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.

Markets and Motos

Some things are crazy here! That's in a good way, most of the time. I've been into town to go to the open market a few times now, and it is quite an experience!! I took a bunch of photos so I'll let them do most of the talking. It's a feast for the senses: bright colors everywhere, lots of different smells (mostly not great smells), hardly an open space to move or walk in, and people talking and calling out their wares! One of the more intense parts is the meat market, which is City of Flies. The fish is mostly all super dried, but there's plenty of meat sitting out all over tables, all day long. Needless to say, if you're smart, you buy your meat first thing in the morning. The smells are definitely the worst in the meat market, but it was worth the excitement and the adventure. :)

Each person's shop area blends into the next, leaving one confused about who to even ask for prices. I really liked the citrus shops - they were so bright and pretty! The produce sellers often arranged their little peppers and limes in small piles or pyramids that were meant to be sold in units, in order to standardize pricing... but to me it just made things look artfully arranged. And the bananas! They were selling whole branches of huge bunches of bananas! When we got into the area that was selling products (either food or clothes or home items), it only got more and more colorful. ...I'll just let you take a look.

The other rather crazy, exciting thing I see a lot around here is the motorcycles, or "motos", as we call them. It's not the motos themselves, but their cargo! If you need public transit around here, you either take a taptap (a brightly colored "bus", i.e. a pickup truck with some benches and a rickety little roof set up in the back) or a taxi (a guy rides by on a moto and you wave him down - now you have a taxi!). Pretty much everyone takes motos, especially when they have a big, heavy load to carry home. The taxi drivers are all happy to help carry the load, so it's common to see a taxi driver and his "charge", with two or three huge water jugs on each of their laps! I've also seen someone transporting long (maybe 25-30 ft) metal rods; the driver had a bunch in his right hand, and the rider hand a bunch in his left hand, with all of the rods dragging way out behind the moto! Today I saw the funniest one yet: a moto flies by with a big basket on each side, and at least 3 goats packed into each side, either enjoying the ride or bleating pitifully.

The driving laws here are... interesting. You're NOT allowed to drive without a shirt, whether you're a man or a woman, but an open bottle of beer or liquor is no problem! Kids riding in the back of a pickup is also no problem, even if they stand up. You can pack a bunch of people and things onto a moto or truck - there seems to be no limit or need to put warning signs when there's large cargo. Goodness, some of these laws don't make sense, but I guess it is what it is!

A mini camping trip!

We went camping! Everyone thought it'd be fun to "get away" for a night, but at the same time, Sarah and Melinda needed to stay close to the clinic just in case there was a client in need. There's a really beautiful beach, about 15 minutes away, that a bunch of ex-pats use for what they call "church on the beach" on Sunday afternoons. They built a really nice dried-banana-leaf roof over a flat, little, sandy area, and it's right next to the most amazingly gorgeous stretch of Caribbean water I have seen so far. The water is CLEAN super clear, and so, so, SO blue... the sandy beach is also CLEAN (what?? no piles of washed up trash??) and there are some really nice cliffs off to the side. All in all, it's quite a spot.

Ninotte, me, Danaelle

A little group of us went to the church on the beach spot on Saturday with a bunch of tents, a hammock, tarps, chairs, food, lumber, and all kinds of other camping things. We were running a tad behind schedule, so it was just starting to get dark as we pulled up to the gate. Suddenly, it started to rain a bit... by the time we parked, only a minute or two later, it was POURING BUCKETS! We hopped out and were fully soaked almost instantly - we got the firewood under a tarp and unloaded the truck as fast as possible.

It was nice to have a shelter over our heads while we set up the campsite, but as soon as we were done with the tents and turned our backs... big winds started picking them up and rolling them away! It was all very exciting, but we got it sorted out... eventually. During a respite from the rain, we started a huge bonfire burning so that we could use the coals to cook our dinner - homemade "hobo packs" - but it started pouring again just as we threw the food onto the fire! We sent Danaelle and Dada to bed after feeding them the bread and avocado (a standard tasty snack here), and the rest of us settled in to either a) have beers for dinner or b) have beers until the rain stopped and we could cook our real dinner.

We had a grand ol' time! It turns out that pouring rain in Haiti is still not enough to extinguish glowing coals, so it was easy enough to build up the fire a bit more and finish cooking our late-night dinner. And boy, was it worth the wait! If that's how really how hobos eat, they eat WELL! (Don't worry, I'm being ironic.) It was just a matter of throwing potatoes, carrots, onions, chicken, garlic, and barbeque sauce into a foil packet, and then we let them roast. YUM.

Sarah, Melinda, Brian

Alex, me, delicious hobopacks

After the best morning swim anyone could ask for (in the beautiful, cool, clean waves of this lovely beach), we had a feast of a breakfast! All in all, a great success! The only bad moment was Dada wetting the bed... in my tent... before I even got there... Seriously?? ugh. Luckily I had put her on the downhill side of me and Danaelle. But still.

Two tragic little lives, but two joyful ones, too

There are so many ways an infant or child's life can go, especially in developing countries where the risks are higher in so many varied ways. I've been hearing about so many of Sarah's experiences with her clients, their babies/children, and other people in and around Olive Tree Projects. Here are four little girls' stories - I'll start with the sad news so I can end on a happy note.

1. One of OTP's clients was staying overnight at the clinic for a few days last week because she was under observation due to a little bleeding. She was about 22 weeks pregnant, so the midwives wanted to make sure they prevented any premature labor and kept her healthy. After staying at the clinic for a while, she seemed to be fine and was told she could go home and stay on bed-rest for a few days more. Late one night, she inexplicably went into labor and called Sarah - turns out she was dilated to 8 cm, so Sarah took her as fast as she could to the hospital; the clinic isn't set up to handle births that are that early (although the hospital here really isn't either). Needless to say, the baby didn't make it. I went with Sarah, Craig, and Danaelle to bury it the next morning... turns out there's a tiny spot on Sarah's friend's land where they have a mini graveyard. That's "mini" in two senses of the word... a tiny area, and for little infants who weren't able to make it. We buried it, sang a little song, and went on our way; there would be more of a funeral later, when the would-be mother was out of the hospital. I later asked Sarah how many times she's had to do that, and she proceeded to list off and describe each one without hesitation. Every single one has clearly made a lasting impression on her.

2. Last weekend, we got the unhappy news that one of the children at a nearby orphanage drowned in the ocean. She was only 6. The adults had taken a group of kids to the beach, and one of the young boys was swimming around in the water. He started to struggle in the waves, and this little sweet, innocent, little 6-year-old saw him - her only thought was to run out and try to help him. Soon after, when the adults saw the boy struggling out in the ocean, they rushed out and helped him to land... but no one saw the little girl. She might have already been drowning by the time the adults were on their way out. The orphanage has been taking it really hard, especially the little girl's close friend who was playing with her and was the last to see her before she died. Unfortunately, the story gets worse... The adults spent many hours swimming around and searching for the little girl, but never found her body. Finally, they had to just tell the proper authorities (who aren't reliable here anyway) and go home. Two days later, they got a call that the body was found, so they go to the shore (now about 5 km away from where it happened). The Haitians who found her had lassoed her wrist but were demanding about 3,500 gourdes (I think), which is almost $90 US. After shouting back and forth, they finally just had to pay it and get going. The body and face were beyond recognition.

Sarah has helped reunite a few women with their newborns with a special system she's developed since coming here. Occasionally, one of OTP's clients will give birth (or even have a C section) but then say they don't want it, can't take it, or even flat-out deny that the baby is theirs. Or sometimes, the mother is clearly not taking good enough care of herself to be able to take care of a baby, and OTP and/or social services will tell her as much. (Check out the Olive Tree Projects blog for those stories, which I mentioned a few posts back.) Sarah will agree to care for the baby for 3 months, and the mother will have that much time to get on her feet, get healthy, find a home, start a business, or start solving whatever the problem was. Almost without fail, those mothers who said they didn't want the baby, or who pretended it wasn't theirs, will come back and say they REALLY want their little boy or girl. The truth is, they just knew they'd be better off in someone else's hands... but as soon as the mother sees herself as able to care for them, she admits that she loves the babe. Persuading her to visit and breastfeed the baby as much as possible during those 3 months seems to really help, too.

3. Last winter, Sarah had Alfaida, one of these unfortunate babies who was fortunate enough to have Sarah and the rest of OTP looking out for her (and for her mom!). Alfaida went back to her mom after the three months, and is doing great! Sarah and Danaelle fell so deep in love with her (she's SO sweet, SO good, and SO adorable/beautiful) that they get to take her on Sundays and hang out with her all day. I met this lovely little creature recently, and boy, is she CUTE! Happily ever after!

4. Remember baby Mara, featured in a few previous posts? Well, she's the most recent baby that Sarah has been taking care of. Her mom is HIV-positive, and wasn't taking great care of herself when Mara was born... but now, she's doing great! Apparently, wanting your baby (and wanting it to be healthy/happy) is great motivation. :) It's unclear whether or not Mara has HIV, too, because we're still waiting on test results... but we'll find out soon. Anyway, the good news is, Mara went home on Monday this week!! YAY! We'll have to watch them more closely if she ends up testing positive for HIV, but for now, everything is looking good! Yet another mother-baby pair successfully reunited. They might never have been, if not for Sarah and all the cool things she does!!

quick photo update

Turns out I'm pretty bad at a) taking tons of photos (I'd honestly rather just "live it") and b) coordinating the uploading of those photos from my camera with the posting of updates on my blog. I'll try to be better about integrating!

Joe (of "Kay Joe") showing us a briquette of coconut charcoal

(Check out my post about alternative fuels!)

Naptime! Baby Mara is on the left (the baby Sarah's helping care for until her mom is capable); Baby ______ (I forget her name!), Mona's littlest one, on the right (this is Dada and Franky's little sister). 

(If you forget who Mara is, I mentioned her here and here.)

More naptime! Baby Mara again - I've been spending quite a bit of time with her (i.e. helping take care of her). And next to her is Sarah's cat, Cat! He's a little guy but sooo cuddly and friendly.  

Hello, little lizard! I see these bright green guys all over the place!

Laundry day! The cute little girls in our neighbor's yard came out to help pick up laundry and started saying hello and calling up to us - "Blan! Blan!" - that's what foreigners (or "whites") are called in Haiti.

We had an "accidental spa" today - Sarah was curious to see whether her hair was long enough for French braids, so Danaelle was trying different hair-dos on her... and then Dada came over and started filing Sarah's toe nails... and then I handed her a cup of tea! She needed it too; the poor girl was tired! (We thought we might be able to convince Ziggy to come in and paint her nails, too, but then thought better of that... ha!)

My First Class!!

I led my first community education class tonight at the clinic! It was so fun!! This is probably the one part of this Senior Bridge project about which I was most nervous, because I usually get nervous about doing presentations in front of people, and I was nervous about the language barrier, and I was nervous about the topics I'd be teaching (I'm hardly an expert)... but it turns out I had nothing to worry about! We had a grand old time.

The clinic normally gives a class every Thursday night at 7pm. On Haiti-Time (the island version of HaverTime)... that means people will probably START arriving around 7:15 or 7:30, and you won't have a crowd until sometime after that. Ninotte was joking that, in Haiti, you need to tell people to arrive at 2 if you want them to all be there by 4. So the sign goes up on the front of the clinic on Thursday morning if we're doing a class, and it says 7pm and this week's topic. Then we wait for people... and start a bit after 7:30 or so. Like I've been saying, things are pretty relaxed around here. 

The class didn't happen last week or the week before, which means tonight's class was the first since I've been here. I was sort-of waiting to see what class was like before planning my first lesson, just to get a feel for the style, length, format, mood, crowd, etc... but since it was canceled (not sure why) the past two weeks, I just figured I might as well go for it and make sure it's not canceled again! Sarah told me that the people who usually attend are big fans and always complain a) when it's over and b) when a week goes by without a class. :) 

The OTP crew has done a bunch of topics surrounding birth, pregnancy, nutrition, and general health stuff, and at some point they said something to the effect of "we're running out of things to teach you!" -- the crowd of attendees promptly protested that fact and demanded that Sarah & co. come up with some more topics. They just love the class so much! They learn about interesting, useful things, and it's a lot of fun. They even wanted to have a test, so every few weeks (or maybe every month or two?), there's some kind of exam on the most recent lessons. So, needless to say, OTP started branching out and teaching about other things, too, including aquaponics, alternative fuels, and other fun things.

I decided to talk about hormones after sitting in one of the prenatal consultations in the clinic; Melinda was describing pitocin vs. oxytocin in pregnancy/delivery, and it was clear that the client hadn't previously learned much about hormones or that system. After I did my research and put together my lesson plan, Sarah helped me prepare and went over the topics and my powerpoint. The powerpoint would be in French (since that's what I'm able to prepare), I would speak in English (since I didn't have enough time between yesterday and today to prepare to do everything in French on my own), and Sarah/Ninotte would translate into Creole as I presented.

I've been listening to RadioLab (an awesome NPR show that has a free podcast!), and fortuitously, they have a show about the three main hormones involved in falling in love (dopamine, norepinephrine, and oxytocin)! (If you want to look up the episode, it's called Your Brain On Love.) I happened to listen to it after I decided to talk about hormones and before I planned the class, so it was perfect timing and I was able to work in some of their fun stories as well as a couple sound bytes they had in the show. I also introduced hormones by explaining what they are, how they work, what sorts of things they can do within the body, etc. After talking about love hormones, we explained sex hormones, the hormones of the menstrual cycle, pregnancy hormones, and then threw in insulin & glucagon, adrenaline/epinephrin, and serotonin. In addition to talking about how everything works, we tried to emphasize the physical and emotional results of hormones because that's what we actually perceive and can relate to. Sarah and I were hoping to help everyone understand that sometimes emotions are out of our control (read: PMS), and there were also some side-notes about how to treat your lady (both during and not during pregnancy, both emotionally and physically). 

Everyone was so interested and interactive! There was a lot of giggling and joking when we went through the love and sex hormones, as was to be expected, but it was all in good fun and we indulged them a little. But overall, it was great. There were a lot of good questions, and we of course didn't have all the answers, but our audience seemed to go away with a pretty good understanding of a lot of what we went through. And it ended up being quite a lot of information! One of the men in the audience was a doctor, so he had a couple of helpful (and more serious) things to add when we didn't have the full answer to a question. There were a few interruptions when Ziggy would come in and sit down, do something wrong, and be asked to leave (wash rinse repeat), but even that was taken in stride and we all laughed. The class lasted a whole hour, even though I had made a half-hour powerpoint, because there was so much interaction. Many thanks, once again, to Sarah and Ninotte for helping with translation and fielding the questions. (My Creole is coming along much faster now, but not THAT fast!)

The group who came was something between 15 and 20 people all-told, but I think a few missed the beginning and a few missed the end. There were only two women, one of whom was currently staying at the clinic (she's going through a period of high-risk observation) so she was going to be there regardless anyway. The other was a young woman who was there with her boyfriend, so it was cute to see them walk off together hand in hand after hearing about all the dopamine/norepinephrine/oxytocin that would make them (or had already made them?) fall in love. :) 

All in all, despite the aforementioned nerves, I was happy and comfortable and enjoyed myself completely. It left everyone in a good mood, even though we finally had to tell them to stop asking questions and go home - it was getting too late! Their consolation prize for having to stop was (as it always is) free condoms. Now I can't wait to plan next week's class! This time, I'm going to try to do it in French, which will leave much less translation on Sarah and Ninotte's shoulders (although I'm sure I'll still have to lean on them some). At one point, some of the rowdier guys started asking about how to have sex with their pregnant wife without hurting her, since we said it was good for her (in terms of hormones) to keep having sex while pregnant... so next week will be all about healthy activities for pregnant women! Sex can be a part of it, but there's actually a lot of useful/important info under that larger category that we'll talk about, too. It should be great!

One last little thing - I'm really excited about my progress with Creole! I've had a few days this week where I just ended up sitting around for 2 to 4 hours with Danaelle and sometimes others, and we were just speaking in Creole! I'm still doing plenty of "Ki sa?" (what?) and "Mwen pa komprann" (I don't understand), but I can say so much more and understand so much more (albeit with some amount of repetition during our simple conversations). It's so fun and satisfying - I feel like I've broken through into the next stage of learning Creole or something. There's a decent-sized set of phrases (or types of phrases) that I'm so used to that they roll of the tongue faster than French when I try to speak French with people! :) Language immersion hard at work! Meanwhile, this means that Danaelle and I have been becoming good friends, which is super fun! She and Dada are such silly goofballs. 

So many things! All the things!

I had a very exciting night on Friday! Marita, who has been staying here with me in OTP's volunteer house as she figures out whether she'll be moving to Jacmel, is really excited about all things Haitian and all Haiti-oriented projects. She got pretty excited that I'm here, once she heard me go on and on about my Paul Farmer / public health inspiration, and she has a lot of energy to help connect me to more people here and more cultural events here. So far, she has offered to take me to a Haitian dance group, a school, Kay Joe (where we went with Sarah to see the coconut fuel), the market, and a voodoo ceremony! All of these things haven't quite happened yet, but she'll be back in a week or so after doing some errands in Port Au Prince, so we'll just see. :)

Apparently, the mother of Joe (yes, that's Joe of Kay Joe) used to throw a big, three-day long, celebratory voodoo ceremony/party. She passed away a few years ago, but Joe has kept up the tradition. Marita was helping out at Kay Joe's on Thursday when she got an invite to join them, since the party was happening on Wed/Thurs/Fri. She went on Thursday night, and she said that all the women were dressed in white, and they sacrificed a white chicken and a white dove after waving them around in the ceremonies for a few hours. Some people were drunk, or high, or even "possessed" by spirits (the ceremony involves calling a few spirits). The ceremony/party was partly structured (run by the voodoo priestess), but partly relaxed, when everyone or anyone could get up and dance to the beat of the drums and songs/chants. The party went from about 7:30pm until 2am.

I heard all this from Marita, who came back and informed us all that it was, in fact, an open party for whoever wanted to come see and celebrate with them. Usually, these ceremonies are more private, because they're for healing someone's sick child, or something personal like that, but this is a big celebration so anyone could come. Sarah, Marita, Ninotte, Craig (a friend of Sarah's), and I all went the next night. We got there around 8 or 8:30, expecting it to start sometime around then. There were a lot of people preparing food, which seemed to push the start of the ceremony later... In fact, it got later, and later, until Marita finally heard that tonight was on a completely different schedule - this being the last of the three nights, it would start a bit before midnight and go until 6 or 8 in the morning! Woah. So... we waited for 3 hours, getting hungry as we watched all that food.

The ceremony was to take place under a large, square hut at Kay Joe's. It has open sides with pillars around the edge and one, huge central post that supports the woven/thatch roof that is made of some kind of dried (banana?) leaves. There was a big table set up with many, many offerings for the spirits - so many, in fact, that there were as many offerings on the ground in front of the table as there were on this big table! It was mostly a bunch of different plates/bows of food - quite a feast for those spirits! - along with a few bottles of 5-star Haitian rum, a few bottles of cologne, a few bottles of some special Haitian-made soda/juice... quite a spread. There were various and sundry chairs and seats all around the edge of the hut, as the ceremony was to take place in the center around the middle pillar. 

After taking in the set-up in the hut, we decided to walk down and see the ocean, since it was right there, next to us. We sat and watched the waves crash on the rocks a few feet from us for a while, and I enjoyed this quiet calm. Eventually, we made our way back in and settled into our seats (after being told to sit on the other side of the hut, somewhat inexplicably.) 

Tonight, the women were dressed in bright colors, and the dresses reminded me sometimes of traditional African dress and sometimes of traditional Mexican dress. It was an interesting mix! They looked very nice - I felt like I should have dressed better, rather than just wear my shorts! The men were all dressed casually, though, in t-shirts and shorts. There was a row of 4 red and blue drums that the guys started drumming on, along one side of the hut, and the women stood (sometimes danced) in the center and sang. The voodoo priestess led the songs and chants for a while, and occasionally 3 or 4 people would take water, rum, and a candle in a little circle around the central pillar, weaving this way and that, splashing a bit on the floor here and there... 

After this went on for a while, there was a small procession as a new drummer entered the hut along with a few of his drummer buddies. He had come in specially for this, all the way from Port Au Prince, and he was some kind of awesome master drummer or something. Apparently, the voodoo priestess was less than satisfied with the drummers' beats and rhythms so far, so this new guy was supposed to replace them... but one of the drummers who had already been drumming for 2 days was NOT having it and didn't want to be replaced! He was also a bit drunk, which I'm sure didn't help anything. He got belligerent, and all the guys went over and started yelling at each other, and everyone was suddenly very grumpy! This went on for about 10 minutes, with our little group sitting off to the side looking at each other, giggling a little, wishing that we could just get some food and that everyone could just calm down! At some point during all this craziness, Marita translated that the voodoo priestess said (hopefully jokingly!!) that she wanted a machete so she could sacrifice the one bad drummer who was ruining the party/ceremony...!!

Then Sarah got a call from a client who was having a seizure and foaming at the mouth (!!!) so we very quickly took off at a run (all of us except Marita), hopped in the truck, and flew down the road to pick up the client. (It probably looked like we were suddenly terrified of the voodoo proceedings and the fight... haha...) Sarah and Ninotte were worried about eclampsia, but this woman also has sickle cell anemia and hasn't shown any signs of preeclampsia - it was a bit of a mystery. We had little baby Mara with us, so I got dropped off at the clinic with Mara as Craig drove Ninotte and Sarah to pick up the client. I went in and unlocked the clinic so I could start looking for the preeclampsia kit -- before I knew it, everyone had already arrived, Sarah came running in and found what she needed in the kit, the client was helped onto a bed by her mother, Sarah gave her the shot that she needed, Ninotte found all the forms that would be necessary to admit the client at a hospital, Sarah and I carried the client from the bed to the truck, Ninotte put the preeclampsia kit and delivery kit in the truck, Craig turned around, everyone else hopped in, and OFF THEY WENT!! It was such a crazy few moments!!! 

They went to the Cuban hospital, which is apparently a pretty good hospital - if the doctors are actually there (it sounds like it can be somewhat unreliable). I meanwhile got settled in to sleep at the clinic so I could take care of baby Mara and be available if I was needed for anything else. After about an hour or so, Sarah called to say they were going to swing by and pick me up (if I wanted) because they were going BACK to the voodoo ceremony! (Craig reeeally wanted that free food. It was about 2:30am by now.) I went out to meet them, but a couple minutes after I got into the truck, Sarah and Ninotte had had a few phone calls with the hospital and realized they needed to actually take the client to the next hospital over, in Leogane... which is an hour away! So we turned around again, dropped me off at the clinic, made sure all the potentially useful kits were in the truck, and off they went once again! I settled in for real this time, after dealing with Mara's many needs, and managed to sleep for a couple hours before Ninotte arrived at the clinic to get a quick nap in before the morning light. 

Luckily, it was a Saturday and there weren't many plans. I couldn't sleep after the cleaning lady got to the clinic around 7am, so I took Mara over to Sarah's place and asked Danaelle to take care of her, which she does on a semi-regular basis... and I went home and crashed! 

Saturday evening into Sunday morning was also crazy in its own way, because of the weather. We had heard beforehand that we would get some crazy wind and rain, and then the predictions worsened to say that we would get a tropical depression (which is more intense but not as bad as a tropical storm). I must have slept through a fair amount of it, but when I was awake, it was intense!! The roof in my house is aluminum, so any rain makes some noise... but THIS rain made SO MUCH NOISE!! It seemed like it must be just solid sheets of water falling out of the sky, there was so much of it. Luckily, there's only one little leak in the roof, so it was easily contained with a bucket. :)

Anyway, things are all crazy here sometimes! Today has been much more chill, although I sat for a few hours and tried to use my Creole with Mirlande and Danaelle after we made lunch together... boy, I felt so bad for them, because I made them repeat themselves or explain what they were telling me sooo many times!! I can say more than I can understand, just because I'm still struggling with the accent (when I'm used to the sound of French). When I talk to Mirlande, I'm probably speaking some weird mix of bad Creole and French, because sometimes it's safe to assume that a French word will be the same in Creole... but it doesn't always work out, so I'm never quite sure how correct my speech is. ha. At least Mirlande speaks French!! 

Another blog!!

P.S. Those of you who are interested in Sarah's accounts of various stories from around Olive Tree Projects over the years, be sure to take a look at http://www.olivetreeprojects.com/blog/

Also, as you'll see in the blog if you keep reading and eventually get to the start of 2012, here's one option if you're interested in contributing something to this incredible place:

Below is a link to OTP’s wishlist for 2012. It’s an easy, tangible way to help OTP in the coming year. Of course, they still appreciate cash donations, monthly or otherwise!

http://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/PQQERVOSG9HR/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go_o

GED Prep?? and musings on education in Haiti

One of the things I've been doing is working with Patrick on his written english and GED prep. Turns out I know a lot of answers to grammar questions but don't always know the actual rules or reasons... so it's been interesting (and sometimes frustrating) trying to figure out the best ways to explain things to Patrick. The poor guy is very studious and loves to learn, but he's got me, struggling to know how to best teach him basic grammar concepts and prepare him for the GED. Ha. We've been Googling around for practice questions and things, and we've found some stuff, but I have yet to come across an actual full practice test. The time limit is clearly going to be an issue, unless Patrick can get a lot of practice in first and get a little more confident... I really hope my muddling-through will help him! We've spent quite a few hours on this in the last few days or so, and he's always pumped to do more work, read books, etc. So if any of you know anything about preparing for or taking the GED, especially when english isn't your first language, let me know!! Also, apparently the GED varies somewhat state to state, and Patrick is taking it in Georgia, but we've only found some "GED practice questions" that say nothing about what state(s) they might be relevant to. 

There really doesn't seem to be much in place to help people like Patrick succeed... Some of the questions on the GED aren't so much about english, but about knowing those little symbolic things that only American kids would grow up knowing. (For example, there was an old political cartoon that centered around Uncle Sam... without an explanation or a little background, Patrick didn't stand a chance of answering the questions about what the cartoon meant, and Sarah hardly even knew what to make of it!)

It's been interesting hearing Sarah talk about education here in Haiti. It's extremely common for people to be 5 to 10 years behind where they should be in school; for example, Danaelle and Dada (15 years old and 6 years old) are both in 1st grade. It happens because people miss years or parts of years, or don't do well because they have little to no support system, or they switch schools and for whatever reason aren't considered to be at the same level... Very little seems to be standardized, as far as education goes. Also, at the end of this school year, Danaelle did ok (she got about 75%) and Dada just squeaked by (about 65%), but Sarah said that Dada doesn't even know how to read, while Danaelle does. The grading isn't even standardized between students in the same class. 

On that note, another of Sarah's future projects would be to get a group of teenage girls together and have a youth group of sorts (they'd all be a support group of peers and friends for each other, and then do activities together). Sarah (or OTP) would purchase unfinished houses around town (there are a ton of them) and then teach all the teens how to fix up the houses. They'd make some money, and then learn a ton of skills that have to do with building houses/furniture, painting, etc. It's not unheard of that the single, simple skill of knowing how to paint a wall one color is a man's single marketable skill; if these girls could learn so many skills, not only would they be able to do a lot more than your average person, but it would also empower them as young women! Cool, interesting ideas. Something as basic as this could provide more education that a lot of people normally get.

Voodoo and Other Spiritual Tales

I asked Sarah about voodoo today, both to hear more about what it actually is and to get her opinion on it. She and some of her friends here have experienced some things or seen some things that make them think that there may be something to it, but it's also important to distinguish between what might be real and what definitely isn't real. While there may have been some experiences that imply a spiritual world, or at least tell Sarah that we shouldn't discredit voodoo completely, apparently there are also plenty of times when simple real-life stuff gets passed off as voodoo. For example, whenever someone goes to the hospital and is sick with something the doctors have never seen before, or is sick with something they know they won't be able to treat (given their skills or the tools/drugs available), doctors will often tell them or their loved ones that it's not a medical problem. The next place you go if you're sick but it's "not a medical problem" is the voodoo priest. 

A voodoo priest has many duties, including healing and other positive things, but he can also supposedly cast evil spells on people, or even cause people to suffer and/or die. When the hoped-for outcome actually comes to pass, whether it was healing your disease or killing your enemy, it means you did a good job of pleasing the spirits... and sometimes, the way you do that, is by making sacrifices. Apparently, if your request is big enough, or difficult enough, or important enough, you might even sacrifice your own child. Sarah didn't know how common or widespread that kind of extreme action is, but... it could happen. I don't know how many Haitians still practice voodoo, but I'm under the (uninformed) impression that it's still a very large percent of the population. Oh, and another interesting tidbit is that the voodoo word for demon or evil spirit sounds almost identical to the Hmong word for demon or evil spirit. Pretty bizarre (honestly, it's probably a coincidence) because the Hmong people come from Laos, Thailand, China... while Haitians originally came from Africa. Go figure?

On the subject of religion, one of the somewhat strange cultural things for me has been that almost every white person I've met is Christian! I know a lot of people come down here on religious missions, but even the people who are down here for aquaponics, midwifery, and orphanages all seem to be "good, God-fearing people." It's a little odd for me just because I've always been used to having friend groups that are a total mix of Christians, Jews, atheists, etc. (The list goes on!) It's not a problem for me, especially because no one has asked if I'm Christian or made sure that I pray or anything like that. I don't feel like I stick out too much, and I have no trouble hanging out with any and all of these people, but it's a new experience for me that at any point, everyone around me might start discussing with each other how they pray to God. There have been a few comments made about how other religions are actually worshiping demons and evil devils (when they think they're worshiping other good gods), but other than the less tolerant people like that, it's been fine. There's a weekly "church on the beach" that all the ex-pats go to, and the long-timers have a weekly bible study, too. I don't want to generalize, but so far I *think* that every white person here from America or Canada is a Christian. Go figure! 

The OTHER interesting thing involving spiritual "stuff" that I've been hearing about lately is Marita's story. She told me a lot about the journey that eventually brought her to Haiti and has kept her here doing projects... She talked about a 5-week trance when her spirit was apparently in Haiti before she was physically here, and she said she feels this enormous, evil energy vortex all in and around Haiti that, once released and sent away, will allow peace and unity to save the world (apparently Haiti holds the key). There was also talk of reincarnation, and past lives as either a slave or slave owner, and... I was starting to lose track. But it was very interesting to listen to her life story, and now that she's here, she has a ton of energy to start lots of projects that sound like they'll really benefit Haitians. She's very excited about what she's doing, which makes her fun to talk to!

Alternative Fuels! and other projects

Sarah, Marita, and I went to see a man about alternative fuels this morning! His name is Joe, so his business is called Kay Joe (Joe's House). He uses coconut shells to make charcoal, rather than just burning wood or cutting down trees to make "regular" charcoal - two very common practices in Haiti that are contributing to the HUGE problem of deforestation in this country. This charcoal is easy enough to make that it's either about the same price as wood charcoal or maybe cheaper (I wasn't quite clear on that point), but it burns for three times as long! This could not only be a tree/environment-saver, here in Haiti, but could also be a huge money-saver for many Haitians! Sarah and (especially) Marita are playing with the idea of making this into a project where communities of about 20 families could get set up with a coconut charcoal press, and then share the use of it. (One press, worked by 4 people, makes about 800 pieces a day, which would be enough for 20 families. They would share costs and collectively save a lot of money on charcoal.) It's hard for a business like Kay Joe to keep up with the demand - they're already falling behind demand - so if lots of smaller communities could get involved, it has the potential to make a big difference!

It was really fun to go see this place they have set up. They also make small clay pots that hold the charcoal as you burn it, so you can just set a pot or pan on top of the open clay pot as if it was any old stove. Haitian kitchens are outdoor in the yard, so this is completely compatible with what Haitians are used to. We got to see the charcoal, the press, the big pile of coconut shells they've collected... and a bucket of mold that is somehow involved in the making of these charcoal briquettes. Kay Joe also has a tree nursery, so we saw all the tiny little trees waiting to be sold and planted. In order to encourage tourism and help make ends meet, there are a few buildings on the property (it's a very cute little complex) that have rooms for travelers to stay in, right along a really beautiful bit of coastline. It seems like a great set-up! Joe is quite a character, too. :)

Since Marita came, she's been telling us all about her projects and inspiration and personal journey. It's fun to listen to her and Sarah because they're full of ideas and plans and energy to start new things here in Haiti. Marita is really into sustainability, earth ships (a building style that uses a lot of trash as material, is built in a shape to be more resistant to natural disasters, and saves/recycles water very efficiently), composting, and other cool save-the-world type projects (like the coconut charcoal). Sarah has the maternity center, of course, helps takes care of babies and kids when needed, teaches about many health issues including contraception and safe sex, and now is suddenly starting to help plan a potential orphanage for kids with HIV (regular orphanages aren't allowed to take HIV-positive kids; apparently they have to keep them separate, so HIV kids often don't have a place to go).

It's been really interesting hearing all their views on issues down here. Sarah actually has a problem with a lot of orphanages around Haiti because they are often full of a few orphans (who might have an aunt and uncle who could potentially care for them) and a lot of kids whose parents just think they'll have a better chance in the world if they put them in an orphanage that's run by white people. The resources being spent on this type of orphanage might be put to much better use if they were used to help educate people and prevent unwanted pregnancies. Sarah said that, while almost all of their clients in the clinic are warm, loving parents, easily less than half of the pregnancies were unplanned. She has a few stories of mothers not wanting to take their babies home with them (or even flat-out refusing to acknowledge that the baby was theirs), simply because they  resources and hope.

There are so many (I repeat, SO MANY!!!) different avenues that can be taken, or need to be taken, when it comes to finding ways to help Haiti. It's a really incredible place, full of a lot of great people and a lot of potential, but there are so many missing links that it's hard to know where to start when choosing a project, or focus, or target population, or issue, or even just location... In fact, it's almost a relief to me that I went into this experience knowing that it would be more of a learning experience, or a beginning, and less of a make-as-much-of-a-difference-as-possible situation. Of course I want to help, but (as Marita, Sarah, Paul Farmer, and many others have said) you really need a deep understanding of Haiti's history and character before you can really know how to help. It seems like I'll be here just long enough to learn a ton and start to get to know Haiti...

One of Many Stories

I got to participate in a pretty intense conversation the other day. Sarah has a visitor, Marita, staying with us for about a week right now. She's half Canadian and half Haitian, and has spent about 12 months total in Haiti over the last couple of years. She sounds pretty fluent in Creole, which was partly what allowed for this conversation to come about. A teenage girl who occasionally comes by Sarah's place was hanging out there with just me and Marita (this is Marita's first night joining our little community). Marita shared some info and light stories about her parents and where they live, and suddenly this teenage girl started to open up about all the horrors she's suffered in her life. It seems like she saw a chance for some long-needed, open sharing, and maybe it was made easier by the fact that she doesn't really know Marita or myself. She spoke in Creole, of which I could only catch bits or "jists," but Marita generously translated as this girl told her story. Let's call her Sally, just for the sake of simplicity and anonymity. 

Sally's mother and her uncle died when she was 10 years old, both killed by their brother. (It came out later that Sally's other uncle used voodoo magic to kill his siblings, so I'm not sure exactly what that means. He's not an axe murderer, though, if that's what you were thinking.) I don't remember how her father died, but it sounded like he was already out of the picture long before that. Apparently, this evil uncle of Sally's is obsessed with getting ahead in the world, and full of greed, so when Sally's generous mother kept giving things to those in need and helping others, he felt that she needed to be eliminated...

Sally then moved in with her cousin in Port Au Prince, who was about 30 years old and married with 4 young kids. She lived with them for a couple years, and was violently violated and raped by her older cousin when she was 12 or 13. It wasn't clear to me whether this was happening during much of the time that she was there, or just right before she left. The raping left her pregnant with her cousin's/rapist's baby (at 12 or 13 years old), so she fled and returned to Jacmel where her sister lives. At some point, thank goodness, she found Sarah (or Sarah found her), and started to get some care for the pregnancy. Her sister seemed to have decided for her (although she was quietly compliant) that the baby would be given up for adoption, but it eventually became clear to Sarah that Sally wanted to keep her baby. Olive Tree Projects collectively made a plan with her that would help her take care of this baby, generously offering time and resources. When the time came to deliver, the baby was born but its skull was too soft and wasn't fully formed - it was essentially already a vegetable by the time it was born. They were unable to save the baby, other than keeping its heart beating and lungs breathing long enough for Sally to hold it for a few minutes. 

You think enough awful, traumatizing things have happened to Sally yet? (I struggled to hold back angry and sorrowful tears as I heard this long tale unfold.) Well... she said that she has been violated a few more times, and a couple of men have tried to rape her. From how she told the story, it's clear that she (rather necessarily) has been growing up into what will be a very smart, strong woman, after going through everything she has suffered and survived. It sounds like the one thing that makes her the most sad, that hurts her the most, and to which she links the start of this unending awfulness, is when her mother pass away. She said that sometimes, she just feels so angry and hurt that she wants to end it all, or walk into the street and stop looking at the cars... This comment concerned me, and I let Sarah know just in case, but from everything else she said and how she said it, it sounds more like she's going to somehow come out of this stronger and smarter than many women. I have a lot of hope for this girl, and I wish with all my heart that she can begin to love and value herself again. She was showing us photos from a few years ago, before she was raped, and said that she used to be so pretty. Now, she said, she's fat and ugly. But she just doesn't yet see that she's a lovely, beautiful, strong, intelligent, talented, young woman!

I'm so glad she is involved with Sarah and the people of OTP, because it seems to give her a safe space that she might not otherwise have. Her sister doesn't seem to invested in helping her out much, and her uncle has done nothing for her (other than take her on a tour of his HUGE house without offering her a place to stay when she needed one). I doubt Sally would want to spend much time with the man she believes killed her mother, anyway. 

After we heard this long, winding, twisted tale, Marita and I thanked Sally for sharing with us and tried to lift her spirit up. I think she'll be ok, but it really hurts me to know that these kinds of stories are anything but rare, both in Haiti and throughout the world.