Haiti-My first Medical Mission

Day 15

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:35:00 GMT

Day 15~ The long day traveling home.

An early morning wake up at 6am is dreaded. I want to roll over and go to back to sleep and I also don’t want to face the day. I’m not looking forward to leaving Haiti and I’m also not looking forward to all day traveling. I know once I’m on my way, I will get over the sadness of leaving and then become excited to get home to my family and all the luxuries of living in the USA.

Coffee is made and we all start to get our breakfast and coffee. A few of the house staff are awake and some are still sleeping. After I’m done with my coffee, I go into the room, strip my bedding and get ready to go. I finish packing and bring out my suitcase. It is 90 percent full of souvenirs. I gave away nearly all the clothing I brought. Nearly all the food I brought had been eaten but some I leave at the house and some I pack up and take home.

It’s time to go and I go outside after one final walk through. I want to make sure I didn’t forget anything. Toro is outside. It is his day off and its 7am. I’m not sure why he is there but I’m happy to see him. His moto is there, and it has water under it from him hosing off the mud from the trip here. Toro is walking around with a big smile on his face. Something that never happened before.

Jonel is placing our suitcases on top of the jeep and securing them with rope. It’s time to go, sigh, I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye. Sam is hitching a ride with us to Port au Prince and is in the front. Stecy, Dan, Cindy, Judenel, Ronel, Canel are all there. Canel and Judenel are also getting a ride to Port au Prince. I hug everyone and get teary. Soon, Perrine comes to say by. She had told us last night that she never comes out to say bye to people because it is just too hard for her to do all the time. So, she comes out and says she is breaking her own rule. She hugs everyone and when she comes to me she makes a comment on how much of an emotional person I am. I had prewarned my team that I am a very emotional person and they should be ready to see me cry at times.

We climb into the jeep and I place my hands on my face. I’m very emotional and let the tears flow. The girls try to make me happy and say things that make me laugh. I just hate leaving. I want to stay and help with the Haitian woman. If I had no responsibilities back at home, I’d probably stay. But I can’t because I do have things back home that are very important to me like my family and my job. I soak it all in as we drive through Hinche and head out into the country side. Soon, I’m not emotional anymore and try to enjoy the 3 hour drive back to the airport. It’s hard to enjoy the ride due to the suspension in the jeep and the quality of the windy roads we are driving on.

We arrive to the airport on time and Jonel gets our bags down. Ernest, the man who met us at the airport when we arrived, helps us with our bags and getting us to the ticket counter to get checked in. Winter changes her flight to an earlier one with Ali, so she doesn’t have to sit in Haiti hours by herself. Somehow, I managed to pack my bag to 49.8 pounds without weighing it. I had no idea it would be that heavy, but it was, and I was grateful it wasn’t over. I hate having to take things out of bags and juggling things around, so I don’t go over the weight limit.

Megan and I check in for our flight and Ali checks into hers. Then we head for security. No problems for us getting through security at all. Then we head upstairs to where the American Airlines gate is located. the airlines has a seperate security check to go through as well. The airport is very small. Near the gate there’s a food court area. Even though we are in an airport, we still don’t trust any food. We are hungry though and decide fries would be a safe bet for ingesting. The small bag of fries is $5. That is a lot in Haiti. I mean I know that airport food is expensive, but this is Haiti.

It is time for Megan and I to board our flight. I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye to Winter and Ali. The anxiety is real, and I try to not let the others know I’m anxious for our goodbye. We all walk over to the gate and it’s time for hugs and goodbyes. We have made plans to see each other next year and I really hope that happens. I hug Ali and Winter and the emotions are raw and painful. We have bonded so much over the last 2 weeks and I hate goodbyes, so much. The girls tell me not to cry and try to do things to get my mind off my emotions. It’s time to go though and Megan and I head for the gate. I am wiping the tears away and turn around and make one more final glance at Ali and Winter. Megan rubs my back because she knows I’m having a hard time. I’m silent and she asks what’s on my mind. I tell her I’m just really sad to go but I know once we are in the air and headed to NYC for our lay over, I will turn my sadness to excitement.

There is a group of people in front of us on the jetway. There are all wearing similar t-shirts and are on some mission for Haiti. I’m wearing my MFH t-shirt and one of the girls turns around and says she likes my shirt and wants to know more about it. She says her and a girl ahead of us are labor and delivery nurses. The girl in front of her asks me if I’m on the Facebook group ‘labor and delivery nurses rock’ and I say yes. She said she has been following me and saw some of the things I have posted and wanted to know more information on the twin mom. I gave her an update and we both thought how crazy it was that we are both getting a flight together and she has seen my post. What a small world.

Tap, tap with my right hand on the outside of the plane as I board. My good luck ritual. Megan and I find our seats and we are lucky again to have exit row seats. I have the window and she is the middle seat. The flight is not full, and no one sits next to Megan. When it’s time to take off, the emotions flood my mind again. The tears stream down my face and we take off. I silently tell the Haitian people I am sorry I can’t do more for them and that they had to be born in such a poverty ridden country. The struggle is real in Haiti. I look down at the country side below me until I can’t see anything more than the ocean. I don’t know when I can come back to Haiti. It will be quite some time and I am very upset about that. I really want to come back and be more involved. But it is not within my means to do so at this time.

The flight is about 3.5 hours and we get in safely. It’s a beautiful flight in to New York city, I love the skyline. When we get off the plane, there is a man standing there asking if anyone is connecting to Seattle. I say we are and he asks us our names. I tell him, and he hands us a bright orange envelope with our boarding passes. This envelope lets other employees know that we have a short connecting flight and gives us priority and skips long lines going through customs and immigration. We get through all that process quickly and smoothly and have enough time to go and eat a real meal. Salad is on our minds because we have been eating a lot of carbs the last two weeks. Our terminal doesn’t have a lot of food options, but we settle on a sit-down bar and take a look at the menu. We decide to share a cobb salad and a turkey melt sandwich. We each wash it down with a cold beer. Blue moon for me, in a glass with an orange slice. So yummy. After we are done eating and finish our beer, we pay the tab and it’s time to go catch our flight.

When we arrive at the gate, no one is there, and they have all boarded. It’s strange because there have boarded sooner than what it says on our boarding pass. The lady sees us coming and says overhead ‘Seattle?’ and we said yes. She apparently has been looking for us. If she was calling our names overhead, we didn’t hear it because the bar we were at had loud music. We apologize for being late and we head down the jetway only to stop half way. There is a line to get on, so we really aren’t that late after all. Another tap, tap on the side of the plane and we find our seats. No exit row this time but there is a man sitting in the aisle seat and he gets up, so we can get in our seats after making a joke the seats are taken. We recognize him from the flight leaving Haiti and tell him. Turns out his brother has SIX orphanages in Haiti and he had gone down to help him.

I’m all settled in and ready for takeoff. It’s gonna be a long flight, 6.5 hours. I’m excited now and no longer sad. I’m just ready to be home now. We talk to Brad, the man sitting next to us. He tells us his kids refer to him as B-Rad. Lol. I think that is hilarious and every time I meet a Brad from here on out ,that is what I will call him.

The flight is long and uncomfortable. It’s a newer plane but it’s still uncomfortable. Pilot comes on and says we are almost to Seattle. We will be in 30 minutes early. I try to send a text to Niles and my Mom to let them know, it will send once I have reception. Looks like I will be waiting for them once we arrive. The decent starts and so does the turbulence. This is common when landing in Seattle and I’m used to it. Megan hates it. I try to say and do things to distract her. We are having turbulence when suddenly the engines roar and the nose of the plane goes up. I tell Megan the landing has been aborted and she was like ‘noooo’. But I tell her the nose is up and the engines are roaring. She opens up the window shade and can tell we are gaining altitude. Then the captain comes on and says we can’t land due to the turbulence and we are gaining elevation and will circle around and try again. At this time, my text had gone through to my Mom and I tell her never mind, the landing had been aborted and we need to circle. Therefore, we will be on time.

The second attempt at landing was smooth. We actually land on time and once we’ve landed, I send a text to Niles and my Mom saying I’m home and I’ll meet you at baggage claim. Once at the gate, I put back on my shoes and gather my things. I say bye to Brad. Turns out he lives within a couple miles of me. What a small world! Megan and I get off the plane and head to a bathroom. We have drank 2 cups of coffee trying to stay awake. After the bathroom, we head to baggage claim. After figuring out what number claim to go to we head there. Awaiting there are Niles, my Mom and Tim. Mom has a bouquet of flowers for me and they all stand up with smiles on their faces and give me a huge hug. I’m happy to see them.

Niles gathers my bags from the carousel and I visit with Mom and Tim. Megan has her bag and her boyfriend James is there to pick her up. We all introduce ourselves and I say goodbye to Megan. I’m not emotional when I say bye to her because we live within 30 minutes of each other and can probably see each other whenever we want.

Once I have my bags, we head for the parking garage. We are parked on the same level as Mom and Tim. I say goodbye to them and thank them for coming. It really meant a lot to me to have them come all this way just to give me a welcome home hug. So sweet and thoughtful.

Niles and I get to the car and he puts my bags in. He hands me a red solo cup and a bottle of wine. He tells me to pour some and take a drink. Welcome home! The drive home is nice, and I sit and think about how lucky I am to live where I live. I’m going home to running water, electricity, heat, cooling, grocery stores, my friends and family, a dishwasher, washer and dryer, a vehicle, etc! I love my life and going to Haiti has made me grateful for what I have.

I get inside and dismiss my nanny. Its late and I want to go to bed. The kids are asleep in the living room. They were trying to stay awake to greet me when I came home but they couldn’t stay awake. I place them in bed, one by one. I try to wake them up to tell them I’m home but none of them wake up.

I take a shower, a nice hot shower. Oh, how I’ve missed hot showers. I climb into my nice comfortable bed and go to sleep.

Thank you to One Nurse at a Time for the opportunity to lead a group of nurses to Haiti. This mission would not have been possible without your help and the help of all the donors. This is something that meant a lot to me and I’m so grateful to being able to go and help the people of Haiti and save lives.

Day 14

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:21:00 GMT

Day 14~ Last clinical day for the Skilled Birth Attendants, Bassin-Zim waterfall, Packing to go Home and Break Time Disco

A day to sleep in and of course that doesn’t happen. I hear Ali wake up and I am not able to go back to sleep. I look at the clock and it’s about 730am. I get up and head out for coffee. There is some banana bread Celeste made and a take a small slice to go with my coffee. I go get dressed because the students are starting to arrive, and I don’t want to be walking around in my pajama’s.

Soon, all the students are there and it’s a bitter sweet day. It’s the last day. Months of classroom and clinicals, skills learned and it’s all done. They will be going into their internships from here and then hopefully hired. Their wages are about $4000 a year. Class starts, and Sam starts recording. The group starts to sing. This is normal everyday thing to do at the beginning of class. But, this time, they were singing from the bottom of their hearts. You can feel how much this song means to them and it sounds absolutely beautiful. I have no idea what words they are singing but I can’t help but start to cry. It is such an emotional song. I see Cindy walk away and start to cry. I completely understand why. This is a big deal. She has taught and molded theses students into wonderful skilled birth attendants and they are ready to fly the coup. The plan for the students today is to finish up some loose ends and interview with Sam. We are asked if any of us want to be interviewed or be a part of filming. I offer to do it. The first thing he wants me to do is to talk in front of the classroom. So, I do it and try not to be emotional about it. I am so happy for them and so excited for them to get out and start saving lives of women and babies. I am then asked to do some fake teaching. I teach some shoulder dystocia, and NRP. They already know it, but we are doing it for the film. Lastly, he does a one on one interview with me. This is something I don’t feel like I do well at. I stumble on my words and sometimes I feel like I don’t answer the specific questions asked. Once that is done, I start packing. I get most of it done and just have a few things left out for the rest of day and tomorrow morning.

Lunch is rice with vegetables in in, beef in a sauce and I slice up an avocado. After lunch, we get ready to go to the waterfall. Most of us go, Sara, Perrine, Canel, Judenel, Kelby, Cindy, Dan and the four of us girls. When we arrive, we give the money to Kelby to do the negotiating to the men at the gate. This time we have NO issues at all and they let us in. A handful of boys about 7 to 14 years old, pair up with us. They plan to help walk us up to the 2 caves to make a tip. The last time I came, the boys were very nice and helpful. They escort us to the waterfall and standby for the climb to the cave. All of us get into the water. I didn’t bring a swimsuit, so I take off my t-shirt and have a sports bra on underneath. I take my shorts off and swim in my underwear. I figure it looks like a swim suit AND I’m in Haiti so who cares!!

I enjoy a nice refreshing swim and go out to where the waterfall falls. You can’t go directly under it because it is too powerful. The girls all swim out to me as well as Perrine and the boys. Dan, Cindy and Sara stay near the beach and watch our stuff. I’m happy to be here. I spread my Dads ashes here last year. It is such a beautiful place. But it feels dark. A lot of voodoo happens here, and I can feel it. In fact, the 14-year boy that escorts me to the cave tells me ‘voodoo is my God’.

After we swim, we dry off and wrap our towels around us. Kelby tells us a little history about the place and we start the walk up the steep stairs to the caves. The first cave is relatively small. A lot of melted wax, burned rocks with black soot on it, white powder laid down and other signs of black magic are evident. I don’t like it at all. For all I know, being there will cast a spell on me. I don’t want to touch anything or go pass the white line of powder. Which I hear can be ground up human bones!!!

Once we are done seeing the small cave, we continue up the hill to the larger cave. We need to walk over a series of creeks to get to it. All the water is coming from underground and has carved out the cave over the hundreds of years. The large cave has hundreds of bee nests on the walls. You have to be aware of them, so you don’t accidently touch the walls. My escort has my hand and is good about reminding me to be careful not to touch that or the trees with thorns sticking out of them. It is natural to grab on to the wall or the tree as you are navigating your way through the streams into the cave.

Hundreds of bats are hanging above, and some are flying around. More and more start to fly the louder we become in the cave. There are ancient carvings on the walls. I’m not sure if they really are ancient or if some Haitian carved them in the wall to make the cave seem more appealing. We snap a few photos and start our decent down the hill out of the cave. We walk to the side of the hill and overlook the waterfall before it goes over the ledge. It is so stunningly beautiful. Haiti is such a gorgeous country.

The escorts help us down the hill and we pass by a garden with okra, squash and beans. Down at the bottom, I give each one of my escorts a dollar and a snack. There is controversy over whether or not to give them money. They stay home from school, so they can take a chance that someone will come and wait hours to make a little money if they do come. If you give them money, it encourages them not to go to school. I go ahead and give them money because I want to help them.

We walk back to the jeep and I tell the boys to each take off one shoe. I want to see who has the biggest hole in their shoes, so I can give them mine. Boy, it’s not an easy decision because they all need shoes desperately. But, I make my decision and give them to a boy who needs them and can fit into my small shoes. He thanks me, and we climb into the jeep and say goodbye.

The trip back is about 45 minutes. We stop and buy a dozen avocados and some bananas. There are many different varieties of bananas in Haiti. Some are very bright yellow and very sweet. Soon, we get back to the house and settle in for the evening. Dinner is our last meal in Haiti. Fries, Chicken drumstick, a yummy coleslaw that has no creamy dressing and a deep fried yummy puff thing. We also cut up one of the papayas to eat. I don’t really care for the papaya. There isn’t much food I don’t like but there is something about it that I just don’t like.

After dinner, I take a shower and start to get ready for bed. Then I hear a rumor of going out for the night. I’m not really feeling like going out since I was all settled in for the night, but I don’t want to miss out on any fun. I have given away most of my clothing and shoes to the Haitians and what I do have left is dirty. Winter gives me a shirt to wear and then I keep on the shorts I have on. We wait around for others to get ready that decide to come last minute and we are finally out of the house about 9-930pm. Celeste, Perrine, Stecy, Judenel, Arfet (I don’t know if that’s how its spelled), Winter, Canel, Kelby, Ali and me. Megan doesn’t feel like going out and Sam has work to do so they both decline.

We go to Zenith and Perrine gets out to look if its dead. She comes back and says no one is there. So, we go to the other disco called Break Time. It is very busy with only a couple places to sit. We pull a few tables up and order drinks. Prestige, rum and cokes, water, coke and other things. Our dance instructors show up and we take turns dancing with them. I am pleased with my dance lessons and feel like I have Konpa down. I should because it is relatively an easy dance to do. Kelby orders some food to eat and offers us some but there is no way I’m eating anything prepared outside of the house. No diarrhea and vomiting for me please. I’m almost of Haiti and haven’t gotten sick and I surely don’t want it now for my all day traveling home tomorrow.

Perrine and Kelby leave less than 30 minutes after getting there. Judenel drives them home and comes back to get us. We all dance and have a great time. At midnight we decide we better go home. We have to be up at 6am to get ready to go home. The waitress comes and tells us our tab is….$8. For everyone. The food and all the many, many drinks. Oh, my goodness!! Ali, me and Winter pay $3 each and tell everyone else it’s on us!!! THREE DOLLARS lol.

The ride home is fun. Judenel does a funny impersonation of Ronel. Ronel has a Tourette’s probably and Judenel makes us laugh by acting like him. Sorry Ronel, but your funny. Back at the house, we get ready for bed. Typical nightly routine. Meds and oils. But no blogging tonight. I need sleep to be ready for the long trip home tomorrow.

One last goodnight to Haiti....sniff

Day 13

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 11:30:00 GMT

Day 13~ Last clinical day at the hospital, buying souvenirs, orphanage

Time to get up and drink some coffee. I eat some toast and a banana and let the coffee wake me up. I have my bag packed already and it doesn’t take long for me to be ready. I go outside and walk out the gate to the awaiting locals with goods to sell. This time there are only 3 people, last week there was a lot more.

I walk around and look at what everyone has. I want to see everything before I commit to buying anything. I like to seek out unusual things. I have bought my items for One Nurse At A Time last week. The organization asks for its volunteers to buy one thing to bring back for their fundraiser/silent action. This time I’m looking for a cloth for Donna. I find it quickly and purchase it. I then want to buy some small things for the auction as well and then get some things for myself too. I buy a handful of things and then bring them back inside to pack. I set them on the bed because it’s time to go to the hospital.

Winter and I head out and arrive to the hospital. We walk to the maternity unit and it is empty. No patients. So, I set my stuff down and we walk to the postpartum area. Once there, Isabelle determines what patients the midwives want me to see. I assess both a mom and baby and help that baby to breastfeed. They are both doing well and getting ready to be discharged home. The stay after a vaginal delivery is 6 hours. Most stay a lot longer though. There is no one else for me to see so we go and check antepartum. There is a woman in there who is getting a lot of attention. I ask what is going on and Isabelle finds out the woman is 27 weeks with a bleeding placenta previa. They are giving her steroids to help with the baby’s lungs if she needs to be delivered now. I tell them if she isn’t actively bleeding, the delivery can wait, and she can be closely observed. There isn’t anything I can do at this time, so we head back to the maternity unit.

When we get back, I’m hoping that a woman that I saw walking with a dry IV bag, is in the unit in labor. Instead, she is sitting down, IV out, with her bag, waiting for her ride home. So, no one is in labor. Geez, I really want to take care of a patient and there are no students today. They are officially done, and tomorrow is their last classroom day. The students have been taking care of the patients at the hospital and since they aren’t there, I can solely care for them and I really want to do that. Since there are no patients, I start to work on making cord ties. They don’t use cord clamps, probably because it cost more than simple string. I cut segments about 5 inches long, wind them around my finger, slide it off and place it into a scratch piece of paper. In this instance, I was using saved outer paper packaging of sterile gloves. I probably make at least a hundred of them over the course of 30 minutes or so. I’m pretty bored and there are still no patients. After I am done with that, I make gauze squares. Yes, you read that right. For those of you who are in the medical profession, you know that gauze comes in different sizes, sterile, wrapped in paper packaging. For Haiti, they are large sheets about 10in wide by 12in long. One ply layer. They need to be folded in thirds both width and length. I probably did a few hundred squares over 30 minutes of more. It’s also a very boring task. Once I’ve had my fill of folding, I give the gauze and cord ties to the midwife and she takes them to sterilized in the autoclave machine they have. After they are sterilized, they are treated like a sterile item…sort of, lol.

I tried to stay as long as I could as I knew that this was going to be the last time doing clinical work in Haiti. But, at 1230 and being there 4 hours, there still are no patients and Winter and I were very bored. We call it a day early and let our interpreters know that they can go home.

We grab our bag, take out all the medical supplies in it and leave them at the hospital. We don’t need them anymore and I’m not bringing them back home. We walk out to our awaiting moto, climb on and go back to the house. I change out of my hot, sweaty scrubs and get some shorts on. Before long, lunch is ready. Okra and a few pieces of beef and of course beans and rice. I really like how they prepare okra down here. I usually add some hot sauce to my meals. I really like things spicy.

Winter and I are scheduled to go to the girl’s orphanage at 3pm. I grab all my bracelets, comb, brush and hair ties. When Megan and Ali went a couple days ago, the girls braided their hair and I wanted to have stuff available to do that if they wanted. Winter grabbed her Oreos she had bought and wanted to give them to the girls. I have never been there before so I’m not sure what to expect.

We climb onto the moto and drive through town. The orphanage is pretty large and surrounded by tall walls with barb-wire on top. We walk in and aren’t really sure where to go. There are groups of girls doing various things. We walk around, and no one comes up to us. Not sure what to do, we walk into a small building and decided we will give the Oreos out there. Winter opens the package and holds them out for the girls to take some. At first, it was slow. But the crowd quickly grew and became fierce. The ages of the girls got older and at one point an older girl comes and takes the bag away and is being very rude and mean to the little girls. In fact, some of the older girls take cookies from the little girls. Of course, this make them cry. I feel so bad for them but there isn’t much we can do about it. This is a way of life for these girls. I wish I could contact Oreo and have a huge shipment shipped to them.

After the cookies are gone, we walk out to the open area and sit down to play with the girls. There are 89 girls and only ONE adult. Some of the girls are 18 and they help but still that is a lot of responsibility for one person. I take out my brush and comb and give it to one of the girls who is playing with my hair. Winter sits down too, and a group of girls surround her and a separate group surrounds me. They are picking through my hair and it feels like they are monkeys and digging for bugs. After a few minutes of the picking and parting of my hair, I ask Winter what the girls are doing with my hair. She says she thinks they are trying to decide what they are going to do with it. Finally, I feel the tight tugging of them braiding my hair. On one side of my head ,a girl is holding my hair to the side. On the other side of my head, a girl is braiding cornrows. My eyes start to water because she is pulling so tightly. Before long, she is finished, and I have 5 rows. I had brought some hair ties for her to use on the braids. I had NO idea how much a hot commodity that would be! These girls were fighting over them. If I would’ve known how much the girls like and needed them I would have brought all the other ones I had too. Time is quickly going and our ride would be arriving soon. I started handing out the hair ties and once those were gone, I started to hand out my bracelets. I purposely seek out the youngest girls and forcefully place a bracelet in their hands. The amount of hands out reaching is intense and that is why I am grabbing their hands and forcefully placing the bracelet in them. Winter tells me our ride is here and I pour the bracelets out on the ground and let the girls fight over them. I then seek out the girl who did my hair and give her a baggie full of lemonheads. I tell her to share with the other girls. She speaks some English and I hope she understood me. But more importantly, I hope she actually shares.

We ride back to the house and it is time to surprise Toro with his moto. It has been purchased and the plan is to ride it out to his house with everyone on moto’s. We all get on the moto’s and drive out. The drive is so beautiful! There are times we have to get off the moto’s and walk through deep, thick mud or water. As we were making the trek to his house, I kept thinking ‘he walks this in the dark! I wander if he has a headlamp or something, so he can see where he is walking! I’m so grateful we are helping him with this transportation.’ We go till we can’t go any further, but we aren’t quite to his house. We can’t reach it by moto, too many ravines. We park and get off the moto. Perrine starts talking to him and tells him that we had purchased the moto for him. In typical Toro fashion, he doesn’t say much. He smiles, and you can tell he is holding back the tears. He eventually says ‘mesi’ or thank you. He then hugs every one of us including our moto drivers. He is very happy, and you can tell. What a wonderful gift to give him. I compare it to like someone showing up to my driveway with a Mercedes or BMW. It’s a huge gift and it will change his life and his family's life. Since he can’t drive it to his house, he pulls it up to a house close by and leaves it. I wonder why he didn’t ask the owner of the house permission but maybe they are close or something. I bet he will work out some kind of deal that he parks it there and in return he will provide rides into town or pick up supplies for them. We raised more money that was needed so we were able to also purchase a helmet, gas for a while and 4 month’s worth of anti-seizure meds for his daughter. What a wonderful day!!!!!!! We tell Toro goodbye and hop on the moto’s. Same thing for going home, on and off the moto to trek through very deep, sticky mud. We are all so happy and grateful today!!!!!

Dinner is ready when we get home. Haitian pizza is waiting for us. I grab a slice and talk to Sam. He is a cameraman with the Travel Channel and he is here to do a documentary on Midwives For Haiti. It’s interesting to learn about him and his life traveling. We lounge around for the evening and relax. Soon it’s time to go to bed. Tomorrow is our last full day and we are very sad about going home. All of us miss home but we are sad our trip is over. We have the option of going to the hospital in the morning or relaxing. We decide to relax. The plan is to go to Bassin-Zim waterfall in the afternoon.

Blogging, antimalarials and oils are completed, and I turn off the light and go to sleep.

Goodnight, Haiti!!

Day 12

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 10:58:00 GMT

Day 12~Giant Papaya’s, fundraising for a moto, mobile clinic, home visits, caught in a rain storm and dance lessons.

I wake up and step out of bed. Instantly, I feel my right calf is sore. Those dance lessons have me hurting lol. I walk out to the kitchen and on the table, are 4 HUGE papayas, each about the size of my head. I ask where they come from and Ali said Toro, our security guard, had carried them for 2 hours to the house for all of us. I tried to picture carrying all of those. Is it even possible? We are so grateful for the thoughtful gift. I later find out that he had place two in his backpack and carried the other two, but still! He walks 2 hours every day to work and 2 hours home, 4 hours in total of walking per day. There is talk between all of us how much easier it would be for Toro to have a moto and a mention of getting him one. But, it was just talk…at the time.

Winter and I are headed to mobile clinic today. We are ready and head outside to wait for the midwives. They have to pack up the supplies and grab the charts for the specific region we are going to. It’s time to leave and we climb in. At first, it’s just a few of us, but we stop and pick up translators and midwifes along the way. We also have 2 students with us too. Before long, there are 12 people in the jeep plus all the gear. There isn’t much room to move at all and the ride is slightly uncomfortable. We drive through town and to the outskirts of Hinche. We make a left turn onto an even more rocky, bumpy road. The road slowly turns into a walking path and at times it’s been washed away by the daily downpour of rain. This makes the ride and drive difficult for Ronel to navigate. But he is good at driving in these conditions and doesn’t even need to put it into 4-wheel drive. The ride made me reminisce of the days I would go 4 wheeling when I was a child. I miss it and didn’t realize till I was doing it again.

After about an hour, we arrive to the mobile site. Just a shack will some benches to sit on outside. That’s really all they need for what they are doing. There is a school next door and class is about to start. A few women are waiting our arrival and by the end of the day we saw about 35 women and about 4 babies. The clinic starts out with doing teaching to the patients. The basic stuff like: warning signs, when to go to the hospital, nutrition etc. Then woman’s charts are pulled. After that, Winter and I get busy doing vital signs on all of them. Most of them were tachycardic and a couple had severely high blood pressure. I’m sure some walked 2 hours to get there, so we repeat the blood pressures and if they are elevated give them the appropriate medications.

Next was doing fundal height checks and listen to fetal heart tones. Every single woman that I checked had an extremely small fundal height. If she was 27 weeks, she measured 22, if she was 18 weeks, she measured 12. I was having a difficult time believing the tape measure and I asked if it was correct. I didn’t want to believe it at all. But ,I kept checking because the midwife said it was right. These women suffer from lack of food and nutrition and so most babies have IUGR. Behind a make shift divider, woman are getting pelvic exams and testing for STI’s. If a woman was term she was given a matron kit to take home if case she goes into labor and can’t make it to the hospital.

Towards the end of the clinic, when we had just a few women left, I gave each of them a gift. I had taken some makeup bags I had receive from Ipsy and placed 2 each of shampoo, conditioner and bars of soap. I had saved them from hotel trips and a coworker also gave me some as well. They also had a granola bar, and a few had a tank top in it. Once we have seen everyone and they have started their walk home, we start to clean up and pack up everything. It's slowly placed either in the jeep or on top in the luggage rack. We all climb in and make the trek home. We get home a lot faster than getting there, less than 45 mins. On the way, we drop people off and get back to the house just in time for lunch. Pasta salad, chicken drumstick, avocado slice and of course beans and rice. Again, another delicious meal.

After lunch Winter and I get ready to go to home visits. I grab the backpack full of supplies and our moto is waiting and its Pleasure our driver and interpreter. We hop on the bike and head out. After some calling and searching, we find the woman’s house. She has a little boy and he is very leery of me, he has never seen a white person before. I give him a car to play with, but he remained scared of me. The woman was very sweet, and we assessed her and her baby. Both are doing well so we won’t need to come back to see her again.

I give some bracelets to some of the girls waiting outside, as usual we draw a crowd. Pleasure calls the next patient and we head off to her house. Oh boy was it a trek to get to her. After we drove through town, we pulled off a side trail and a woman is waiting there for us to guide us to the patient’s house. I can’t even describe what it was like to get there. Rocky hills, up and down many times, deep mud and carved out crevices from the rain water. We needed to stop many times and wait for the woman on foot to catch up to us. At one point, another woman was waiting for us and we walk with her for a while. Then we came to a point that the moto couldn’t continue. Too much deep mud, rocks and crevices. We parked the moto at a house and started walking. Down a steep hill and into a jungle like environment. I record our walk because I want people to see what the woman walked in while she was in labor to the hospital. When I stop and think about what woman in labor or just in pregnancy do to obtain medical care, it makes me so angry how some woman in the US are so picky and ask for so much. Where here they walk hours for medical care that some in the US decline and don’t want because they have read some bogus article that is very biased. Ugh, don’t get started Jess.

Finally, we arrive to the woman’s house and we are greeted nicely. The baby is a day old and mom and baby are resting in the steaming, humid home. I don’t understand why they stay in their houses. It is always so hot and humid inside them. We introduce ourselves and get permission to look over baby and mom. She says she hasn’t been able to breastfeed, so the pediatrician has recommended formula. We educated her that although it is okay to temporarily use formula, she really needs to keep trying to breastfeed until both her and the baby pick up on it. This is her first baby, so she doesn’t have any experience. Both her and baby are doing well all around, she just has pain in her vagina from her laceration. I take a look at her vagina and it looks normal and I teach her how to properly care for herself down there.

While there, we really wanted to see and help get the baby to latch on. The baby was sleepy, so we undressed it. Then I tried all my tricks to get the baby to latch. It was difficult, and we were running out of time. We can hear a storm coming and its getting closer and closer. Pleasure is urging us to hurry. I do really, really, good breastfeeding teaching and I was finally able to get the baby to latch on. We really have to go, so we quickly grab our things and say goodbye. Back up the rocky, muddy path to the moto. We jump on and Pleasure scrambles to get us out of there. A drop here and a drop there. The rain is starting. I look to the sky to the left and it is dark and ugly. The storm is almost to us. Pleasure is in a big hurry and starts headed down a hill with a deep crevice. The front tire goes in it and he loses control of the moto. Luckily, he breaks, and we come to a stop before we tumble over. No one is hurt but it’s a scary moment. Winter and I jump off and walk down the hill. Jump back on and we go up and down some more hills and through a stream. Back to the main road and Pleasure is able to finally really get going. The Haitian people are going crazy. Quickly packing up their things there are selling, jumping on honking moto’s, scrambling left and right. Winter relates it to a real-life game of Frogger. I start recording a video and the skies open up. The rain and wind are intense. Lightening and thunder erupt from above. I start to get nervous because the roads are wet and slick, and we are flying down the road with no helmet. Pleasure safely delivers us to the house and we run for the door taking our shoes off at the entrance. I go inside and change my clothes while laughing again about getting caught in a storm.

Dinner is ready, tuna casserole. I find out most the people in the house don’t like it. It isn’t the best but I’m hungry enough to eat it. I offer some of the food I brought from home to Cindy who doesn’t like the casserole, but she declines. After dinner, we help clean up and make ice. We have some down time and we are hanging out when the decision is made to start a GoFundMe account for Toro to get a moto. Megan did a wonderful job starting it and getting it going. We all donated and by the end of the night the campaign was doing so well that we needed to come up with a plan on how it was going to get purchased. We talked to some of the house staff about it and told them to go ahead and start the buying process because the campaign was going so well. We felt it would meet its goal by morning. Thank you to everyone who donated!!

Soon its 8pm and time for our dance lessons. We clear out the front room and make space or all of us to dance. This time we decide our dance lesson will be Konpa, a Haitian type of dance that’s very easy. We learn it quickly and dance and laugh. After we mastered Konpa, we work on our salsa lesson. My right calf starts hurting again! I don’t know what I’m doing that is making it happen, but, it’s happening lol. Every girl gets a chance to dance with one the dance instructors, so we can learn the dance with a male. I am doing better because I practiced on and off all day. But once I start dancing with him, and the rhythm is faster, I lose my step and mess up. I will keep practicing to get it down! An hour goes quickly, and the lesson is over. The negotiated amount of $5 per person is paid and the instructors leave.

I’m tired and so are the others. I gather my things for tomorrow and get myself organized. I get ready for bed, blog, oils and antimalaria meds.

Goodnight, Haiti!!

Day 11

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 10:23:00 GMT

Day 11~ Hospital, salsa lessons, lightning storm, Direct Relief boxes, family style dinner.

Another typical morning and I wake up to my girls getting up. I get up and head out to coffee. I really don’t want to talk to anyone until half of my coffee is down. I don’t feel like eating breakfast again, but I have snacks already packed in my bag for when I get hungry. We are anticipating a busy day at the hospital. I’m ready and willing to jump in there and bust my butt so woman can have safe care. From what I’ve seen, most of the care is good but there is a lot of room for improvement.

I’m ready around 8am and head outside. We are all going to the hospital and Cindy is headed into town for some groceries at the street market. So, she drives us and drops us off. We head into the hospital and set our things down in the midwife room. There’s talk about going to the ICU and checking in on our patient but Isabelle, my interpreter, asks for me to come into the maternity ward with her. There are 2 patients in there. One of them just delivered and the other was ‘finger tight’ a couple hours ago. I stay and get a sense of what is happening in the unit.

It doesn’t take long before the woman that’s ‘finger tight’ starts acting more vocal. I look over and she is pushing. She isn’t being very loud, just making some noises. The midwife asks for me to check her, 9.5cm. We listen to the baby’s heart rate and it is doing the typical dips during a contraction. This is common and okay as long as it doesn’t stay down and doesn’t go down too far. The midwife starts an IV on her and sets up for the delivery. Soon, the baby is crowning, and she puts on her gloves and delivers the baby. She places the baby on the Mom's belly and I dry and stimulate it. It doesn’t need much and starts crying and breathing well. After a few minutes, I take the baby over and complete an assessment, weight and measurements, and administer the medications erythromycin and vitamin K. I place a diaper on the baby and tight the cord off twice with sterilized simple string. I dress the baby and bring him to an awaiting relative outside. No one is allowed in the maternity unit with the patients in labor and they all have to wait outside. The room is too small to accommodate more people, but I don’t know if that is the reason why that rule is in place.

The midwife assesses the lady’s vagina and she has a second-degree laceration. She asks me if I want to repair it. I think it’s because another woman has just walked in and needs to be assessed. I tell her I’m not able to repair it because I don’t know how to and it’s not in my scope of practice. It takes the midwife over an hour to repair it. It wasn’t even really that bad. I’m pretty sure back home it would’ve been done in 15 minutes by our providers. I feel bad for her. But, it finally is done. She changes her clothes and places on clean underwear and a cloth for a pad. The midwife helps her up, grabs her IV bag and she is walked to postpartum.

There is nothing happening in the maternity unit, so we head off to find something to do. There isn’t much happening. Slowly, the rest of the girls make their way back to the maternity unit after they have done some assessments on patients. I tell them that the one lady in labor has delivered. Nothing else is happening and we decide to call it a day. We tell the interpreters and we grab our things. The motos are waiting outside for us and we hop on one. A short trip home and when the gate is opened we see the house staff dancing with 2 Haitian men. We thought at first they were just having fun but then I jokingly said, ‘are these your dance instructors?’ and they said YES! Ha-ha, these men were here to offer a trial dance lesson. They were learning a Haitian dance called Konpa, this is the Kreyol spelling and Compas is the French spelling. It looks like fun and their session is just about finished. The instructors are great dancers and I find out that one of the was at the Disco the night we went. I actually had taken a video of him dancing with a lady because they were so good. I show him the video and we laugh.

Now it’s our turn for a free lesson. They ask what kind of dance we would like to learn and start to list a handful of dances. We all decide salsa and I’m quite happy about that. Niles and I have always wanted to take salsa lessons, but we don’t have the time and its spendy. They start out by teaching us the basic step with our feet. It’s easy for most and I can do it as long as we are doing it slow. The moment we speed up or I’m dancing with a partner, I mess up. We all laugh at how hard of a time I’m having. One of the instructors takes me aside and does a one on one with me. It helps quite a lot. My right calf muscle is really sore from making the movement. I’m not sure why but it is lol. The next move is pretty easy to go into but coming out of it is hard for all. After about 30-45 mins of the lesson we are done. House staff and the instructors are going to negotiate an amount for the lessons to continue. At first, they wanted $8 per person but when we added that up between all the people getting the lesson, its A LOT of money in Haiti. It’s about $32 an hour per instructor. We left the negotiating to them but told them we would be interested in another lesson.

Lunch is ready! Haitian rice, chicken drumstick and salad. There’s always a sauce served with it and the sauce is yummy over the rice. Fresh squeezed passionfruit juice to go with it. After lunch, we decide to do the procrastinated Medical Relief Midwife boxes. There have been 32 large boxes donated and we need to go through them and inventory them. One by one, we haul the big boxes into the main big room of the house. We open them and start to take things out. After the first 2 boxes, we realize that there are just 2 different types of boxes. They contain just about everything you may need for a delivery and for emergencies, high blood pressure, hemorrhage etc. A list is made of the items in the box, boxes are labeled and then cared back to the storage area.

Perrine, Ali, Megan and I decided to go for a walk. It’s a nice afternoon and I want to get out of the house. We walk the route we have taken before. The boys from across the street walk with us a small way. The sky is half grey and half blue with clouds. When we get to the top of the hill a group of boys throw a small bird at us. Perrine scoops it up and for over 5 minutes the boy begs for it back. But she is not going to give it to him. She scolds him for treating animals that way and even threatens to go tell his mother. Eventually, he gives up and leaves us alone. Many times, when we are walking we are asked by children ‘Gimme a dollar.’ But there isn’t much asking involved, it’s more of a demand. We always tell them no. At the very top of the hill, I stop to take a picture of the rain falling in the distance. Megan mentions we are going to get poured on. Not less than two minutes later, the strangest thing happened. A fast-moving wall of rain comes our way. Then suddenly, all the animals and Haitians start running. We laugh at it but in hindsight it should’ve been a warning sign to us. If they are running, us white people probably need to be running too. The rain starts coming down hard and we take cover under a tree. A few kids join us under there. Haitians are closing their doors to their homes, taking outside chairs in and running everywhere. The rain and wind pick up, faster and faster. I start to record a video and we get very cold from the wind and rain. I cuddle up with the girls to try to stay warm. We finally decide to make a run for home. We aren’t staying dry at all under the tree so might as well head for home. Crack!! Lightning and thunder are above us. A rain storm like this happens just about every afternoon. Ali has told us she has been struck by lightning before, TWICE and we joke about how it could happen again. There are rivers of water forming everywhere and I joke and say a flash flood is coming over the hill. Just then a bolt of lightening cracks with such force and extreme noise I swear it was right next to us. If I were to put a distance on it, I would say 50 yards away. We all scream and scatter. Now I know why the Haitians and animals were running. My left arm is instantly numb. I’m not sure why, anxiety, electrical field? We all stay away from Ali, we are too afraid to be next to her. Megan is truly scared, Perrine is laughing at us, Ali is hunched over walking, so she isn’t the tallest one and I’m freaked out a little bit myself. What a scary experience. We hurry home and make it back absolutely soaked. I take my shoes off at the door and go into my room to change my clothes. Winter is in the room and I tell her what happened. She said she was worried about us because the storm was so bad. But we are glad we are home and safe.

I change my clothes and head out to the kitchen. Dinner is just about ready. Cindy has worked long and hard most of the day to prepare us a wonderful meal. Focaccia bread and spaghetti. Perrine has made an orange cake for dessert. The table is set and we all help get everything on the table. I make an olive oil, rosemary dip for the bread and others place the food on the table. Most of us take a warm piece of bread and take a bite while Megan dishes us all up. Oh my God the taste buds go crazy. This bread is phenomenal. We all oooo and ahhh over the bread and some have 2nds and 3rds of it. We have like 12 or 14 people sitting at the table. All the house staff including the security are included. It’s a wonderful meal and we are thank Cindy profusely! While still at the table, the cake is cut and served. It is also nummy!

The girls and I help to clean up the dishes and put the food away. It’s an easy task since there is 4 of us. Once it is completed, we rest for a while and then slowly head to our room to retire for the night. Oils, blogging and antimalarial meds have been taken and then I call it a night Good night Haiti!

Day 10

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 10:07:00 GMT

Day 10~ Hospital, Relax and Azul Feeding Center

It’s time to wake up but I’m really tired. I don’t want to get up. I want to sleep. But I drag my butt out of bed and go get coffee. I’m not really hungry so I skip breakfast. I have a bunch of snacks packed in case I get hungry. I get ready for the day and walk out to the moto waiting for me and Megan. Today we are assigned the hospital. We have our interpreters waiting for us at the hospital and arrive and set our bags in the midwife room. There isn’t much going on in the maternity unit.

We walk over and check on the ICU lady. She is doing much better and can talk clearer. She is sitting in diarrhea, from the antibiotics we are giving her. We complete an assessment and try to come up with a plan on things that are needed or not needed. We encourage the patient to speak up for herself and not allow the staff to treat her poorly. She shouldn’t be sitting in diarrhea and while we are there, they are getting ready to give her a bath. So, we leave the ICU so that she can have her bath.

After we check in with post-op and postpartum. Megan assesses a baby and finds it to be in respiratory distress. The baby is taken for a closer look at the NICU. I assess a baby and Mom and she has severe hypertension. I tell the midwife, but her reply is ‘she doesn’t have hypertension.’ I tell her ‘well she does now. She needs some medication’. The baby has 6 fingers on each hand. This is common in Haiti. Sometimes they just tie off the extra digit to let it die and other times they leave it alone. As a matter of fact, one of the little boys I gave food to yesterday at the park hand an extra finger near his thumb. When I handed him the food and he grabbed it, the extra digit surprised me and through me off cuz I wasn’t expecting it.

Megan starts to assess another mom who has been readmitted for a wound infection from her c/section. Perrine has told us that just about every woman coming out of the OR is developing an infection and they have been trying to figure out what’s been causing it. We decide to do a dressing change since the dressing is completely saturated with pus. Megan invites the midwife and the student nurses over for us to show them how to properly do a dressing change. While I was cleaning her incision, a large amount of pus starts coming out of it. She has been in the hospital for 2 days now, on antibiotics and I would think by now it would be getting better, but it isn’t. I tell the midwife she may need a different antibiotic if this stays this way. We also tell her to change the dressing if she sees any pus or drainage on it. If she doesn’t see any, it should be changed every 12 hours.

We head back to maternity and still nothing is happening. So, we go to the prenatal clinic. Megan and I divide up and I head into where they are doing prenatal checks. Woman are lined up to get inside. I’m not sure on how the process works but there are 2 waiting areas and we walk past both of them and go into a room. One of the male midwives is in there doing clinical care and prenatal checks. They have had their vital signs checked already. He asks them questions about their history and how they are feeling. I doppler the fetal heart tones and do fundal heights. One woman is due to have her baby soon and hasn’t had her labs drawn yet. When question why she hasn’t done it, she says she can’t afford it. I ask how much it is and Isabelle says $8 US dollars. I tell her I will pay for it. But the problem is the hospital doesn’t take American money. She will have to take a moto into town and exchange the money and come back. We give her strict instructions to do it and to not steal my money I’m giving her and use it for something else. I even give her 50 gourdes to pay for the moto taxi. I hope she uses the money for what I gave it to her for. But if not, I’ve still helped that woman in one way or another.

After about 8 or so woman seen by me, 3 nursing students came into the room. They have been seeing patients somewhere else. It’s not a good idea for me to stay there because its only one patient at a time and a lot of people there to help. Isabelle and I pack up and head back to the maternity unit.

Still not much going on there. A TOLAC, trial of labor after c/section, a 14-year-old girl not pregnant and another woman in labor. The 14 year old had been brutally rapped while she went to fetch water. Unfortunately, this is a common thing here and this is the 2^nd girl I have seen in a week who had been raped. She has scratch marks on her neck from the man holding her down. The doctor assesses her and find no lacerations or other things in her girl area that needs to be addressed. But now she needs to be tested for STIs, pregnancy and given antibiotics. This poor, young girl. I just wanted to hug her.

The woman in labor delivers and one of the skilled birth attendants students does the delivery. She does an amazing job and I am really proud of how well these students know what they are doing. She does the complete birth; baby, placenta and laceration repair. While being watched by her preceptor, Esther.

Only person left is the TOLAC. She has a long way to go still and its 1pm. Winter has come to the hospital because the students got done for the day. Megan and I have nothing really to do now instead of watch, so we ask our interpreters if we can just go home now. They agree, and we grab our things and head back to the house.

Lunch isn’t quite ready, and I am really hungry because I didn’t eat breakfast. Lunch is served at 2pm which is kind of late I think but I don’t make those decisions. We usually leave at 8am in the mornings so breakfast is ate by then and then the next meal is in 6 hours and dinner follows very quickly after. I’m sitting at the kitchen table and I’m very hot. Megan places an ice pack on my head and it feels amazing. Soon, lunch is ready and it's early. A soup with corn that has the consistency of potatoes, a little meat, carrots and then you place avocado in it. It reminded us a little like gumbo. We all want to eat it quickly but it’s hot, so we can’t. Plus, we are so hot ourselves and eating hot soup is hard to do cuz it just makes you hotter.

After lunch, Winter and I are scheduled to go to Azul feeding center. It’s not a great place to go because it really pulls at your heart. It is definitely a needed thing to do because these kids need the love from people.

We grab our things and head out. I be sure to bring the volunteer phone just in case we need to call Stecy again. We walk in and feeding time is finishing up. I walk right past all the kids and head right to where the burned little boy was. He was sitting in a chair waiting to get his snack. A porridge like drink. It looks and smell yucky, but the kids drink it and I’m sure it’s full of all the nutritious things they are needing.

The boy looks and me and he looks so much better. No more oozing or bleeding, the skin is less swollen and most of it has fallen off and not just hanging off. The lady tries to hand him a cup of the porridge but he is unable to wrap his fingers around it. So, I take it and feed it to him. Kiddo just drinks it right up. I go and get him some more. He finishes that, and I sit and talk with him for a while. He doesn’t mumble a word and just looks at me with these pitiful eyes and I just want to love on him. But I can’t because I know he is fragile.

I start to divert my attention to other kids I notice may need help with feeding and I help them get more food or help them to drink it. The lady that works there points over to a crib with a sleeping little girl in it. She must be between 2 and 4 years old. I walk over there and start to wake her up to help her eat. I notice that her right butt cheek, thigh and foot have also been burned. It is looking like it’s been a few days since it happened and its healing nicely. I can’t see what her foot and ankle look like because they are wrapped in gauze. I attempt to take her out of the crib once she has woken up, but she starts crying because she is hurting. She doesn’t want to stand nor sit on my lap, so I place her back in her crib. I start to give her the food and she sips it. The worker lady hands the young girl a spoon and the girl goes to town and eats it all in less than a minute. She is very hungry. I go and get her more and she eats it fast as well. But, she is finished and doesn’t want any more. I help clean her face and then I move on to the next group of kids.

The baby room, kids under two I would guess, has the most malnourished of the kids. These toddlers must weigh less than 10-20 pounds and their arms and legs are so skinny the skin is hanging off them and wrinkled like old men and women. Their bellies are protruding and rock hard. The typical look of the ‘starving African children’. It is very tough to see and be around. Some of them are suffering from other illness and we notice a lot of kids with fevers. I approach the nun about it and tell her, but she says that at 4pm she will be passing out the fever medication to all the children. All of them I ask? She says yes…oh my. One little girl has Band-Aids on each foot and hand as if they were attempting an IV start. Winter points out that she is looking drugged cuz her eyes are doing weird things. They place wet wash clothes on her abdomen and head and the nun tells us she has a fever. I think every child in the room has an upper respiratory infection. Coughing and snot dripping out of just about every kid. This was the same situation last year. They don’t use good hand hygiene and share washcloths from child to child. No wonder they are all sick.

The babies are standing up in the cribs and there is a concrete floor. The railing of the crib comes up to the belly button. If the kids lean forward, they will topple to the floor. That could really hurt a baby, but they don’t do anything to keep that from happening. These kids in Haiti behave so differently than the kids in US. They aren’t rowdy and just sit in chairs quietly.

I help get the rest of the babies fed. The worker lady tells me she needs me to feed a little boy. I pick him up and he is so frail. Just touching him hurts him. I try to feed him, but he won’t take it. He moves his head and grips his lips closed. I try and try to get him to eat because this little boy if starving and he will die if he doesn’t eat. The nun walks by and I tell her that I can’t get him to eat. She says that is normal in malnourished children and I have to force it down him. She gives me a spoon and says to scoop it into his mouth. Oh, how heartbreaking. I have to force fed this little guy. I am feeding him as best as I can when his mother shows up. I hand the job over to her and he eats well for her. Figures. The feeding center is not an orphanage and the parents are required to visit at least twice a week.

I see a little boy sitting in his crib. Maybe 2 years old and looks like 6 months. He is sitting up, resting his elbow on his knee and placed his hand on his head. He has silent tears running down his face. I’ve never seen a little person so sad before. The nun tells me that he is new, and he was just dropped off. I’m sure it’s a little like daycare or those first few days of school for little kids. The confusion of not knowing anyone and wondering where your parents are and why you’re at where you’re at. A lot of Haitian woman don’t work so this little boy probably never had a babysitter.

I pick him up and nestle his head onto my shoulder. I sit in a chair and rub his back softly. After 15 minutes or so I want to give the other children some attention, so I put him back in his crib. I really enjoy holding him and making him feel better, but every child here deserves some attention. He is sad that I put him down but not too bad.

I walk around the room and tickle kids and try to make them laugh. It is a very hard thing to do. These kids won’t smile. I try everything. They are just too sick or too sad. I got 2 kids to smile and one of them to laugh. It makes me happy to know that some can still show some sort of happiness or pleasure by having us there.

I go back to the boy and pick him up. We snuggle some more, and I give him one of the cars I brought. I show him how he can push the car and it will roll. I still can’t get him to smile. Before long, it’s time for Winter and I to go. I know I need to put him down and that will be hard on both of us. I’m sitting there holding him and the tears well up in my eyes. I look around at all these children suffering and it isn’t right. This shouldn’t be happening. If the facility wasn’t here, these kids would die. So, I’m grateful for the facility and the chance for these kids to live. I place him back in his crib and he start loudly crying. Oh buddy, your breaking my heart. I am so sorry I can’t do more for you. I pat him on the head and beeline for the door. I can’t look back. My heart is breaking.

We walk out of the gate and our moto is waiting for us. We get on and ride back to the house. Dinner is ready, but I really want to wait till 6pm to eat. I sit around and check my Facebook and do a little blogging. I decide to eat dinner. Shepard’s pie but not much meat. That is common here unfortunately. Winter and I have a rum and coke and we play Heads up a couple times, but no one is ‘feeling it’. Perrine comes down to the table with us and we chat for a little while. We are told that tomorrow is a national holiday, Jean-Jacques Dessaline, and we have the day off. A little while later, that changes and they decide we are going to the hospital. Apparently not a lot of staff at the hospital work on holidays and there are no repercussions for things like this in Haiti. So, they want us to go to the hospital, so we can help out if they are short staffed.

I go get ready for bed cuz I’m tired. I place my oils on, take my antimalarial and blog for a little while. Then lights out, again the last one to go to sleep. Good night, Haiti.

Day 9

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 07:37:00 GMT

Day 9~ Road trip for everyone, kitties, rural hospital, picnic in a cockfighting ring, building a cactus fence and a night out at the Haitian disco

Sunday morning, a day to sleep in. But again, it doesn’t happen for me. Coffee and toast for breakfast. The goal is to leave at 10am but we all chuckle because we are on Perrine time and sometimes that can be like ‘island time’. She has a few things to do in the morning and we are ready to go around 11am.

We all climb into the jeep. The four of us, Sara, Perrine, Jodenel our driver, and his friend, Brandy, Cindy and Dan. We drive down the bumpy, rocky road for about an hour and arrive to a small, beautiful town called Maissade. We drive through it and stop at Jodenel’s sister house. She is a graduate from MFH. She has some 5-week-old kittens and Brandy wants one. They aren’t old enough yet to take but she has picked out the one she wants. We are all sitting around and chatting on the porch. It's disrespectful to stand so chairs are always offered when we arrive to a Haitian's home. I need to use the bathroom, so I was graciously offered the pee bucket.

Next stop is the local rural hospital to visit Jodenel’s sister, the midwife, and see the maternity unit. It’s a very small hospital and we are eager to see the inside of it. We follow Perrine in and the first room on the right is the labor and delivery room. They have what they need but it's very old and broken. The leg rests are made of steel and one of them has a crack in it right where the knee would rest. This could cause the skin to get pinched or cause a laceration. I know they are trying their best to have supplies for the patients they serve, and I know it’s better than nothing, but oh my goodness is it horrible to see. I ask permission to take a photo and they say it’s okay. I want a picture also of the algorithms. One woman is in labor and walks into the room. We know its time to go so we say our goodbye's.

We are done and it’s time to go to the park for the picnic. We drive down some side streets and end up at the open field with trees and many different animals. Pigs, piglets, cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats. The road leads to an open ring that is a cock fighting ring. Cock fighting is a common here. In fact, many people walk around carrying their chickens like a pet. We all climb out of the jeep and the various snacks we brought for the picnic are unpacked. I have a ready-made meal with salami, cheese, crackers, trail mix and chocolate wafers. I walk away from the ring as I don’t want to eat near it, it’s a place of death. They are eating bread, PB, avocado and brownies.

Megan and Ali come over to me and we chat for a moment. Dan has brought some fun toys that shoot into the air and helicopter down to the ground. By now, as always, we have a ground surrounding us. I mean we kind of stick out. Why is this group of white people here in the middle of nowhere in our park? Lol.

We play with the children for a while and they are very aggressive about asking for a dollar and food. We give them some brownies and cut a couple banana muffins in half and give them out. Now we have a few adults around too. We give them some of the baked good and one of the kids doesn’t like it and drops it to the ground. They aren’t used to the rich, sweet treat. I see a boy who has a Seattle t-shirt on and I know its destiny, its meant to be that I give him the one Hot wheels car that I have brought with me. I give him the car and we take a photo together. There are some boys hanging around and we start to pack up to leave. They keep holding their hands out asking for food. I give them some, but they still want more. I end up giving away most of the remainder of snacks I have brought for everyone. I know these boys are hungry, so I really don’t mind. I have plenty of food back at the house and I won’t even miss that food that I am giving away.

We get back into the jeep and we head out to Jodenol’s property. We will be building him a fence. We have 2 shovels and another yard tool to use between all of us. We drive around, past rice fields and beautiful homes and scenery. The property we arrive at is small. We get out of the car and make a plan. There is a lot of talk about how we will make it a straight line. I think it’s silly, but that’s okay. We start digging. They soil is so rich, almost black, with a lot of smooth stones and clay like. Most of us take turns digging and some wait in the car. Over the course of 20 mins or so, a huge crowd of locals gather around us. I’m sure they are all criticizing how we are digging and one offers help but wants to be paid and we won’t pay him.

I break one of my flip flips while I’m digging but no big deal because Perrine gives me hers and when we trade turns digging, we trade a shoe too. I ended up leaving my shoes behind for someone. I figure they can figure out a way to fix it and make it useful.

Finally, the trench has been dug and we are ready to harvest the cactus and place into the trench. Pieces are cut off a neighboring fence and carefully carried over and placed in the trench. We lightly place the soil around it and then pack it in. That’s it. The cactus is very robust and will easy settle into its new home and grow. It takes us about an hour, but we are finished, and it looks wonderful. The kids have been bugging the ones in the car for money and are frustrated and ready to leave. We pack up the gardening tools and head into the jeep. Brandy gives the kids some lifesaver’s. It’s quite a big fight to get to them, pushing and shoving kids out of the way. But she is a sweetheart and gives the whole bag away.

On the ride home, we stop and buy a few bags of water. It just a bag. To drink it you bite the corner and suck it out. I don’t need one because I packed my bottle water but also froze a bottle of water the night before and have been drinking that. The rest of the ride home is bumpy but beautiful. Hinche is in the Central Plateau and is surrounded by mountains, literally. There is one point where the view is astounding, and I ask to stop so we can take a group photo. We stop and get out of the car. I have no shoes since I left them behind and as luck would have it, I step on a 3-inch thorn. Ali instantly helps me, and I lean on her while she pulls it out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t all come out at once and the tip is left in my foot. Geez, now my foot too? I also realize I have a blister on my hand from digging. I have all these issues with my body. My knee, which is feeling much better and the swelling has gone way down, my rash on my foot, an achy hip joint, a thorn in my foot and a blister on my hand. I mean really in the scheme of things it’s not that bad but it’s kind of funny when you think about it.

While we are stopped for the picture, a man drives buy on his moto with a coffin on the back. Crazy sight. I don’t think there was a body in it, but you never know.

We have to cross 3 or 4 rivers/streams to get home. One of them Jodenel had to place the car into 4-wheel drive. Always a fun adventure while driving in Haiti

We arrive home, and lunch is waiting for us. I am a little hungry, so I grab a small plate. A tasty beet salad, Haitian rice and a meat dish. Haitian rice has a kind of rotting smell when you stick your nose close to it, but it tastes okay. I love the Haitian food and they have been taking serious steps to ensure that no one gets sick. Washing and rinsing, using citrus juices to kill bacteria, buying from a known source. All help to ensure they are serving us safe food. I can’t help to get worried every time we eat though.

There is down time and we are sit around talking to each other and the house staff, chatting with family and friends from home or resting. The plan is to go out to the disco after dinner for the evening. Something we have been looking forward to all week. A moment to act silly and be amongst the Haitians. Dinner was empanada like pastry filled with cabbage, a little meat and some other things. I like it, but it has a lot of crust and not much filling. Once we are done eating we all try to figure out what we are wearing. Everyone but Winter didn’t bring anything to go out in. But, we are in Haiti, so it doesn’t really matter what we wear. I just put on shorts and a tank top and that works fine. I do a little makeup, just a little and keep my hair the way it’s been all day. As usual, we need to wait for Perrine to get some things done before we can leave. That girl is SO busy all the time, I’m not sure how she does it all. She is really an amazing person and I feel lucky to have met her.

Perrine is back from caring for a couple patients and it’s time to go. Megan decides to stay behind and recharge. We are sad she isn’t coming but understand. We climb into the jeep and 3 of the security/moto taxi drivers come with us. Not only are they our security but they want to go out for the night too. Perrine drives, and I ride shot gun with Ali. Zenith bar/disco is down town and when you walk into it, it’s an open-air club with trees and dance floor. It’s completely dark except for a string of lights here and there and the bar has a light. I’m thinking oh this will be interesting, no lights to see anything. We ask, and they say the city is out of power, so they are running on generator power and that’s why the lights are off. There is one light on the dance floor that they can turn on if they want to for a few moments.

Perrine goes to the bar for me and I order for a few of us: 4 beers, a rum and coke and another coke. It's less than $5! I was shocked. A beer alone back home is $5. I’ll gladly buy this round of beverages. Once we have our drinks we snap some photos but it’s hard to take them cuz the flash is so bright. It’s comical trying to get a good picture but we finally get one and we decide it’s the favorite picture of the week. The gentlemen don’t waste any time and ask us to dance. They are playing Haiti musicm konpa, and are pretty good dancers. I place my hand on his shoulder and they are so strong. These men work so hard and it can be seen in their physiques. None of them are inappropriate with me but I heard from some of the other girls they were trying to grind on them. HA, those poor girls lol.

We only stay about an hour, it’s a work night and it’s time to go. Some of us don’t want to, but when the boss says it’s time to go, it’s time to go. I have to quickly finish my rum and coke and that rum is so strong it burns my throat.

On the way home, the everyday thunderstorm comes through. Lightening and rain start happening and I jokily tell Ali to get away from me. This girl has been struck by lightening TWICE already, crazy! So, every time the lightening starts (it literally started thundering right now as I’m typing this!!) I tell Ali to get away, so I too, don’t get struck by lightning. We drop off one of the guards near his house and continue back to our house. We get in and hang around for a while. What a fun time, short but sweet. It’s time to go to bed though because we all work tomorrow. I am going to the hospital and have already packed both my bag and my fanny pack.

Malarone, oils but no blogging tonight. I’m tired. Good night, Haiti!

Day 8

jessicainhaiti — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 07:11:00 GMT

Day 8~ A relaxing Saturday, Market and an evening walk

A morning to sleep in but of course that doesn’t happen. I wake up and do my usually morning routine. Coffee and breakfast. I have a package of instant oatmeal, it hits the spot. I’m usually not very hungry immediately after I wake up. After, I get ready for the day. The plan is to go to the market with Perrine just for fun. We are told that Saturday is the day to go. It’s very busy and gives you a real feel for what it’s like. We decide its baking day. I have brought a box of brownie mix but while looking through the food, I found 5 packages of brownie mix. We plan to go on a picnic tomorrow and we would like to have some to go with us. So initially, I make 3 packages and it’s not enough to fill the pans. So, I make the other 2 and now we have 5 batches of brownies. Perrine and Megan get busy making more banana muffins. The batch she made a couple days ago are now gone. The house smells like baking and it smells wonderful.

Perrine has some things to do so we wait for her to finish up and while we wait I blog. Ali gives Cindy a haircut and the others call their families or hang out. Celeste is helping the cooks make lunch and dinner because she wants to learn how to do Haitian cooking.

It’s time to go to the market and Megan decides she would like to stay behind. We get on the awaiting moto’s and head into town. But first, we stop at the hospital real quick cuz Perrine needs to do a dressing change on an old gentleman who lives on the hospital property. She can’t find him, so we head out to the market.

It is so congested and full of people. Selling all types of goods. We are dropped off as close to the market as possible, it’s too busy to go all the way. Little huts set up with clothing, food, shoes and other misc. items. We walk in and have a few items we are looking for. American snacks and flip flops for Megan, cashews and soy milk for Sara and ice cream to go with our brownies. Winter would also like to find some sunglasses. It’s so crazy busy but we find the shoes and the cashews really quickly and head out to look for the snacks and the milk. We walk a few blocks and arrive at the store we have gone to before to buy rum and snacks. Once we are done there, we walk a couple more blocks and get to the store that has ice cream. Its air conditioned!! We grab 4 pints and split the cost. It’s a total of $15 for 4 pints of ice cream!! It's ok because we want it and it will be nice to treat the house staff with ice cream. We have an ice pack we brought and an insulated bag to put them in to transport them home without melting. We call for the moto’s to pick us up and they arrive quickly. Back to the house we go and we let everyone know we have the treats! We are all so excited to have a nice dessert tonight.

Lunch is ready when we get back, a meat, potato and dumpling soup. As usual, it’s very delicious. I make a piece of bread and butter to go with it. After lunch we just lounge around. I call and talk to the family. I miss them terribly, but it sounds like they are doing well. The next week will go quickly and I have mixed feelings about that. I love being here and helping out, but I also have a family and a job at home that depend on me.

Dinner is spaghetti noodles with a non-tomato based sauce, deliciousness! Then it’s time for brownies and ice cream. Everyone was in heaven. Lots of mmmmm’s happening lol. Plenty to go around as there are 5 batches.

After dinner, Perrine, Ali and I go for an evening stroll. We don’t go very far because its already getting dark. As usual, we have a crowd of children following us. These ones live across the street from the house and live with their aunt and uncle because their parents have passed away. This is very common in Haiti, orphaned children. It’s a nice walk but we head home.

The rest of the night we call or skype our loved ones and rest. We go to bed and do the usual routine. Oils, malarone, blogging and tucking in the mosquito nets. I love my team and have bonded well with them. It will be hard to say goodbye at the end of the week. But for now, I say goodnight.

Day 7

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:33:00 GMT

Day 7~ Morning walk, Matron training, Waterfall adventure, evening stroll with Haitian children, and game night

No need for an alarm, I am not able to sleep in. I wake up and head out to the kitchen. Grab some coffee and something to eat. It’s beautiful outside so I decide to go for a walk. I decide to walk behind the house. The last time we walked back there, a man followed us. I thought maybe one of the security guards asked him to watch over us but the other ladies were nervous so we came back. I walk up the dirt round. It’s not an easy walk because there are large rocks in the dirt and you have to watch where your walking. Many moto’s drive by with school children on them. Kids of all ages are walking to school which is located on a hill about 3 hundred yards behind the house. There are all probably wondering why a ‘blan’ woman is walking alone. I’m not at all nervous, these people know we are here to help them and treat us like movie stars.

I get to the top of the hill and go sit down. Before long, I have a crowd around me. They are all just wanting to be next to me and a girl touches my hair. I’m taking pictures of the scenery. Its misty or fogging like and its beautiful. The young girl motions like she wants to take my picture. I give her my camera and unfortunately, I’m facing the sun so the picture didn’t turn out well. But I still love it. A teenager comes over and speaks a little bit of English to me. It’s welcomed. I enjoy being within the community and be around the Haitian people.

I sit on the hill and realized I have a rash on the top of my foot. I had noticed my foot was itchy but just thought it was a bug bite. Now I have these raised papules that look fluid filled but aren’t. I think I have had this before because it looks familiar. I hope it’s nothing contagious or serious. In the matter of 15 minutes, the mist is gone and the kids are slowly going into the school. I look at the time and its 8am. We are leaving for matron training at 9am so I need to get back to the house to get ready. I say goodbye to the kids and start to walk back. Its already very humid and I’m sweating everywhere.

I pack up a small bag of snacks and grabbed one of the prepared makeup bags I have in case I see someone I want to give it to. I put on my One Nurse at a Time t-shirt and finish getting ready. Everyone starts to jump into the jeep that we have gotten back from Port au Prince. It has been fixed, thankfully. There are 2 students in there and one of them is Sheila. I worked with her in Cambestor last year and she remembers me. There is also a midwife and 2 translators, Sara and the 4 of us girls. It’s a very full jeep.

We head out and quickly arrive to the outside gates of a nun’s house. Ronel honks the horn a few times but no one answers. He gets out of the car and goes and opens the gate. We drive into this nice compound with various buildings and people walking around. Most are workers. The nun does come over and talks to some of the people with us. There are a few matrons waiting on us. Some have traveled for hours to get here. They take their job very seriously and want to learn more.

We wait while the building the training is happening is wept. While we wait, we take some pictures of us and the area. Soon, it’s time to go in. The set-up is very quick. They start out with a prayer and the matron song. The song is about of the warning signs in pregnancy, labor, delivery and postpartum. The training today is shoulder dystocia and delivery of the placenta. The matrons are giving strict guidelines of what to do when a placenta doesn’t easily deliver, what to do in a dystocia and what not to do. Its great training. Megan even gets on the floor and pretends to be a patient so they can practice. All the matrons say they have never seen a dystocia and I believe that because most babies are very small from maternal malnutrition. At the end, the matrons are called up and they tell the midwife how many deliveries they have had the last month. For every delivery, the get another delivery kit. For example, if they deliver 6 babies, they get 6 kits. They also get 100 gourdes, are about 80-90 cents, to pay for a moto taxi back to their home.

As we are leaving, an elderly woman about 70 is sitting down outside the building we are in. She rubs her belly indicating she is hungry. I feel bad because I just ate my snacks despite not really being hungry, just bored. Then I remember I have a makeup bag and it has some hygiene products in it and a granola bar. So, I give that to the woman and shelly translates for me. I also notice she doesn’t have shoes. I’m not going anywhere but into the jeep and back to the house. I have purposely brought extra shoes to give away as last year I had given a lot away to kids who didn’t have shoes. I take my shoes off and give them to the woman. She thanks me and tries hard to get them on. Her feet are wide and swollen but she manages to get them on.

She thanks me and we take a photo. I am pleased she will have some shoes now.

We all climb back into the jeep. The drive in about 5-10 mins back to the house.

We get back to the house and get ready to leave again. We are headed to the waterfall, about 45-minute drive, for the afternoon. We pack snacks, change of clothes and water. We are all really excited to go.

On the way, we pick up one of the new translators, Plaisir. We drive through town and into the countryside. It’s a beautiful drive and Haiti is such a beautiful place. Soon, we have arrived to the gate to the waterfall. A few men have been running behind the jeep and I mention they are going to collect money from us.

The sign says $5 US dollars for foreigners. We pull out $5 but Plaisir says he will take the American money because it is too far into town for the villagers to go to exchange it. His translating abilities are lacking. The villagers want more money. I’m not sure what the problem is but things started to get heated so we decided to go. We all agree that if we had better translation things would have been different. We can always come back another day so nothing is really lost here.

When we get back we have a conversation with Stecy about it so she knows. Now we have some down time to just hang out. We all just like the relaxing day. There hasn’t been much down time.

There’s talk about going on a walk. I would love to go and be part of the community. We leave and walk behind the house toward the meadow and prayer hill in the pack. Along the way, children start to follow us from various areas. The kids are so engaging with Perrine and she just loves them. We end at a cliff overlooking a river and a banana plantation. We stop and take photos with the kids posing like we are fighting with our arms up in fists. Great photo. It’s getting dark and we know it’s going to be dinner time soon so we head back to the house. What a great bonding experience with the kids in Haiti. I will always remember that walk.

Dinner is scalloped potatoes with chicken. It is very good just like all the meals we have had here.

After dinner, it’s game night. We have a round of Trivial Pursuit but no one but Brandy really like the game. It’s hard for me cuz don’t really follow celebrities, remember movies or watch much tv. But my team mates, Winter and Celeste are amazing at it and we win! No one wants to play another game of it so we switch to Heads Up. It’s like the game Headbands but for your phone. Hilarious!!!! We act out animals and other items, give clues of things etc. we laughed pretty hard. Time flies by and it 11pm. Time for everyone to go to bed. We clean up the mess and head back downstairs to our room.

Typical night time routine. Blog, oils, meds and fan. As usual I’m the last to go to sleep.

Goodnight Haiti, thanks for a beautiful relaxing day.

Day 6

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:31:00 GMT

Day 6~ Hospital, home visits and making matron kits.

Up and at it. I get up and head out to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. After I have woken up and had a couple cups of coffee, I head back to the room and get ready. Before long, its 8am and time to get on the moto and head to the hospital. I grab my bag, a bottle water and go.

When we arrive, we drop off our bags and head straight to the ICU. The nursing students are surrounding the patient and talking. I start to do a visual assessment on her. I start to education the students how to care for her. Things to look out for. Like blood clots in her legs and lungs. While telling the students the warning signs, I start to realize the patient is NOT moving her right side and is drooling from the right side as well. I say oh shit, she’s had a stroke. I start to ask her to move her right side, lift her arms, squeeze my hand smile, show me your teeth etc. Her right side is completely immobile. She can’t swallow. I just start to tear up. The students all looking at me. They don’t even fucking get it. She has 7 kids and now she can’t even care for herself and those kids will suffer and some may die. Without their mother, they can’t live. Someone else would have to care for them. If she can’t swallow, she can’t eat. Now it would’ve been better for her to die than to starve to death. In Haiti, they don’t do the necessary thing we do in the US to help a patient who’s suffered a stroke. With the students watching me, I beg them to care for this woman properly. She needs frequent checks, every 15 or 30 minutes. Positon change every 30 minutes. Don’t let her drink before a doctor can assess her as she can choke, aspirate and die. I am so pissed off. This is that horrible doctors fault. She probably had an ischemic stroke when she had an extremely critically low Hematocrit of 3 or so causing hypoxia to the brain. No oxygen being cared by the hemoglobin to the brain. Absolutely horrific. Everyone is quiet. NO one knows what to say. The woman can barely talk because her mouth and tongue aren’t working. But she sure can hear what we are saying. I can’t imagine what she is thinking or how scared she may be,

We check her labs. Her hemoglobin is 3 and hematocrit 9 AFTER one blood transfusion. I can’t even imagine what it was before that and how this woman is still alive. HOW? I just can’t wrap my mind around it.

We head back to the labor ward and there are busy. A woman just delivered and 2 more were in labor. One on the end is HIV positive so I am warned to be careful while caring for her. Another has a huge belly and I ask if she is having twins. The midwife says no but I am having a hard time believing that.

After getting information on the patients, I just sit back and watch. I offer help, suggestions, and occasionally do some patient care. I young girl comes in and I’m asked to get her vitals and check her cervix. I start to do it and Isabella, my interpreter, tells me that patient is nearly impossible to check. She had come last night and she wouldn’t let anyone check her cervix. I talk to her and tell her what I’m doing. Instructed her to take some deep breaths and relax. Every time I get close and it’s time to insert my fingers, she slams her legs close and won’t let me. She is 17. Pregnancy has been the result of rape. A common tragedy in Haiti. I try a couple more times, but it’s not happening. She is preterm and we really need to determine. The doctor comes in and puts gloves on. The midwifes ask me to help the hold her down. I grab her hand and help hold her while the doctor checks. In hindsight now, I wish I wouldn’t have been a part of that. She was very traumatized by that. I’m the one that while stand out though. I’m the white girl near her face. And I feel horrible about that now.

She is 4-5 cm and not having regular contractions. They send her to the antepartum unit for now to wait and watch. I continue to watch the other ladies laboring. It’s not long before the woman on the end is getting ready to deliver. The skilled birth attendant student will be doing the delivery with her preceptor overlooking her. I offer her one of the paper gowns that I have brought from home. She is the kind of patient they should be preparing themselves for and protecting not only themselves but other patients.

There is a dirty bed from the previous delivery needing cleaning. The bed is covered in blood and the housekeeper comes over with a bucket and rag. She wipes away the blood, turns over the rag and washes the rest of the bed. Never rinses the rag and just keeps wiping. She is done and I can’t even imagine the amount of blood on that bed. The next patient is there and waiting for her to wash it. She has been outside making a lot of noise, waiting for a bed. I actually place gloves on outside and follow her because I think she is going to deliver outside.

Once the bed is ready she climbs on it. I do an immediate assessment on her. Vital signs, fetal heart tones and then I’m ready to do a cervical exam. As I’m getting gloves on, I look over and the baby is starting to come. We tell the midwife and she starts to grab what she needs. This patient hasn’t even been in here 5 minutes. The baby is delivered and I stand by to help the midwife with drying and stimulating the baby. He came out so fast, he was a but stunned but by 1 minute he was breathing and starting to cry. After the placenta, the mom has some increased bleeding. The midwife does a fundal check but she isn’t very aggressive about it. I try not to get involved but after the 2^nd trickle of blood, I know from experience that the patient has clot that needs to be expressed. I go over and do a proper fundal check and firmly press down. A large amount of blood and clots come out and the midwife looks surprised. I tell her that she needs to be aggressive when she sees that kind of bleeding. Especially on a mom who just had her 4^th baby.

I want a few minutes and check again. More bleeding but no clots. We get some miso ready to give but when she checks the fundus again it’s okay. She we hold off. She doesn’t have an IV since she delivered quickly. She received Pitocin IM right at delivery. Another check by me shows another heavy bleed. I tell the midwife she should give the miso and if that doesn’t work she needs to start an IV and do IV Pitocin. She gives the miso and we wait, I check off and on. Some times its okay and other times it’s a moderate amount. I let the midwife do the management of the patient and give my attention to the ICU mom.

We walk in and ask if the doctor has been by to see her yet, no. We go and find the doctor and ask for him to assess her. A while later he comes in and I tell him she has had a stroke. This is the same doctor that pulled the babies out and caused this big issue. He has a confused looked on his face when my translator tells him. He is in disbelief. I show him, he assesses her and says it’s a temporary thing and she will be okay. I surely hope so, for her sake. I can barely look at him. He is disgusting, a horrible person.

We check in on the postpartum unit. I want to see the patients I cared for yesterday. While there, I see everyone and they are all well. We are asked to help assess a mom and baby. I do the full assessment on both and give the mom some bp medication. We hear some moms in the labor unit and go back.

The mom who looks like she is having twins has been checked and the doctor has order Pitocin augmentation. She has moments where some contractions are intense and others she doesn’t even make any noise.

A 19year old comes in and needs a D and C. She has taken illegal miso to induce an abortion. The doctor is going to do the D and C right there. He starts to set up and I question why this isn’t being down under anesthesia. Isabella say some do it that way and some don’t. I think this poor girl is about to be tortured. I watch as the do all the skin prep and he inserts a speculum exam. No one is giving this girl any support so I step up to her and take her hand. This is going to be incredibly painful and she will need a hand to hold. He inserts some lidocaine inside, I’m guessing around her cervix. She screams out in pain. He can’t really see what he is doing so I offer him my headlight and eye shield.

He inserts more lidocaine and she is crying. I hold both her hands and help to keep her from climbing up the bed away from him. The whole procedure took about 30 minutes. I stood there while she sobbed and screamed in pain. If I wasn’t there, I’m sure no one would’ve given her any compassionate care. I hope she appreciated what I did. There was no way to know. Maybe I wasn’t helpful to her. Maybe she was glad I was there. I don’t know.

There was a little boy, age 7, who had diphtheria in the ICU Monday and then died on Tuesday. I haven’t had my vaccine in a few years. So, we told everyone who was in the ICU they needed to be vaccinated. I will update mine when I get home. I feel sad when I hear that he didn’t make it and think of my own sons. The pain his parents must be experiencing. An everyday thing here, preventable deaths. My patients sometimes refuse medications, vaccinations etc. Some that Haitians would walk hours or go days without eating just to be able to purchase them. It’s hard to watch when you know some Americans are refusing these much-recommended medications.

Time quickly approaches 2pm and its time to go home for lunch. Isabella calls me a moto and once it arrives she says goodbye and goes home. I arrive home to a busy house with students leaving and instructors are all around. Lunch is ready, rice, beans and a meat dish. Fresh limeade. Not much time to relax because Winter and I are sent out to do home visits with Kelby.

We climb on the moto’s and Kelby takes us to where we are going. It’s confusing because there are no street signs or house numbers. How does someone know where to go? It’s crazy. Turn left at the chickens and then an immediate right at the garbage pile. Lol.

We are riding along when someone yells out at us. It’s the woman and her baby. We stop and turn around and are welcomed. Most are happy we are there and offer us chairs. We pick who is going to check out the baby and who will check out the mom. I decide on the new baby. Both check out great and the baby is gaining a lot of weight. I give big sister a bracelet I made and then we say our thanks for graciously allowing us to assess them. Kelby calls the next house and we are ready to go. We arrive at a very poor home. The mother is 2 weeks postpartum with a c/section and had been readmitted to the hospital with a fever. She complains of pain in her lower abdomen and she has not felt well. Her vital signs are normal but when I look at her incision it is infected. Yellow pus and the incision is open. Her baby is doing well but breastfeeding is a concern. I urge the mother to go to the hospital but she isn’t able to. She is depressed as her pregnancy was twins and one of the baby died. She is unable to leave today so I clean her wound and instruct her and her husband how to do it and how to care for it. She can go to the hospital tomorrow. I give her some pain medicine to take as well. We watch the baby latch on and offer any suggestions we see that may be needed. There are a few children standing by. As usual, we always draw a crowd wherever we go. I hand one of the boys a car and the girl a bracelet. Then I ask if I can have a picture of them. They agreed and I took a picture and then shoed them it. They are so shy at first, Haitian kids. But once you engage with them, they want to hold your hand, play with your hair, ask about your tattoos and be your best friend. I love these children here in Haiti.

We have one more stop to go to. A newborn just a couple days old. Standard postpartum home visit. It’s extremely important that we visit these families. MFH has found many, many complications and have saved lives with this new program. We get back on the moto’s and Kelby takes us to where we need to go. A man is waiting for us in the general area and we get off the moto’s and follow him behind some buildings. We walk past some Haitians doing their hair and up to the woman’s porch. Another tiny house, about the size of a small bedroom, but it has carpet laid down so we remove our shoes. Winter remembers her from the prenatal clinic. Both her and the baby are doing well and we assess them both. No problems for either of them except she has elevated blood pressure. She has been given meds but she doesn’t like to take them because they make her sleepy. We think she is becoming hypotensive but we can’t tell her to stop taking them. We instruct for her to follow up with the clinic soon. I have a small bag with some shampoo, conditioner, soap, granola bar and a shirt. I give it to the mother and tell her what to use it for…. all through the translator Kelby.

We are down and head back to the house. Dinner will be waiting for us. A robust soup, beef (or goat), carrots, potato’s and a rich, thick soup base. Delicious. I have a piece of toast with it too. We have matron kits we need to finish making for tomorrows matron training. So, we all sit down and do about 50 of them in about 20 minutes. I enjoy making them, it’s so simple but so needed. After making the kits, I take a much-needed cold shower. The water isn’t heater. Even though it is shocking at first, it feels good after a while.

After my shower, I pack my bag for the morning. We get to sleep in because we don’t leave until 9am. We are all looking forward to that. Slowly, we are retiring to our beds. I’m always the last one up, getting caught up on my blog. I’m about 2 days behind and I would like to get caught up. I also don’t want to miss or forget anything so I like to add detail. Sometimes I don’t go into as my detail as I would like because I am so behind.

I take my malerone, place on a lot of oils, plug my phone in to charge and turn the computer off.

Good night Haiti.

Day 6

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:31:00 GMT

Day 6~ Hospital, home visits and making matron kits.

I take my malerone, place on a lot of oils, plug my phone in to charge and turn the computer off.

Good night Haiti.

Day 5

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:29:00 GMT

Day 5~ Hospital, NRP, ICU patient, Azul feeding center.

Rise and shine! Yippy its hospital day. I get up and head out to get some coffee and breakfast. A piece of toast and a banana should do. I’m so glad I have brought my powder creamer. It makes my coffee so much better but still not quite as good as id like.

I go back and get my scrubs on. I pack up my fanny pack with many gloves, hand sanitizer, fetal Doppler, US gel, thermometer, alcohol swabs, misoprostol and erythromycin eye ointment. I place other things in my bag that I know I will need for the hospital. I finish getting ready for the day and it’s time to go.

My moto is ready and I hope on. I’m so ready to get to the hospital and start caring for the patients. First thing on the agenda is to check on the ICU mom. Shelly and I go over and she is laying in a weird angle. She is a big, tall woman and you can tell she is heavy. She has edema everywhere. Her heart rate is fast and she is breathing hard. She has brown urine and little of it. Her IV hanging is not dripping and we find out it was hung 10 hours earlier and no one has even checked it. Shelly on I start to do an assessment on her and I start to mention all the things that can be easily fixed or simple things that are being ignored. She needs to be closely watched and assessed every few minutes. We tell them a handful of things to do and we go back to the labor and delivery unit.

We get a feel with what is happening with the patients there. One is having twins and is going to c/section. There are 2 or 3 more in different stages of labor. I find out the basic information on them. What number baby are they having, gestational age, cervical exam, any complications of pregnancy they may be having. One lady has a large belly and they say she is 32 wks. I assess her and totally disagree. But when I tell the midwives they don’t listen. They give her steroids for the baby’s lungs and nifedipine to stop the labor. All it does is slow it down and then she goes back into a regular labor pattern.

After seeing that not much is happening in maternity, we head over to postpartum and assess some patients there. We know that the new twins are born and are awaiting the mom’s arrival to postop. Its taking a long time and we are begging to get worried. She has a boy and a girl. The girls head is shaped strange. I can’t put my finger on it and think maybe she was breech and that caused the strange flat sides. Her face is small though. I decide to check on her the next day.

We spend the next few hours bouncing from ICU, maternity and postpartum. Frequently checking on mom in ICU ensuring that she is getting the care she needs within the capabilities we have in Haiti.

The laboring woman get louder and we know to go back to maternity. The 16-year-old is getting close and the government midwife student is getting set up for her delivery. The have a ‘delivery’ tray full of sterile instruments, bulb syringe and resuscitation equipment. She suddenly is crowning and I happen to have gloves on and prepared. The government student is not. I apply perineal pressure so she doesn’t tear. The student is ready and I let her finish the delivery. Winter goes on the other side of the momma for help. The baby comes out stunned and needs some help to breath. Winter and I do our magic and I can’t help but think, 4 of the students I had just taught NRP to yesterday, are now watching me do it. Luckily for us. Baby comes around quickly and we hand over care to the midwife student.

One of the other woman laboring has had a prior c/section. The doctor comes and evaluates her and says she can deliver vaginally. She has had a vaginally delivery after C-section already so this mean she is a good candidate for it. The doctor tells the midwives to augment her labor with Pitocin. So, they inject into her IV bag. It doesn’t take long and you can watch the ladies labor get more intense. Within an hour she is contracting very frequently and I notice her belly change shape. I instantly think maybe she has had a uterine rupture but she isn’t experiencing extreme pain. I palpate her abdomen and I don’t feel any obvious fetal parts. No students are managing her labor, only a midwife so I offer my help. I see the midwife tell a nursing student to adjust her Pitocin drip faster. I swear within 10 mins that baby was born. No fetal heart tones were listened to for quite some time. The woman quickly delivers what looks like a dead baby covered in think pea soup meconium stained fluid. Everyone in the room gasps because the baby looks dead. I think ‘oh fuck’ and Winter and I start doing our magic. We stim the baby and winter listens for a heart rate, above 60bpm. This is not good news but at least we know we have a chance. After sucking the baby’s mouth and nose really good, we stimulate the baby well and try to get it to breathe. NO luck. I grab the bag and mask and start breathing for the baby. I’m not getting a good seal and I can hear it making noises. I can see some chest rise but I know it’s not the best. I ask Winter to grab the bulb syringe and we suction again. We ask the midwife to please cut the cord. This baby needs to be rushed to the NICU. She cuts the cord, grabs the baby and we hustle to the NICU. We barge in and request assistance. There is still little to no respiratory effort but the NICU nurse asks me to stop bagging the baby. I’m shocked by this. We are at 5 minutes of age and no respiratory effort. This baby is going to die if I stop doing interventions. I do as she asks and step aside. I’m good at NRP. I know I’m good. But I don’t have the same tools here that I do in USA. So, they know their equipment and work with this all the time. The limp, pale baby is laying there as she gets her equipment ready. I see some occasional shallow breaths, maybe 10 per minute. She starts rubbing and stimulating the baby and I just want to yell, ‘we are past that point, give the baby oxygen”!! We are asked to leave as the nurses are very protective of the NICU and don’t like people in there. I later found out the baby was still in the NICU but doing okay. Thank God.

We go back to the maternity ward and help get the mother cleaned up. It’s almost time to go for the day. We head pack to check on ICU mom and the twins’ mom. As we are walking to ICU we see the woman come out of the OR. She has had a postpartum hemorrhage and you can tell by looking at her. I do a quick assessment on her in the post op area and she is severely hypotensive. I start quickly yelling out things I need to save this woman. I think, ‘here I go again, saving a life.’ I give some miso, demand pain medicine, give her another sheet to stay warm as she is hypothermic (imagine that in a hot and humid climate), encourage frequent fundal checks and close observation. When I checked on her later she was doing much better.

After a final check on the ICU mom, it’s time to go. I want to donate blood to the ICU Mom. We walk next door to the Red Cross and I start to fill out the paper work. I can’t donate blood if I’ve had a tattoo in the last 12 months. Well I have but I know my blood is clean. They test it anyways before giving it to anyone. But I want to also be honest. So, I’m totally bummed that I can’t donate. My blood isn’t compatible to the mom but in Haiti you need to give a unit of blood in order to receive a unit of blood. They just don’t give people blood.

We get a moto’s and head back to the house. When we arrive, class is finishing up and it’s time for lunch. Soup with meat, potatoes, carrots and dumplings. It is very good but why soup? It’s extremely hot outside and it’s not the best meal. But, I’m hungry and once its cooled down, I eat it. I make a side of toast for it too. I guess the cooks don’t make fresh squeezed juice when they make soup.

After lunch, Winter and I are scheduled to go to Azul feeding center. It’s a sad place but a much-needed place to go. We arrive just as a rainstorm is starting. We walk through and I lead Winter to the baby room. The workers in there are just finishing up snack time. Some liquid that reminds me of cream of Wheat. We ask to help feed and they point to a baby who hasn’t feed yet. I pick him up and give him the cup. I was so surprised with how hungry he was and how fast he ate it. I tried to stop and let him take a breath as I was holding the cup up to his mouth but he would start to cry and push it back up. He finished it fast and I got him so more but he didn’t eat of that. After, we helped get the babies cleaned up, changed and into their cribs for nap time. At the center, they are not orphans. Just children who have malnourishment. Their families are required to visit twice a week. A baby about 9 months old was crying so Winter picked him up. She tried for some time to settle him down but he kept saying Mamma and looking at the door. I took the baby and tried too. The caregiver was saying something but I didn’t understand but it made me think the mom was either out there or had left. After about 10mins, the mom showed up and took over caring for the baby.

We left the age group and went and played with ages about 4 to 6. These kids just wanted to pick them up and they would crawl up us. It was bit much so we didn’t stay there long.

We left that room and went to the 2-4 age group. Before we entered, we heard a child crying. I wasn’t expecting to see what I saw when I came around that corner. I an extremely burnt baby. Half his face, right had was completely burned down to the muscle and left hand about 50 % burned. Some burns on both arms. You can see its incredibly painful, it has spots of blood on his face. I want to cry. I want to be mad. I want to help and I want to know who, what, when and why! I go and find a nun for answers. She tells me the baby was left at home while his mom went to the market. While she was gone, the baby got into boiling water and she found him this way when she returned. I can’t even imagine how that baby felt when it happened and no one there to help him. The mom can’t afford the hospital so she took him to the feeding center as she knew she wouldn’t be charged. I told the nun I wanted to help. This baby needs pain medication and needs its now. She said the baby was getting meds every 12 hours!!! Are you serious? I told her that wasn’t frequent enough and the baby was being tortured! I would pay for the meds if it was necessary. She told me she would talk to the other nun and she will come find me and let me know.

We went back to the baby and the caregiver had taken him out of his crib. It was covered in dead skin and wet marks from oozing. I sit next to him. I wanted to hold him badly but I don’t want to hurt him. He looks at his hands, back and forth. I pull out a matchbox car and try to hand it to him. I realize he can hold it. So, I push it around near him. Dear God help this baby. I don’t want to leave him but its time to go. As we are leaving, the nun finds me and says thy will be increasing the frequency the baby gets pain meds to every 4 hours. I was so please by this! We thanked the nun and we walked out. Both in silence over the rough day we have had. A burned baby, a dying Mom, saving 2 babies lives. Postpartum hemorrhage. A septic mom in postpartum. It can be so taxing on your soul. I can barely keep it together.

We are to meet out moto outside the feeding center. We wait some time standing outside the centers gate. Many Haitians walk by, some very slowly while staring at us. A woman comes by, stops, stares and then comes over to talk to us. We of course don’t understand her. Winer takes out her phone to try to use a translator app she has. But it isn’t working. I think she trying to tell us someone needs our help. She is having a baby and is sleeping. I decide to call Stecy to use her as a translator, plus our ride is late. Once I get Stecy on the line I ask where the moto is and she said he should be there soon cuz she called him a long time ago. Then I tell her a woman needs to talk to her. Apparently, the woman’s daughter and baby died in childbirth and she is asking for money to bury them. We of course don’t have money for that and I don’t have anything on me. We decline and send our condolences and our moto shows up just in time. Geez, really, can our day please get better not worse! We climb on the moto and head home.

When winter and I arrive back, we are asked to work on the matron kits. We will be handing them out on Friday when we train them at a meeting. It’s a very basic kit. A set of gloves, 2 strings, a small piece of soap, razorblade, 2 gauzes and a paper chux pad. Winter and I are doing them when we decide to go across the street and buy a beer. We head over and the other girls show up and want to go too. We get a beer for our security guard as well and head back to our gate.

Dinner is ready shortly after and we all sit down to eat. A yummy pasta casserole. While we are sitting for dinner, we all start visiting and chatting and we decide to play my ‘Watch your mouth’ game. It was really very funny and we all laughed very hard!!! Love this game and introducing it to people who’ve never played it before. I really needed some comedy relief that night.

Shortly after we are done, we head to bed. The typical nightly routine, pills, oils and blogging. I pack up my bag for the hospital tomorrow because I don’t want to worry about it tomorrow morning.

Fan blowing in my face to stay cool and off to sleep I go.

Day 5

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:29:00 GMT

Day 5~ Hospital, NRP, ICU patient, Azul feeding center.

We spend the next few hours bouncing from ICU, maternity and postpartum. Frequently checking on mom in ICU ensuring that she is getting the care she needs within the capabilities we have in Haiti.

We left the age group and went and played with ages about 4 to 6. These kids just wanted to pick them up and they would crawl up us. It was bit much so we didn’t stay there long.

Shortly after we are done, we head to bed. The typical nightly routine, pills, oils and blogging. I pack up my bag for the hospital tomorrow because I don’t want to worry about it tomorrow morning.

Fan blowing in my face to stay cool and off to sleep I go.

Day 4

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:27:00 GMT

Day 4~ NRP, home visits, supply inventory and horrific news.

Awaken to multiple alarms going off at one time. We all get rather quickly and start our day off with coffee and breakfast. I only have a banana this morning as I’m not that hungry. The coffee is alright and I’m feeling lucky to have it but I surely miss my Seattle coffee.

After breakfast, we get cleaned up and ready for our various destinations. Some are mobile clinic, hospital and classroom. While we are getting ready, Perrine comes in and has been crying. She asks who took care of the woman with twins the day before. Apparently, she has heard horrible news. The lady had 2 footling breech babies. She was begging for a c/s and her tubes to be tied. Sometime is the day the ‘doctor’ decided to pull both babies out of the mother at 8cm dilated. HORRIFIC and BARBARIC. I can’t even describe how painful that must’ve been. She passed out from pain after the first one and when the second one came out the placenta came with it. She was immediately brought back for emergent surgery by another doctor and he removed her uterus. She was in a coma and in the ‘ICU’. We were to check in on her today if we were going there and to bring some formula for the twins. Dear God, did I just hear her right. He ripped those babies out of her?? He would be arrested and sent to prison, lose his license and be sued for every dollar he had if that was in the US. How does he even sleep at night? He doesn’t care so probably just fine. Megan and Ali prepare themselves for seeing a mother die and we wish them luck and the use of their good skills.

I’m in the classroom today. Finishing up NRP testing and teaching newborn assessments. Before long, I can hear the students singing. The day has begun. I go out to the front porch and get everything set up. My translator is waiting for me. I have a few eager students from NRP yesterday wanting to test. I had done and passed most of them but I wasn't able to test them all and a couple didn’t pass and wanted to retake.

Slowly, I go one by one with the students, delicately teaching them key elements of a newborn assessment. What is normal and what may be of concern. It’s a lot to cover and they need to memorize it. These students are like sponges and so eager to learn. Most do a practice test and are ready to test immediately after. It’s a slow tiring job, especially for my poor translator who has to repeat everything. A couple hours in and we take a break. Water and bathroom break. I grab a quick snack too. When I get back outside, some of the students from yesterday are eager to take their NRP test and get it over with. I agree because it just takes a few minutes to get it done. All pass!! Very exciting to be able to write ‘pase’ on their papers and 16/16 correct. They are very grateful for the teaching and thank me quite frequently.

Before long, the day is over and I have completed many tests on many students. I hear the lunch bell ring and I am eager to say goodbye to the students and go eat. Pasta salad, Haitian rice and beans (of course) and fried chicken drums. All delicious, (of course). No one has felt ill and we are so very grateful!! Crossing our fingers that the oils are keeping us healthy. Lunch time is nice because all the staff and volunteers eat together and mingle.

After lunch, there’s little time to rest. It’s time to unpack and do inventory on all the supplies we have brought. Every little thing needs to be counted. It takes us all a couple hours to go through many bags of donations. After a while, we determine that a beer is needed to go through it all. So, we each grab a dollar and walk out of the gates, opened by the security guard, across the street to the vendor. We buy a beer and one for our security guy. When we are finished with that, we are asked to cut and prepare the cord ties. It’s a simple task but time consuming. We cut simple string into about 5-6in long segments. We curl them around a finger, slide it off, and place it in a piece of ripped scrap paper. Shelly, the interpreter, takes them to the hospital where the can be sterilized. We do quite a few between all of us. But, we aren’t done for the day yet!!

Perrine lets me know that it’s time to do Home visits. I need to follow up with one of the ladies from the day before. She calls us a moto and off we go. When we arrive, the lady tells us she was feeling better and finally had a bowel movement. This is great news. The baby also was feeding better too. THIS is the reason we do home visits. The teaching is saving lives. People are not educated much and they don’t really know what happens if they don’t do things in a healthy way. We realize we forgot to bring some medication for the baby’s thrush. We call Kelby and ask for him to bring it. While we wait we do an assessment on both mom and baby. The lady has a little sister about 3 years old and has been entertaining all of us with walking around with a light pink 5-gallon bucket on her head. So cute!

Kelby shows up with some medication for both mom and baby. We instruct them how to use it and give them their first doses. It’s getting dark and I’ve sprayed bug spray on me. The mosquitos love me and I’m dealing with a lot of itchy bites!!

We ride home and I know dinner has been ready for some time. It was nearly complete when we left. It will be cold but I will surely eat it. Fritters of some sort, fried plantains and a spicy coleslaw type salad. All yummy. I have to admit, I was looking forward to eating plantains since I haven’t had them in a while.

After dinner, we call it an early night. The girls go to bed way earlier than I do and I’m usually bored so I stay up attempting to get caught up in my blog. I sit in my mosquito net, with the laptop, dodging trapped bugs attracted to the light on the laptop. Small 4in fan blowing a much-desired breeze in my face.

I’ve taken my meds and placed on my oils. I guess I'll go to sleep. Nothing else to do. Big day at the hospital tomorrow. My favorite place here and I can’t wait to go there and see the woman from yesterday.

Day 3

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:26:00 GMT

Day 3~First Day of clinical, teaching NRP and home visits

Alarm goes off and I wake up. I am eager and excited to start my day and help teach Neonatal Resuscitation Program. I get up and get ready for the day. I go get some coffee made by Cindy and make a piece of toast. I also eat a yummy banana. I’m ready for the day and soon the Skilled Birthing Attendant students are singing. I walk out and go to the front porch. There are 2 tables set up with baby mannequins and necessary equipment for resuscitation. I have a translator and we chat for a moment. Before long, I have my first of 4 groups of 4. I tell them to practice doing NRP on the babies and after some time we will sit down and talk about what NRP is and crucial steps in NRP. After that, I take one at a time and do a practice code. If they are really ready, I test them.

I find that most students have the basics down and I’m really impressed how ready these students are. Group after group has very strong students and one that needs some guidance. I won’t pass them on the test unless they are ready. Initially, the most common issue is they start CPR too soon. I remind them prior to the test that CPR is usually not needed if you follow NRP. It’s a tiring day but before I know it, its 2pm and its time for the students to go home and for me to eat lunch. The lunch bell has been rung.

Inside, a lot of the staff are dishing up. There must be at least 20 people eating. Its cornmeal, beans and a meat and okra dish. Fresh passionfruit juice too. Very yummy food. It’s nice to sit around the table with the staff and chat about things.

After lunch, Perrine and I head out to do a home visits and to visit the Mom she has been helping. She wants to see the baby and bring some supplies like formula and clothing. Winter and I join her on two moto’s and head out towards the outskirts of Hinche. We arrive at a very poor home with a big puddle of water outside of it. We walk into a VERY small area. Their home is smaller than my master bathroom. The baby is laying on a bed, purchased by Perrine. A while back, the woman had left her baby and went to the market. A candle was lite and on the bed. Big sister heard baby crying and came into find the mattress on fire! Luckily, the baby survives…again. I do an assessment on the baby and it looks well. I have a couple bracelets I made and some matchbox cars donated to me by some little boys. I ask if I can give them one and Perrine asks the woman. She said it’s okay and I give them to the boys. They are very happy and they call out to the other boys around to come get a car! Umm, no, I don’t have enough to go around LOL. I give one more out and tell them I don’t have any more. The little girls like the bracelets I gave them. I ask if I can take a picture and the woman agrees. I take the photo and show it to the kids. They think it’s funny. I’m not sure how much they have seen themselves.

We say goodbye and head off to the next house. Houses in Haiti don’t have addresses. The have regions. So, Kelby calls the next woman to find out where she lives. We get the general area and head there. When we get there, we stop and a man knows where the new baby is. We get off the moto’s and walk to the house. We are greeted by the maternal grandmother of the home and welcomed in. We are in a little bit larger home and there is a tv! We ask for permission to assess both mom and baby. Unfortunately, the baby has lost a lot of weight. We assess how the baby is feeding and it isn’t the best. We teach good breastfeeding techniques and tell the mom to breastfeed frequently and until the baby is finished. We tell her we will be back to weigh the baby in a few days but in the meantime if the baby gets lethargic she needs to bring it to the hospital. She agrees and we leave.

On our way out of her area, our moto gets a flat tire. This is the second time in 2 days we have broken down! It’s kind of comical! Perrine and Kelby had gone ahead of us and we have no way of contacting them. So, we walk alongside the bike for a way and finally our driver tells us to stay where we are and he will be back. Shortly after, Perrine shows up and we tell her what happened. We catch up with our driver and he has found someone to fix the flat. I guess it’s quite common around here. We wait about 30 minutes and the tire is fixed and we are on our way to the next home visit. Unfortunately, it is getting dark. Kelby has called ahead and some family members are waiting for us at the end of a hill. We follow them to the home and are invited inside.

This mom is suffering from postpartum depression. She isn’t caring for her baby much at all. In fact, she hasn’t feed it all day. She is complaining of constipation for 12 days and pain in her perineum. I ask her to lay down and palpate her abdomen. It feels normal. It’s too dark to assess her laceration so we decide to come back the next day for that. In the meantime, we do good breastfeeding teaching and explain to her and her mother that she needs to feed the baby every 2-3 hours or it will die. I tell her mother that even if the patient doesn’t want to she should place the baby to the breast for her. The baby’s anterior fontanelle is very sunken from dehydration. He is also listless and difficult to arouse. We get the baby on the breast and he eats very well. He has thrush and we plan on bringing back some meds for that, constipation and Tylenol for pain. We say goodbye to the family and head back.

Dinner is waiting for us when we arrive. Although it is cold and no microwave to reheat it. Haitian pizza! Perrine, Winter and I all sit down and chow it down. We were pretty hungry after a long afternoon.

The girls and I are tired and call it an early night. Malorone and oils are placed on. I attempt to get caught up on my blog but I just can’t do it. I’m exhausted. Good night Haiti!

Day 2

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 09:23:00 GMT

Day 2~ town and hospital tour.

I really slept horribly. Every time I move my knee would cause a lot of pain and wake me up. I really hope I haven’t injured it severely. I awaked and look at the clock, 930am. I have slept 12 hours! I get up to the bathroom and notice Ali is awake too. I come out and wake the rest of the group up. We need to get ready for the tour.

I head out and the staff are busy doing things around the house. First thing on my agenda is coffee! I go to make the coffee and realize the coffee maker is no longer around and has broken. I ask where I can get coffee from and Cindy had made some cowgirl coffee. I pour a cup and use some of my powdered creamer. The coffee is weak in my opinion but I am a self-proclaimed coffee snob. I drink it anyways because I need it and I want it as well. Not much to choose from to make breakfast. Volunteers make their own breakfast and the staff make lunch and dinner. I decide on 2 pieces of toast with Haitian peanut butter and a banana. It’s not that filling but I don’t have much other options. I did bring some instant oatmeal from home though. I will save that for another day.

We all get ready for the day and I apply some oils. I plan on putting them on 2-3 times a day. Stecy lets us know that Kelby is not feeling well and won’t be coming until 3pm. So, Perrine, the in country clinical director, a brit who has quite the mouth on her, (I love it) tells us she is going to give us a tour of Ste. Therese hospital. It’s a government run hospital and only a 5-minute moto taxi ride away from the MFH house. She first wants to all meet together and have a conversation of what our job is while we are here. We will be precepting the students both in clinic, in the classroom and in the hospital. We will not be doing any patient care at all. I am completely bummed by this as I mostly wanted to care for patients down here and save some lives personally. But there is a need for the skilled birth attendant students and they will be saving lives for years to come. So, if I can help teach them then I can help with saving lives that way. Cindy has asked us if any of us would like to teach NRP, neonatal resuscitation program, to the students. I instantly agree because I love NRP and feel I do very well at it. Cindy has set up a table and wants to show me how to do the assessments/teaching on the students. Pretty easy and very similar to how we are taught NRP back home.

After our meeting with the staff, we are given the official house tour. A lot of information about MFH is given to us and I find it all very interesting. After the tour, we are ready to go to the hospital. Our moto taxis have been called and are waiting for us. Kelby, an interpreter that I met last year, arrives and we have gather our money and bags and are ready to go. We go 3 per moto and head out of the security gate towards town. Our first stop is at the city center. I remember this place from the tour Kelby gave us last year. He gives us some history of the city and walks us across the street to a church built in the 1500’s. Once we are finished there we head to the market.

The market is a nasty place. It smells of rotting food and putrid meat. Rice, beans, fruits, vegetables and all parts of goat, chicken, pig and cow are available to purchase for consumption. I had a strange feeling last year when I walk through there and again I did this year. It feels like we are getting spells casted on us and it feels very ‘dark spirited’. Haitian’s practice a lot of voodooism and black magic. We stop because Winter would like to buy some house shoes and sees some sandals she wants. 10 Gourdes or 2-3 dollars. Not a bad price so she gives him $3. We ask Kelby what people are saying about us because we aren’t feeling very welcomed at all. He said they aren’t saying anything but we told him we didn’t believe him. I think he just wants to be polite.

Once we are done walking through the market there is a little girl sitting there and I have premade some bracelets to give to the little girls. She gives me a big smile when I walk by so I decide I’d like to give her a bracelet. She was very happy about and said thank you to me. Walking around is difficult because there is garbage in different states of decay EVERYWHERE. There is no garbage pick-up in Haiti so it just gets thrown down to the ground. We go back to the awaiting moto’s and climb on. We stop at a little store and Kelby says we can go inside and purchase anything we would like.

I take a walk through and find some cookies. I also see some rum I had bought last trip to Haiti and remembered it being pretty good. Haitian honey is supposed to be yummy so I buy some of that as well. It all comes to about $20. That’s only because the rum is an expensive rum. But I don’t mind because I know it is good.

We are done with our tour now and head back to the house. We are supposed to go to the take hospital tour with Perrine. Lunch is ready, peeled whole potatoes, beans and rice and a meat/okra dish. Fresh squeezed passionfruit juice is available too and its amazingly delicious! Some like to add sugar but I think it tastes fine without. Very good! After sometime we get the moto’s again and head to the hospital. Its only 5 minutes away. We get dropped off at the entrance and walk in. Perrine starts explaining what each building is used for and shows us a new prenatal and malnutrition clinic. It seems to be a slow start but is working alright at the moment. Perrine says the housekeeper for the hospital hasn’t been paid in 6 months! Wow, I can’t even imagine what that is like. She is very loyal because I would’ve quit a long time ago.

We walk through and check out the postnatal/postop, antenatal, and triage/labor and delivery areas. There has been a remodel since I was here last and now the labor room is much bigger but still not big enough. It reminds me of an assembly line. 5 exam table are lined up in a row and about 3 feet from each other. There is no privacy between them because the curtains have been wrapped up and placed overhead. An old, rusty, unlined, garbage can sits at the floor of the exam table to catch blood, amniotic fluid and any other wastes. The patients bring their own buckets to pee and poop into. The walls are freshly painted and is looks much cleaner in there than before. There is a hallway outside that laboring patients sit or lay in until there are able to go back to labor and delivery. There is a triage area with 2 private rooms to assess patients in but they are in the hallway. 2 seem to be actively labor, 1 appears to have her water broken. We ask Perrine why they are there and not in the labor room and she isn’t sure why.

We don’t stay long and head back to the house for the rest of the day.

We arrive back and dinner is ready. Lunch and dinner are made just about the same time so the cooks can leave for the day. Its left-over beans and rice from lunch, chicken and sild with pickled beets, avocados, tomatoes and some kind of green leafy vegetable. I’m again hesitant to eat the vegetables and ask again. I’m told again no one has gotten sick at the house and that they wash the vegetables a certain way to kill bacteria. So, I take a chance and go for it. Here goes nothing…. only thing to lose is my bowels and a lot of vomiting!

After dinner, we all sit around the table chatting over some rum and cokes. The house has a system where you can buy bottle coke or sprite for .25 each. We all chat about the issues within MFH and how they can be fixed or helped. Slowly, the ladies start to head to bed and I know we have an early morning so I start to go to bed too. I want to blog and I need to put on my oils and take my malaria med.

I’m teaching NRP, neonatal resuscitation program, tomorrow. I very excited about doing this and I can’t wait to help teach the skilled birth attendant students all about life saving skills.

I stay up till 11:00pm blogging. I’m already behind because day 1 had so much involved and a lot to write about. But I’m tired and can’t blog anymore. So, I say goodnight to Haiti, put on my oils and set my alarm for 7am.

Day 1

jessicainhaiti — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 08:14:00 GMT

Day 1~ Day of travel, breaking down and arriving in Hinche.

I had everything packed. A suitcase mostly full of food and some supplies, and 2 other suitcases strictly full of donated medical supplies. It was an all-day endeavor to pack, weigh the bag and unpack to make the 50-lb. weight limit. My huge carry on backpack was filled with my personal belongings like medications and clothing.

The plan was to leave at 7pm, pick up Megan and head to the airport, arriving at 8:30pm. I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet Megan yet so I was excited about that. However, the anticipation of leaving my loved ones for 2 weeks was starting to weigh heavy on my heart. 1 hour to go, 30 minutes to go, 15 minutes to go…..’guys, it’s time for me to leave.’ I go down and kiss my elderly Gramma goodbye and can’t help but think, ‘what if this is the last time I kiss her, what if her time comes while I’m gone?’ She tells me to make sure and tell all the Haitians that she too lived like they live. I tell her I will do that but I know I won’t. No matter how much she thinks she understands how Haitian’s live from reading my blog last year, she really is clueless. I can never put into words what it is like. I start to choke up as I tell her goodbye. She says ‘I’ll miss you honey.’ I tell her the same. I head upstairs and kiss my sweet Alessa goodbye. I tell her to be good and to help Daddy out. Then I go and hug Cody. I give him a long hug and tell him I love him. He says it back. Dylan is waiting for his hug and I’m a mess at this point. Tears aren’t getting held back much at this point. But, I’m trying hard, don’t want to mess up the mascara. I tell Dylan I love him and to be good. He starts to get upset too and tells me ‘I will miss you Mommy.’ Poor buddy. Luke gives me a handcrafted card. It says ‘I love you, Mommy’ on the front and has a drawing of me. I open it and it says ‘you’re a good Mom, I will miss you.’ Then a picture of our whole family holding hands. Sigh, that’s it, can’t hold it back anymore! I’m going to miss my babies. Niles tries to console me but it isn’t going to help. I can’t help to think I’m leaving my babies and going to go help others and they will suffer while I’m gone. I mean they won’t ‘suffer’ but they will miss me and not have their Mommy there to be with them. They all walk me out to the car, I get in trying to make the emptions slow down. I gotta stop crying. I get a little drawing from Alessa. She saw Luke make me one and went and quickly made one herself. It’s cute, Can’t make out what it is, but it’s so cute and I put it with the one Luke gave me in my purse. That way I can look at them later on the trip.

I pull out of the driveway and wave goodbye. Sigh. I’m going to miss them, a lot. Bye my babies.

I’m on time and should get to Megan’s on time. Niles and I get to her house, have a little trouble finding it cuz is dark and I can’t see the house numbers. So, I call her and we are luckily right in front of the house. We get out and help Megan load her stuff in the car. Off to the airport we go, hitting some traffic on the way. But that’s okay cuz I allowed time for traffic when I was planning our trip to the airport.

We find a place to park and get out of the car, grab the million bags. I know from last year that we are limited to only 2 checked suitcases per person. Niles helps us get the bags to the counter. We check in and ask if we can get the fees waived for the medical donations. The initial response was no, but we mentioned we had them waived last year. The agent asked another desk person and he told her where to look it up on the computer. She was having a difficult time finding it so he helped her. He asked if I had any documentation to prove that I’m bringing requested donations. Luckily, I had them in my purse ready to go. I showed him the paper work and the fees were waived!! Yay! This saved us $120! This can be used in other places in Haiti or donated to Midwives for Haiti.

We are all checked in and it’s time to say goodbye to Niles. I’m going to miss him, terribly. I truly appreciate what he is doing for me. He is taking on my role while I’m gone and supporting me in my dreams. I give him a few kisses and tell him I love him and that I will miss him. We say goodbye and Megan and I head to the security. Security was not long and we get through it quickly. We are both nervous for it because we had medications and other things in our bags. I got through okay but Megan got flagged. Apparently powder creamer for our coffee looks suspicious on x-ray!

After security, we head for our gate, I’m a little hungry because I haven’t eaten dinner yet. Luckily, there’s a place to eat across from the gate. I’m debating about what to order because I know my next meals will be in Haiti, so I want to eat a salad or something that I can’t have there. But they only have a casear or side salad which neither I want. I decide on chicken strips and a Blue Moon beer. Food isn’t very tasty and the beer is served without a glass or an orange slice. Boo. I eat and drink and pay my tab. We have some time until we have to board. We find a place to sit and I eventually get comfortable and fall asleep. Megan wakes me up when it’s time to board. I have this HUGE backpack with a pillow attached to it and it’s hard to lug around. I get it on my back and head for the gate. We walk down the jet way and I do my ritual tap of the side of the plane as I walk in. Right hand…tap tap. Megan captures the moment in a requested photo.

We find our seat and get situated. We plan on sleeping as this is a redeye flight from Seattle to Boston, 1130 pm. It doesn’t take long to find a somewhat comfortable position and fall asleep. Its interrupted of course. Overhead announcements and the frequent need to change position. I tell Megan she can snuggle up next to me, I don’t mind really. She places her pillow on my shoulder and gets as comfortable as she possibly can. I have the window seat and its easy for me to lean on the window with my pillow.

Our 4.5-hour flight goes relatively quickly. We land in Boston and deboard the aircraft. As I get up for the first time in 5 hours, I slide my body out of my seat and my right knee experiences immense pain along with some pops and crackles. It causes me to immediately buckle and ’fall’ into the seat. I turn my head so no one sees how much pain I am in and I want to yell out in pain. I’m thinking, what the fuck did I just do to my knee. I didn’t twist it, roll it or do anything abnormal, I just put weight on my leg. I limp off the plane and can barely put weight on that leg. We get off the jet way and I yell out for Megan to stop. I tell her I seriously injured my knee and I’m not sure how. My mind is going fast. I’m not sure what to do. If my knee is badly injured, I should go to get it checked out. But if I do that I will miss my flight to Haiti. If I wait and go to Haiti, I won’t be able to get care for it until we return to the USA. After some time, the initial bad pain decreases in severity and I think I’m okay to walk. We find our gate to Port au Prince and settle in. It’s a short layover, 90 minutes. Megan goes and gets us coffee from Starbucks. Drip coffee with cream and sugar. It’s not long before its time to board. We’ve been ‘upgraded’ to an emergency exit. This gives us some extra leg room. We find our seats and settle in. I plan our working on some of the bracelets I’ve been working on to give to the Haitian children. Luck was in our favor again when we find that our seat next to us is empty. The flight to Haiti is about 3.5 hours. We get excited because we know we are getting so close!

The flight is great. There are some bumps on the flight but I distract Megan with pointing out the window at the vacant Caribbean islands. She tells me ‘you’re a good Mom’ for distracting her lol. It’s not long before Megan declares that she sees Haiti. I’m not 100% sure due to what I am seeing geographically but the captain comes on and states we are 60 miles from landing. So, I draw a map of Haiti on a barf bag and try to figure out exactly where we are. Megan is right, we are flying over Haiti, we are just flying in a direction that threw me off.

I make sure to tell Megan to have her camera ready as we will be flying over some poverty-stricken areas. Sheet metal huts, side by side. I can’t imagine how hot it must be to live in them. No shade or vegetation, just hut after hut. We land and a few Haitians on board start clapping. I’m not sure why, but, they are happy and Megan and I smile at each other. Maybe they are happy to be home or maybe happy with the landing.

We are told we will be getting off the plane and taken to a bus for transportation to the terminal. We need to go to immigration and customs. We all load into this bus and once its full we literally drive around 2 aircraft and pull up to a door. The bus erupts in laughter and /whispers of “ha, we could have just walked here.’ We chuckle as we get off the bus and walk in. We head up some escalators and walk in the line for immigrants. We know to have $10 US dollars ready to pay a ‘visitor fee’. I have $10 ready and they give me a receipt. I head over to have my passport checked out. I get a quick couple stamps on a paper we filled out on the plane and my passport from a man talking on his personal phone. I wait for Megan to get done and head out towards baggage claim. I hear some music and come around a corner to a local band playing some Haitian music.

We find our bags on a carousel. This is different from last year. Last time we had a room full of bags and no system to find your bags. This was much easier, just like the states. We slowly find our bags and head out of baggage claim. We are each pulling 2 huge suitcases and our huge carry ons. We had a lot of offers for help but declined. We are stopped and asked for the baggage receipts we received in Seattle They want to prove we aren’t taking someone else’s bags. I am grateful for this and thank the man checking.

We walk up to a customs agent and hand him our prefilled customs paperwork. We know this can be a moment that things can go very wrong and cross our fingers it runs smoothly. The agent doesn’t even think twice. He takes our papers, stamps them and sends us out. We walk along a hallway where Haitians want to give us a ride. I know to decline and look for our MFH contact. He should be wearing a pale yellow MFH t-shirt. We don’t have to walk far before we see him. He grabs our bags and pulls us to the side. We know we need to wait for the rest of our group, Winter and Ali. They are supposed to arrive 15 mins after us. We, however arrived 30 minutes early.

As we are waiting, we are getting very hot. Megan decides to find a bathroom and change out of her Seattle weather clothing. After some time, we are told to follow the man to the car. Ronel, our driver, is waiting for us. So, we follow him through the crowds of people waiting for arrivals and get to the car. Jonel is there also. He is a security officer as well as a helper for pick up of volunteers. Jonel loads our bags up on top of a white Land Rover and Megan and I climb inside. My knee is super painful and it’s hard to walk let alone climb into a jeep.

I decide I need to change my clothes too, its toooooo hot. Luckily, I have all my clothing in my carry on. I take off my hot shoes and socks and jeans. Put on some flip flops and shorts. I don’t care that I am surrounded by a bunch of people. In Haiti, there is not any privacy and being unclothed is a normal part of life.

I feel much better and cooler. I decide it’s a perfect time to have my first Haitian beer. Prestige. I ask Megan if she would like one as well and she accepts. I give Ronel $2 to buy 2 beers. Then I ask if Jonel and Ronel would like one as well. They state they will take a juice. So, I give $2 for them to have a beverage. They give the money to a young lady and tell her to get us our drinks.

Before long, Winter and Ali arrive. I am SO excited to meet the rest of my group. We have all been chatting online for months and here we all are in Haiti. I limp out of the jeep and greet them with hugs. YAY, our group is complete.

Winter is hot and changes her clothes. She too isn’t caring about privacy. Just wants to be comfortable. I buy them drinks too and we are sipping on them when we are told they are waiting for us to finish. They need the bottles back to get a refund. So, we quickly drink our beers and hand back the bottle. It’s time to go…

Communication at times is not good! We drive out of the airport thinking we are headed to Hinche. Instead we pull into a locked, gated home and I tell the girls I don’t know where we are. At that time, Ronel tells me we are picking up Sara. I ask if she is a midwife and he said yes. I’m thinking like a Haitian midwife but instead comes out an old American white-haired woman. She is referred to as ‘mom’ to the Haitians. I instantly recognize her from photos I’ve seen online. The men get her luggage in and get her settled into the jeep. We introduce ourselves and I tell Sara I’ve seen things about her. We get to talking and the next thing we know we are back at the airport. We aren’t sure why but Ronel says we are picking someone else up. Between Sara and I, we find out we are picking up a Haitian woman. One of the in-house staff, Perrine, is helping her. We wait and she doesn’t come. Her friend had joined us when we left the airport but no one told us who she was until Sara and I started asking questions. Apparently, we are supposed to meet this young lady that MFH is helping to start a business selling clothing. We wait a few minutes and Ronel makes a phone call. We leave the airport and drive down the street a way. We pull over to the side of the road and Ronel makes another call. Before long, 2 young women show up with a huge burlap sack filled with new clothing and shoes. They climb in the jeep and then we are finally on our way after 2 hours.

We drive past many people of all ages, walking around doing various activities. The poverty is very hard to put into words. Shacks for homes and no electricity or running water. The girls are taking it all in and point things out to each other. Sara and I chat about MFH and what her role here is. She is working on a community assessment study.

After about an hour of driving, we start to approach the mountain range. I notice that Ronel is driving slower and slower. I am not sure why he is doing it as he doesn’t really communicate well even though he speaks English. Finally, Ronel grabs the phone and is making a frantic call. At this time, we are headed up the mountain and going less than 25 mph. We start to notice the car is smelling and a lot of smoke is coming out of the back. We are told the car is breaking down and Ronel has called Mariot for help. Sara tries hard to get information from Ronel and even asks to call and talk to someone to get some information. We find out that a rental van is coming from Hinche, over 1.5 hours away. We had already been waiting about an hour at that point. Mariot was also on his way. He would be the one to drive the car back to Port au Prince. The view was spectacular and Port au Prince could be seen. We are surrounded by a mountain range with the valley/sea down below. It is very hot though and we run out of water quickly. Most of us hadn’t eaten much all day but snacks and we are hungry. It could be the boredom though. We ask Ronel to take down my suitcase because I have many things in there to eat. I didn’t want to eat in front of the staff and the ladies we picked up so I gave them all a granola bar. I later found out that one of the ladies is very malnourished and will go 3 days without eating so that she can buy formula for her baby. Her milk had dried up while the baby was fighting for its life for over 60 days in the NICU. Perrine, the in-country educator director, has been helping her get food and formula as she was the one who saved the baby and felt an obligation to help.

I wish I would’ve know that she was not eating and saving her money to buy formula. I would’ve given her more food. Sara had called Mariot and told him to please stop and get us some food and water. Once he arrived, we had already started eating some of the food I got out but we definitely needed water. We shared some of our water with the ladies as well. But he brought us emergency rations of pringles and white bread! Yum lol.

Our rental van arrives and we all clap. We are hot and tired and just want to get to Hinche and settle in. We have been traveling many hours with little sleep. We transfer all the bags to the van and we all climb in.

It doesn’t take long before I start to nod off. It’s getting dark and we are on a windy road. I want to stay awake so I can look at the window but my eyes don’t want to. I’m pretty crammed in the van and my knee is really hurting me. I can stretch it out. I try to readjust the bags in front of me so I can stretch out my leg and I was finally able to do so. My leg feels really tight from the swelling.

I wake up to the car slowing down and we let out the ladies and say goodbye. We are finally in Hinche! We arrive at the house and get out of the van and are greeted by the staff. I felt very welcomed this time. Our bags are unloaded while we come into the house and settle in. Dinner has been waiting for us. White rice, with black beans and sauce and a dish of cooked vegetables and likely goat. It was so delicious!! I added a side of avocado. These avocados are the size of cantaloupes and are absolutely delicious. I ask the Clinical Educator, Cindy, if it’s safe to eat the food that’s been sitting out. I am very worried about eating down here since my group got so sick last time. Cindy assures me that she hasn’t gotten sick and she has been here since January. This is a relief and I feel better about eating the food. I have come prepared with my Young Living essential oils just like I did last time. I was the only one who didn’t get sick last year and I was the only one using the oils. I can’t help but think they saved me from becoming ill. I’ve also brought enough food to last a few days if needed and we develop food poisoning and need to resort to other food.

After dinner, I wash my dishes and rinse them in bleach water. This helps to kill any bacteria that may be in the water. I head to our volunteer room. We are all in one room the has 2 bunk beds. Mine is on the bottom. I unpack my stuff and get all organized. Since its late, Stecy the volunteer organizer, says she leave all the normal welcome to Hinche things till the morning. She asks us to all be up and ready for church and a town tour by 815am. I politely decline church as I am not religious and I have nothing to wear to church anyhow. I can tell Stecy is a bit shocked by my decision to not go but I tell her the others can go if they like. I went and asked the other girls what they wanted to do and all of them said they didn’t want to go to church either. I go back and tell Stecy and the decision is to sleep in and Kelby, the interpreter, will pick us up at 1030 for the town tour. I head back and tell the group what the plan is and we are all so very tired and decide to go to bed. I take my malorone and brush my teeth. I help the girls get their mosquito nets tucked in and I climb into my bed. My net gets all tucked in and Winter turns off the lights…Goodnight Haiti!

Day 15

jessicainhaiti — Sat, 3 Dec 2016 13:41:00 GMT

Day 15- The long trek home, 21 hours.

Alarm goes off early and I get up and head for my cold morning shower. That'll wake me right up! I got coffee ready the night before so I walk in and turn it so it can brew. I can't shower yet because someone else is already in there. So I finish doing as much packing as I can without my shower things. I strip my bed down and put it in a pile of dirty laundry. I make myself a piece of toast and eat it. Soon after, the shower is ready for me. I climb in and turn on the water. I put my head under it first. There is no way I am going to be able to put my whole body in at first, it is so cold. I wash my hair and rinse it trying not to let the water get in my mouth. A couple times I absentmindedly lick my lips and then remember and start spitting, for the rest of the shower. I don't want to have any of that water in my system. I am almost out of here without getting sick.

After the shower I dress, put on my oils and some make up. I put the last of my things in bags. Everyone is ready but I am scrambling to get done because I was the last one in the shower. Luckily, I am done on time. The car is ready to go. I lug my huge suitcase out and so do the others. The security guard climbs up on top the Land Rover and the driver starts handing him the bags. They try to grab my backpack put I don’t want to lose sight of it as it has important documents in it as well as money. We say goodbye to Joanne and thank her for all she is doing. We climb into the car and in our usual places. Shani in front, Emily next and then the rest of us. A young girl climbs in and we are told it is the drivers cousin. She is getting a ride to Port au Prince with us. Then the security guard climbs in as well. We leave the house and I get a little emotional. I hope this is not the last time I see it. This house represents so much for Haitian woman. It’s the midwives school. Its where the volunteers stay. Its where the workers live. Its Midwives For Haiti.

We drive through town and are told we will be picking up Shelly. She is getting a ride to the town Mirebalais which is the 'meeting' point we have gone to 3 times before. We pick Shelly up and head out of Hinche. As we are driving through, I cry. I am saddened that I am leaving this place and I am leaving these people. I am headed home to my luxurious life and many are staying here suffering. I know that it is impossible for me to help every single Haitian. But it still hurts my heart that all these people live in this much poverty.

I don’t let the others know I am crying. I quickly stop and stare out the windows. We are in the country side now. Driving past people and homes. Women walking with their goods to sell in town. Shelly and I talk about the baby and Mom we cared for. She is very upset still with what happened. She had gone to the hospital to check on the baby and nothing has changed except for how jaundiced she was. No more yellowing of the skin but the brain damage is there. She feels like the baby will die and it makes her so upset. We worked hard to help save that baby. I ask her if she has ever seen a woman die and she said yes. It was difficult for her to talk about because she tried for 5 days to save the woman but the Dr wouldn’t listen. She bled internally and died leaving her baby. Shelly is a wonderful interpreter and is joining the medical side of MFH in January. Her mother is a matron and she has seen many births in her lifetime. She will be great at it!

We arrive to the meeting spot and Mario is there with the other 3 volunteers. They are supposed to join us in the Land Rover but there isn't enough room for them and the bags. I ask how their week went in Cabestor and they said great. They had 2 births. I find out they are headed back home after 1 week. I thought that I wouldn't want to come to Haiti and just be at Cabestor and not go to Hinche. It wouldn’t really feel like a mission trip if that was the case. Mario decided to drive them to Port au Prince so we don’t have to all cram into the car for the next 2 hours.

We leave the meeting place and drop off Shelly. She is headed to get some special formula for a special baby and Hinche doesn’t have it. She will pay for it herself and then catch a moto taxi the hour ride back. She is such a special lady doing all that. We say goodbye to her and I wish her the best.

The next 2 hours we drive through the country and over the mountain pass. We finally arrive to the airport and the man that greeted us at the airport greets us again. He helps get the bags down and inside the airport. We ask for him to take our picture. We are wearing our MFH tshirts and Emily is wearing her Clinton shirt. He takes our picture and asks if he can take a selfie with all of us. We all cram into the picture and he helps us to the check in area. I go first and place my bag on the scale. I don’t know how it happened but my bag is 12 pounds overweight!! I am bringing a few bottles home for the girls who have carry on's only so that may be what it is. I take stuff out of the suitcase and place into my back pack. She doesn’t charge me for my baggage fees and I walk over and get the rest of my stuff situated. Soon all the girls are ready and we head for security. We say bye to 'airport guy' and go through. No problem for me this time. A couple of the girls get stopped and I wait for the security to search their bags. I am pretty hungry and so are some of the others. It is about 1130ish and its lunch time. We walk around the airport and there really isn't much there. I think there was a total of 5 gates. There is a small coffee shop that has food but I am so reluctant to eat it because I don’t know how it was prepared. I opt for a bag of chips and a bottled water. Shani was nice and bought us our snacks. Thanks :)

We sit down near our gate and eat. Soon, we are ushered to go to our gate by a man. It is time to say bye to Donna as she is on a different flight back to California. I instantly start to cry. I don’t want to say goodbye to her. I don’t know when I will see her again and we have all bonded in a way I will never bond with someone else. These ladies are very special to me. Donna gives me a hug and she can't look at me or she will cry too. Oh it is so hard to hold back the tears. The girls all give me a hug and I swallow down the tears and say bye to Donna.

When we walk over to our gate there is a security line again. We are a bit confused by this as we have already gone through security and now we have to go again. We ask why and are told the first security is for the airport and this security is put in place by JetBlue. I am happy to go through what ever security a airport has in order to make my flight safe. My one issue is we have all just bought bottle water and are forced to either drink it all at once or throw it away. Once we get through security though there are no bathrooms. They are on the other side. So if I drink all this water, I will need to go pee soon and have to go through the long line of security. Darn!

I drink my water and find a place for the 4 of us to sit. We plug in our phones to charge and hang out. At one point we count every one and when we realize we are now 4, it makes us sad. Emily says she needs to pee soon and I think I kinda do too. The plane doesn’t load for 30 more minutes and then we don’t take off for an hour. Which means if I don’t go now, I wont be able to go until the plane is at 10k feet. So I decide to go. I grab my passport and boarding pass and head out. When I am done I go to the front of the line to the person who let me out and ask her If I need to get back in line again since I just went and used the bathroom. She was nice enough to let me in there and I didn't have to wait long at all.

Soon we are called to board. We want to get on board sooner than later so we can place our bags over our heads and not far away. We walk the jetway and I do my tap tap on the plane as I walk on. We find our seat and I am sitting next to the window. Shani is pretty far back from us and Emily and Tiffany are across the aisle from me. 2 Haitian women sit next to me. I get what I need out of my bag to keep me company for the next 3 hours. I place one of the lozenges in my mouth that my friend gave me for take off and landing. We are off and headed to New York.

The flight to NY was nice. I like to look at the window and always enjoy the window seat. The view is beautiful as we fly over the Caribbean. We arrive in NY and it is dark outside. We land and slowly get off the plane. We are in no hurry as we have a 3 hour lay over. We go through US customs easily and go and claim our suitcases. We then go to declare what we have brought back into the US and are waived through. We are all excited to eat nummy American food and all agree to a restaurant. We sit down and one of us comment on how clean it is. In Haiti everything is dirty and old. All of us order salad. I had wanted a cheeseburger or steak but changed my mind and decided on a cobb salad. We were all craving yummy fresh vegetables. Emily said it was the best salad she has had in along time. We eat up and before long it is time to head to the gate. Most of our 3 hour layover was used up going through the process of coming back into the USA.

At the gate we give our boarding passes and walk down the jetway to the plane. Tap tap as I go through the doorway. This time Emily, Tiffany and I are all sitting together, me at the window. We get situated for our 6 hour flight back. It is 8pm and we land in Seattle at midnight which is really 3am our time. After take off we are given our nummy snacks that JetBlue offers and I blog. I have a lot to catch up on and won't have a computer after that night. I am using Emily's laptop as I don’t have one. Not long though and I am sleepy. I put everything away and use my pillow and blanket to try and get comfortable to sleep. I sleep 'ok' for a couple hours and wake up to the announcement that we will be landing shortly. YAY! I am so excited to be home. We have been traveling all day.

We get off the plane and head to the baggage claim. Emily doesn't have baggage so she says her goodbye s and goes to find her husband. At baggage claim, Tiffany's husband picks her and Shani up and we say our good byes. Soon Niles is there to pick me up. I am finally home. We drive back to our house and I have officially been traveling for 21 hours and I am beat!! Goodnight!

Day 14

jessicainhaiti — Sat, 3 Dec 2016 11:33:00 GMT

Day 14- Sugar cane. Coconut, Feeding center and Bassin-zim waterfall

Good morning. Haiti, It is a nice, relaxing morning at the Midwives for Haiti house. I slowly wake up and the early risers have been up for some time. I make some coffee and eat some toast. This has been my breakfast nearly everyday since we left Cabestor. It is okay though because I am not sure whether or not to trust the food anymore with all the food poisoning we have endured. I just have to make it 1 more day and then I will be back in the USA and won't have to worry anymore. Well, for the most part.

I get dressed and try to decide whether or not I really want to go to the feeding center. The girls all say it is heartbreaking. No one wants to go but me. I am unsure I can handle the emotional toll it could take on me to go. The girls all say I should go though to get the experience. I do want the experience, but I don’t want something that will make me a sobbing mess and give me nightmares for a few days. Tiffany doesn't want me to go by myself so she says she will go with me. We get ready to go and Shani decided she would like to go as well. Pleasure arrives on a fancy, shiny new moto. I get on with him and the girls ride with one of the other moto's we use frequently. It will be nice to have Pleasure there to interpret for us.

We make our way through Hinche and arrive at the Center. It is a gated building. Similar to what we have at the MFH. It slides open and has barb wire on the top. There are a lot of people sitting outside waiting to get in. I don't know if they are waiting to go in to see someone there or if they want help themselves. I do know that space is limited and they have to turn away people all the time. Taking only the very, near death sick ones.

The gate opens once they realize it is us. They know we are there to help them. We ride into a courtyard with 3 building around us. It is very clean and welcoming. There are stairs to the left and we walk up them. A women is leaving right as we are arriving. I don’t know if she is a family member or what her role is here. She didn't look like an employee or volunteer though. At the top of the stairs is a big open area covered with a roof but open to the air with half walls. There is a man and woman sewing. I ask Pleasure what they are sewing. It is either employee and/or children uniforms. They make the clothing for everyone. A lady is in a room and is alerted we are there. She asks us to wait for a few minutes because the floors are being mopped. We sit down on a bench. In the corner there is an area that has 2 walls around it. You can hear a woman teaching and students repeating what she is saying. I ask Pleasure what she is teaching. He says she is saying things like 'cat, dog, duck etc'. Sounds like she is teaching kids about animals. She must be showing them pictures. They sing a song or two. It seems that Haitians sing to learn and teach. The room has concrete floors. In the opposite corner there are some toys. They are very well loved and most are broken. There is one trike bike but is missing the steering wheel.

The kids are let out of class and they come out. When they see us sitting on the bench, some come running over and start climbing on us. I don't know how to react. There are too many to give my attention too. I start to play a high five game with some of them. They like it. I have one on each knee and I am hugging them as much as I can. Who knows how long it has been since any of their families have come to visit. Or how long it has been since they have been loved on by someone. They are very happy to see us. After a few minutes, they are told to go into the other room. We watch them walk away and wait for it to be okay for us to go in.

I see a little head peak around the corner of the door. He is in a crib. He smiles when he sees me and I play the hide my face and do peek a boo with him. He laughs and keeps doing it to me. We thought that if the kids were able to go in the room then we should be able to as well. The floor has to be dry by now. Pleasure gets up and goes and asks if we can go in. We get the okay and walk in. The room in filled with about 20 old, worn out cribs. Mostly empty ones. There are a few kids in a couple but most of them are sleeping. I follow the girls and they lead me down a narrow walkway out of that room. In the walkway, the kids we saw come out of school are lined up on benches. They have been given a snack. It is this thick, peanut butter consistency, snack. I am sure it has high caloric and protein value. The kids suck it out of the tube. We walk into another room full of more beds and cribs. They are mostly empty. There is one girl sitting up. Tiffany tells me she looks much better than she has the last time she was there. Tiffany said she had looked like she wasn't going to live much longer. She is 8 years old. I find out later from the Nun that she has a heart condition that is requiring surgery. But she may not live long enough to get it. There is another girl who is there, maybe about 6-8 years old. She is jaundiced and weak. She is laying down with her thick snack, sucking it out. She looks so sick. It is heartbreaking. I just want to crawl into the crib with her and hold her...

We walk through that room and head into the baby/toddler room. It is another room full of cribs, maybe 20. There are a handful of cribs with babies in them. On the other side of the room there are about 20 toddler sized chairs with very still, quiet babies in them. They are all under 2, I think. The whole time we were there, these babies just sat in the chairs, didn't cry or try to get out. There is not one my kids or anyone else's kids I know that would've sat there like that for all that time. Quiet and still. I had mentioned that even the younger babies were sitting in the chair and not fallen out of the chair. Before we left though, one of the smaller babies fell out of the chair. She was right next to me but I couldn't catch her before she hit her head. Poor little thing. I grabbed her and held her until she stopped crying. I put her back in the chair.

The babies that were still in the cribs were either sleeping or very, very sick. We walked past a set of twins. One girl and one boy, about maybe 4-6 weeks. Their mother had died while given birth to them. Such a heartbreaking thing. The family had brought them to the feeding center because with their mother dead, there was no means to feed them. The little girls tummy was protruding out and very firm. The little boy looked healthy. There is one boy who is attached to an IV fluid drip. He looks about 18 months and near death. He has a skin condition, maybe staph, all over his face. His lips are cracked and swollen. His eyes are goopy and his mouth inflamed. The girls say he didn't look like that the last time they were there. I just want to pick him up and hold him. But just the slightest touch is very painful for him. I hope he is a strong fighter and pulls through whatever is happening to him. It is hard to get any information about these kiddos. There are 2 or 3 women in there caring for them. It is snack time and they are very busy with it. Bananas cut in half and hard boiled eggs. If they can hold it they are put in the chair and they have to feed themselves. If they don't eat it then they don't eat. Really sad because some of these kids are so sick they don't have the strength to feed themselves. Half of them have running noses are coughing and sneezing. They are all just passing it on to each other. No hand sanitizer is used and no kleenex to wipe their noses . The ones in the cribs are given the paste to eat if they can eat. One of the boys is sitting up and has the paste. He has the most saddest face I have ever seen in my entire life. I will never forget it. I tear up now just thinking about it. I went over to him. I talked to him in a soft voice and stroked his head. He just looked at me with these sad puppy dog eyes. Nothing in his eyes but sadness and sorrow. Why is this boy so sad? He is probably 18 months old. I tried to do things to make him smile but nothing was working. I encouraged him to eat his paste but he had very little interest in it. I walk away after a few minutes to go see the other kids. One of the women there goes to a crib of a sleeping baby, about 12 months. She quickly jerks him up with one leg and tosses him onto his back from a deep sleep. The kiddo starts crying of course and I am deeply upset with how she just woke him up. She changes his diaper and then goes on to another baby and does the same. Geeez, you don’t have to do it that way. There are other ways to do it kindly.

Twin girl starts to get fussy. Tiffany is holding her brother and she wants some attention too. I pick her up and can't help but notice how round and distended her abdomen is. It looks very uncomfortable. I softly poke at it alittle. It doesn't seem to bother her at all. I hold her and love on her for about 15 minutes. I am asked by one of the ladies to help with the clean up of snack time. She has a bucket with a couple of inches of water in it and a washcloth. I am supposed to clean faces and hands with this. I start at the end of the line of kids and wash one face and hands at a time. I go and rinse the cloth in the bucket and go on to the next kid. I think, no wonder all the kids have runny noses. They are all sharing their snot, Some of them aren't done with their snack but the lady takes it from them. Some don't care and others cry. They have been given plenty of time to eat so if they haven't eaten it by now, they likely won't. Even after they are all cleaned up, they still just sit in the chairs and don't move. Most of them just starring at us. No expressions on their faces. I can get a couple of them to slightly crack a smile but just briefly. In an adjoining room, older children are having their snacks. They are about 4-8 years old. Shani is in there and helping them. I hear a girl crying and I walk over there and look around the corner. A lady had put her, abruptly, into a crib. She was crying and seizing. Shani tells me that this girl gets seizures. She had fallen and hit her head on the concrete and started having a seizure. She would stop having the mild convulsions and roll over into a different position and have more convulsions. She was aware of what was happening. Shani warned me to not look her in the eye or to touch her or she will scream. She is a very unhappy girl and cries constantly asking to go home. My heart just ached for her! What she must be thinking and feeling. It hurts my heart to look at her and since there isn't anything I can do for her, I reluctantly walk away.

I go back into the room with the babies. I stop and look at the little boy with the staph infection on his face. I stare at him for sometime. I look at him and think 'what is in store for this precious boy? Is he going to die soon? Where is his parents and do they know he is this sick? Why isn't he in a hospital ICU? Who is managing his healthcare? Is a doctor coming to see him? Does the doctor know how critically ill he is?' I know I can't get my answers to my questions. I worry for him. I can't help him though. I really, really wish I could.

The nun comes and goes all over the feeding center. She is from India. I was surprised when I met her, I wasn't expected an Indian nun. She speaks English. That means she speaks at least 3 languages. She is kind hearted and really wants the best for these children. I have the last blanket my Mom made with me. I wanted to give it to her for the feeding center. I hand her the blanket and tell her it is from my Mom. She made blankets for me to give to someone in need. The nun thanked me and told me to thank my Mom. She said God Bless you and your Mom. I told her thank you and also thanked her for what she was doing for these children.

Before long it is time to go. Pleasure has been waiting for us and we have all had our fill. It is hard to be there but rewarding at the same time. One of the boys who climbed onto my lap when we first got there would come into the room and occasionally hold onto my leg. He was back again with his big smile and hugging my leg. I smile at him and tell him good bye. We walk out of the center and each place on hand sanitizer. Pleasure calls for the other mototaxi to pick us up. As we wait, another nun comes out to see us. Tiffany and Shani have met her before and they introduce her to me. She grabs my hands and leans in for a traditional kiss on each cheek. Tiffany asks her about a couple of the kiddos we saw and our concerns for them. One of the girls with the heart problem will be getting baptized tomorrow. She could die at anytime and they want her to be baptized before that happens. She is supposed to go to Port au Prince in the next couple days to be seen for her heart problem. I hope she makes it there and gets the desperate care she needs. I have a son her age and I couldn't imagine having to go through that with him. I hope her parents are alive and/or are aware. A lot of the children at the feeding center have loving parents. They just aren't thriving and need nutritional help.

The mototaxi arrives and we get on and head back to the house. We arrive back and the girls ask how it went. Shani and Tiffany said it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been other times they have gone. I thought is was a sad thing to see but it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be.

One of the security guards walks over to Tiffany and I as we sit on the patio. He hands us something and Joanne tells us it is sugarcane. I am excited to try it, I have never had I before. I was surprised at the texture. Tiffany and I have a laugh as we suck the juice out. A few minutes later he comes back to us with just picked coconuts from the tree in the yard. I am sooo excited to have this treat. My favorite scent is coconut and I rarely get to eat a fresh one. I drink the water and it is lovely. After, I grab a spoon and eat the meat. I get full quickly and offer the rest to Pleasure when he arrives for the waterfall trip.

We change out of clothes and put on our swimsuits. It is time to go to the waterfall. This is something I have been looking forward to. I plan to spread some of my Dad's ashes there. In the morning, Joanne had said we probably weren't going to go because it was overcast. I told her I really wanted to go because of my Dad and the others also wanted to go even if it did rain. She said okay, no problem. Before long our driver is there to drive us in the Land Rover to the waterfall. It is the same driver that I had the day before for Mobile clinic.

I have my bag packed and make sure to grab my Dad's ashes. I grab money, a towel and a couple snacks. We will be missing lunch today. We all climb in and Shani gets in the front seat. She gets car sick and the front seat is best for her. Emily also gets a little car sick but as long as they both have fresh air blowing on them, they both do better. We drive through Hinche and pull off onto a dirt road. We take the road up and out into the country for about 1 hour. We pass houses and children run after us, sometimes naked. We finally arrive to a gate with about 8 people sitting around.

There is a sign there indicating that we are at the waterfall. There is a fee to get in. Pleasure gets out and talks to one of the elder men. There is some discussion and it takes a while. I ask what they are talking about. The sign says foreigners have to pay $5 and locals pay 50 goudes or about $1. Pleasure is trying to talk to the man about the price. But he doesn't budge. He comes back to the car and starts to talk to us. But before he goes to far into it, I stop him and say, its okay, we will pay the $5, no big deal. These people need the money more than I do. So, we all pay $5 and they man opens the gate. We drive in and go all the way to the beach after being let in a second gate. There are a lot of people around. That loud concert music is playing. Food is being cooked and families are hanging out. We get out and are amazed at the pure beauty of the waterfall. All the water is coming from an underground source. There is a couple caves up the hill and they were formed from the water coming out of the ground. I immediately get in. The weather the last couple days hasn't been very hot, so I got a little cold, but it was refreshing. Tiffany and Shani also get in. Donna stays back and Emily walks in up to her knees. The water is an aqua green. Anytime I am in water that I can't see my feet in, I also get a little weirded out. Shani is asking Pleasure whether or not there are snakes around or if they could be in the water. He said no but after that all I could think about was Discovery Channels episode of anacondas swimming around under water and I wouldn't be able to see them. I knew this wasn't the case but it still gave me the heebie-jeebie's . Could not get it out of my head the whole time. Especially when I pick the spot to spread my Dad's ashes. The only way to get to it is to swim. I pick a spot in the right corner of the pool of water. There is an old tree stump sitting in the water. I grab my Dad's ashes. They are in a lab sample tube, pink top. I hold it in my right hand and doggy paddle with my left hand out to the stump. It isn't very far, but about half way there I notice it gets a little hard to swim. Shani and Tiffany are sweet enough to come out with me. The current is going in a circle, like a whirlpool, from the water falling. I finally make it to the stump and grab onto it. Donna and Emily are on the shore and are taking pictures for me. I get a little weirded out by the stump and start to think about the anaconda's again. I know marine animals and fish like to use things like stumps for protection. What am I treading near? I grab the top of the stump and start to climb up it. I don't need to climb all the way on top as there is a projection of the stump and I am able to stand on it just under the water. I take the top off the vial and tell my Dad 'here is a beautiful place to put you Dad.' I pour out all the ashes and watch them drift away. The bigger, heavier pieces quickly fall to the bottom of the pool. I fill the vial with water to rinse all the ashes out and pour it out. I do this a couple times. I sit there for a moment and it is time to go back to the shore. The girls are treading water and need to head back. Tiffany makes it back first. I am getting tired and she reaches out her hand to help me. I grab her hand and pull. This makes her loose her spot and she has to start swimming too. Oops, sorry Tiff. She tells me I should be able to touch and I stop swimming and put my foot down. Nope, I'm a shorty. I swim a little further and I am able to touch. We get out, dry off.

We are headed up the mountain to a couple caves. We grab our things and start walking up a pathway. A handful of young men escort us up the hill. I know what they are doing since we went to the last waterfall and those young men helped us up the fall in hopes to have a tip. We climb some steep steps, about 75 or so. That is just a guess. We come up to this area on the side of the hill that is somewhat a cave. It has strange pillar type formations, like the rock was shaped like icicles. There are 2 white candles burning. I ask Pleasure what the candles are for and he says Voodoo. Some areas of the rocks have black soot on it from burning. There is a fake floral bouquet on a ledge and graffiti. It smells likes mildew. After a few minutes, we turn to walk away and start heading up the hill more. At the top of the pathway was a series of creeks with pools every 10 feet or so. They lead us to an area where the wall opens up huge! This is quite the cave. I would estimate it was about 200 feet tall, 100 feet wide and 2-300 feet long. As one of the young men leads me to the cave, I keep my hands to myself so he doesn't grab one. I feel as if I let him take my hand I will need to tip him. I didn't ask for hep and I really don't need it. He guides me to the opening of the cave. We walk along the stream and step on big rocks occasionally to get through the water. As we are walking he says something but I cant understand him with his accent. I soon look at the walls I am walking next and there are literally millions of bees and hundreds of hives on the walls of the cave! He was trying to tell me to be careful to not touch the walls because of the bees. You would think you could hear them buzz, but you couldn't. They were a cross between yellow jackets and wasps. The hives are long and narrow and hang. So crazy to see that. I stop to take a few photos of it and Emily walks ahead with the young man helping her. We walk into the cave and through more streams. There is sooooo much graffiti, it is sad. Emily and I make a comment on how it ruins how beautiful this place is. The young man points out there are old Indian carvings on the rock wall. I look at it and I can't help but think someone did that just to say Indians carved it. A few minutes later, Emily said that he guy said the same thing to her but she didn't think they were and I told her I thought the same thing.

I look around the cave some more. Up and down and take it all in. At the end of the cave, the water starts. It is an underground water source that has carved out this cave and made the waterfall. There must be a lot of water underground! I don’t stay in the cave long because of the strong mildew smell. I walk out and try to balance myself on the rocks. I don’t want to touch the walls and get stung. I'm not allergic to bees but I don’t like the idea of a bee sting. They can be itchy! I walk back and meet up with the rest of the group. We take a small trail to the edge of the cliff and take in the view of the waterfall directly below us. It is so pretty and I am glad that I spread some of my Dad's ashes here. It's perfect for him.

We walk back down all the stairs and head back to the beach. Our driver has started a game of football (soccer) with some of the men there. The young men that walked us up the path don’t ask for tips and head into the football game. The girls and I decided to sit down and watch. Pleasure sits next to us and a few little kids come join us as well. Loud music is playing and it puts all of us in a fun mood. There is a large group of people who arrive and walk over to a large rock that has a tree growing out of it. I noticed a lady throwing or splashing something at the rock and then drink something and spitting it onto the rock. She then hands the bottle to another lady and she does the same. Then hands it off to someone else. At this point I think they are doing some sort of ritual. I ask Pleasure and he said voodoo. I take a few photos and then think 'I hope they don’t get mad that I am taking photos and put some voodoo on me'! I watch them as they walk over to the stairs and head up the hill to the caves. They are probably doing more voodoo up there.

We watch the guys play foot ball for about 30 minutes and then decide we are ready to leave. We all climb back in to the Land Rover and head back to the house. When we get back we all pack our bags for the trip home. I have a lot of room left in my suitcase now that I have eaten and given away a lot of the things I brought. After we pack, we eat dinner. We go across the street and buy some beer and rum and coke. This is our last night in Haiti and we want to have a little fun. Joanne asks us to meet with her. We gather in a circle outside and she hands us some literature on MFH. She also would like to know how we felt the trip went, what went good, what went bad, etc? It was a good meeting and I felt like I wanted to come back and help this organization again soon.

After the meeting, I grab our game and we put the mouth retractors in our mouths. Well some of us do. We drink and be merry and Donna heads to bed first. After we play a few rounds of Watch Your Mouth, we call it a night. We need to be up early for our ride to Port Au Prince at 7am. I take my Malarone and climb into my net. I place my oils on and do a little blogging. I take my phone and use the light from the screen to see if any mosquitos are trapped in my net. Shoot, there is one. I try a few times to catch him, but it is hard one handed. Eventually he lands on the net and I grab my skin so soft and spray it. Dead! No more mosquitos! I settle into my bed and go to sleep. I say good night to Haiti for the last time. It makes my heart sad.

Day 13

jessicainhaiti — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 04:06:00 GMT

Day 13- Mobile clinic, sick girls and Mad Max

I wake up to Donna coming into the room. She has some toast and climbs into her bed. I slowly get out of bed and get dressed. I go out and make the coffee. I walk back in and start talking to Donna. She tells me she is sick again. She has diarrhea and nausea. Oh no, really? I feel so bad for her. I go into Momma nurse role and start offering her all different kinds of things to help her feel better or get more comfortable. I rub some essential oils on her to try and help her nausea and also offer her some peppermint. She won’t be going to mobile clinic with me today. It will be just me and the midwives. Shani walks into get some things and tells us she is very ill. She has been up all night vomiting and having diarrhea. This is not good news. I am feeling so bad for them and want them to feel better. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything I can do. I am the only one who hasn’t gotten sick. The only thing different I am doing is the the essential oils. I would like to think they are helping me not get sick. I mention that to the girls and we kinda agree. It could also be the my tummy is made of stone! I cross my fingers that I don’t get sick too.

I continue to get ready for the day and pack my bag full with the rest of the bags, blankets and headband from my Mom. Today is my last day I can give them away. My last day doing mission work. I get my water bottles from the fridge and grab some snacks. I fill my fanny pack up from the supply closet and I am ready. Joanne tells us that the vendors are here with the art. I get excited, I can’t wait to see what they have.I grab my wallet and tell the others. Donna and Shani are too ill to go. But they need to pick something up for the One Nurse at a Time auction. They give us money and ask us to pick something out for them. We go out there and see many vendors with all their things on sheets on the dirt. It is 0730 in the morning and I can’t help but think they had to have gotten up early to be here at this time. Who knows how far they have come from, how far they walked with hopes of us buying maybe one thing. I walk around and check everything out. The stuff is very similar to what we saw at the ladies house. Just as I have experienced before in developing countries, they try to hustle me into buying things. They follow me around and try to get me to only look at what they have. I make my decision and buy a painting, a couple gifts and something for One Nurse at a Time. I bring it in the house and show Donna what I got. I put it away and go outside and get in the white land rover that's waiting. There is a new driver I haven’t met yet and Pleasure, my interpreter. There is one midwife and she is packed and ready. Donated suitcases are full of donated supplies and are placed on the top of the land rover. We leave the house and pick up 2 more midwives in town. We drive out of Hinche for about 45 minutes out into the mountains. While driving on the very bumpy dirt roads, my tummy starts to feel upset. I am over analyzing my tummy again. I am sure. I am hoping I am feeling this way because of the bumpy road. I throw a peppermint in my mouth and cross my fingers. Peppermint usually works for my occasional nausea. On the way, they're small villages everywhere. My tummy starts to feel better once we are driving on pavement. We arrive to the mobile site and no one is there. A couple ladies start walking ourway. They are visiting someone or doing somethingdown the road while waiting for us to arrive. One of them grabs a broom and starts sweeping the small building we are at. We unload the car and open up the bags. They have 2 portable folding beds. We open them up and cover one with a sheet and the other with a fabric shower curtain. They are in bad shape, but it works and keeps the women off the floor for exams. We take all the usual medications out and lay them on one of the folding beds. One by one, women arrive. Pleasure tells me that this particular clinic is typically small. After we feel like everyone that is coming is there, the education starts from one of the midwives. First though, they sing and pray. Songs are used to help Mom’s remember the warning signs and when to go to the hospital. All Mom’s are encouraged to go to the hospital when labor starts or when they have any of the warning signs. Matwon's are encouraged to bring woman to the hospital or the birth center. MFH pays them for doing this and it gives them a reason or incentive to bring the women in.

She teaches about bleeding, loss of fluid, healthy meals, preeclampsia warning signs and fetal movement.

When she is done, we hand out their charts to them. I help do vital signs and write them down in their chart. It is time for urine dips. The midwife dips one and within a few seconds starts to name off the results. I explain to her via Pleasure, that alot of the results need 30 to 90 seconds before reading the results. She said she did wait that long, but I disagreed. I don’t say anything because I am not there to argue. I do three pregnancy tests. Two are positive and one is negative. The ones that are positive need blood work done. I am given a lancet and told to poke the tip of the patients finger. The first poke wasn’t deep enough. I am used to putting the lancet into a pen like device that pushes the needle in. So, I try again and get more blood. I use a pipette to pull up the blood and then I place it into the reservoir for rapid HIV and syphilis. Good news for both the patients, negative.

One of the woman there has a baby, maybe about one year old. She becomes fussy so I offer her a granola bar. She starts to eat it and I am not so sure she liked it. She made a weird face. It is pretty sweet and I am guessing that this baby has never has something so sweet. She held onto it for a while and eventually drops it. I pick it up and feed the rooster and hens that are all around.

One by one I perform leopolds, fundal height and doppler fetal heart tones on the patients. Most of them were measuring at least 2 weeks behind. One woman was 28 weeks and measuring maybe 23 at best. These women often don’t know when their last menstrual period was so fundal height isn’t very accurate. When there are 4 woman left, I pull out the bags and make an announcement to the woman. I have Pleasure interpret. I tell them that I am giving them a bag that my Mom made for pregnant Haitian women. That I was proud to give it to them to help carry their diapers, blankets and baby clothing. They all say Merci or thank you. But the midwives go on to tell me ‘thank you to your Mom and you for all you are doing for Haitian women.’ I got teary eyed and told them that they were doing more for me than I was doing for them. I don’t think they understood what I meant, but, I did. This experience has really made a difference in my life. I want to devote my life to poverty and humanitarian work. I can not foresee doing anything else. All of course when I am done raising my children. In the meantime, I can only do a little. But it is more than doing nothing at all.

When we are done seeing patients, we pack up the things and put the suitcases on top of the Land Rover. We climb in and make the bumpy trek back to the house. I arrive just before lunch is ready. I don’t change out of my scrubs quite yet. Emily is waiting at the house and she is done for the day too. Tiffany comes back and I ask how busy the hospital is. If it is busy, I want to go there. She says it is pretty slow. I go change out of my sweaty scrubs and put them into the laundry. Lunch is ready and we are alerted by the bell. We go in and eat. After lunch, Emily is craving brownies again. She goes and makes them and we eat nice warm gooey brownies. It is such a nice treat. Thanks again, Em!

We sit around for the rest of the day. The cooks make dinner right after they make lunch before they go home for the night. So dinner is ready very soon after we eat lunch and the brownies. We aren't that hungry, but eat a little bit. We wash our dishes and rinse them in the bleach water. Donna and Shani are feeling a little bit better and try to eat a little. But they call it a night early so they go to bed.

Tiffany, Emily and I decide to watch Mad Max again. We place the laptop on the patio table and pull our chairs around it. The volume is turned up as high as it can go. At night the noise from the street is loud. People talking loudly. Moto's and cars beeping their horns all the time. Music is blaring occasionally from cars. Very, very loudly. Like I am at a rock concert. How can they make it that loud and secondly, how do they afford to buy that kind of stereo system. I have noticed that alot of the campaigning cars have the very loud music coming from them. Kind of a weird concept to think about. 'Hey, vote for me because I am playing blaring loud, deafening music.' The mosquitos and flying insects are attacking me. I go in and spray some DEET on. I hate it so much, but I also hate the itchy bug bites. Unfortunately though, they got me pretty good that night. Good thing I have antimalarials! We relate the movie, Mad Max to our country's current state of affairs related to the election. Kinda a crazy thing to think about.

After the movie, we take our medications, I place my essential oils on again, tuck myself into my net and blog. I have been using the oils a lot more now. I go back and forth between blogging and facebook and candy crush. I just can't seem to fall asleep easily here. Idamae comes in and does her 'I need attention' meowing. I grab her and place her on my bed. She kneads the blanket until she feels it is comfortable enough to lay down. She lays down but doesn't stay very long. I think she has ADD or something :) Tomorrow is our fun, relaxing day. I want to go to the local feeding center and the plan is to leave about 10am. I get to sleep in. Lights out eventually.