehow, their roof stayed on! Thank goodness!!

The other awful part of the night was just witnessing the sheer power of the storm and its effects, even on the relatively well-built structures outside our window, and simultaneously knowing how many hundreds of thousands of people (notably in and around Port Au Prince) only have weak/temporary structures like tents and tarps...! As I lay there, hearing the mind-numbingly loud winds, seeing the tree thrash back and forth, hearing roofs rattle and things tumble around in the yard, I couldn't help but cry a few tears for the extreme, unfair suffering that must have been going on at the same time, not far from us. When one lives in such conditions, the risks of rain and wind, not to mention flooding, landslides, lack of clean water/food/sanitation, are unimaginable. At least sweet little Alfaida was with Sarah this weekend - a precautionary measure because she lives in a not-so-sturdy structure in town in Jacmel.

I don't know how I did it, but eventually I got to sleep amidst all the sounds. When I woke in the morning, the wind had almost completely calmed down, and it was just raining and raining and raining. It rained almost all day, until 4 or 5pm! I got to spend a good 5 or 6 hours taking care of Alfaida, who has become quite good friends with me by now. She's just too wonderful and cute and lovely not to love! And to think, I got here not really knowing how to take care of a baby... Anyway, we were safe and dry and well-fed, and after Melinda took a drive down into town to drop off one of the clients, it looked and seemed like maybe there wasn't too much damage done! She said that very few roofs were off - the only visible issue was a good number of downed trees. Even then, there were two downed trees near the clinic, in the street, but apparently they "disappeared" before it even stopped raining! (Someone must have come and removed them somewhat quickly, and there wasn't ever even the sound of a chainsaw.) When the rain stopped, there were immediately a couple of guys up on the neighbor's roof, nailing down the loose piece and fixing any other damage. 

However, it was sobering to start hearing news from elsewhere. My mom was nice enough to text me a few newsbytes, since our internet wasn't up yet, and I shared them with everyone else. We heard of 1500 people taking refuge in a school in Jacmel, probably flooding and loss of roofs, at least 3 dead in the north and at least 1 dead in Jacmel, tent communities completely flattened (we had been right to fear the worst)... We'll see what the final reports show. So, once again, as with the earthquake on January 12, 2010, Haiti falls victim to a natural disaster that becomes an unnatural disaster; social inequalities have resulted in the extreme worsening of the impact of natural disasters that might be much less gravely dangerous in any other country.