Grapefruit jam, midwives & a funeral

It seems like the weeks have been flying by and it is difficult to get around to posting a blog, but here is my attempt to update you all with what we have been up to.

I (Meredith) recently had the opportunity to visit the organisation Midwives for Haiti in Hinche with a group of midwives that came to work in the clinic from Georgia. This was quite the trip because from TR to get to Hinche you have to fly to Port au Prince then take a 4 hour drive into the mountains arriving in the Central Plateau where Hinche is located. The locals will say Hinche is 2 hours form PAP, but not true at all. It was really interesting visiting this program and seeing the great work they are doing with educating women who are already birth attendants to become certified midwives. They go through a year long program and are then able to work in hospitals. Esperance et Vie is in the process of developing a women’s health center and I have been lucky to be apart of that planning process, visiting MFH gave us an opportunity to see what their program was like. There are two Haitian physicians who are the true motivators behind the development of the women’s health center, they already come out to TR once a week and volunteer their time seeing ob/gyn patients. They feel their is a real need in this area to develop a
“one of a kind” center that offers consistent quality care. They ultimately want to turn it into a birthing center but we are starting with pap smears and family planning. My plan for the next few weeks is to develop a survey with these physician to do in the community to help organize and focus the development of this project. Hopefully by next week I will start going door to door and begin this process!

I really enjoyed having the group of midwives here, it was great collaborating and learning from my future colleagues. We saw lots of ob/gyn issues as well as the regular skin, GI, fevers and all the tropical illness jazz. My favorite part of their trip was the midwifery seminar that we put together. We had a two day seminar with the home birth midwives from the community. Most of these men and women I knew from last year so it was a great way to give back to the community of midwives. These midwives do have some training but it was great to go over things like positioning during labor, shoulder dystocia, breech delivery and review the different reasons to transport to the hospital. They have a lot of experience and knowledge already but it was great to review and strengthen their existing skills.

Last week we had a small group here with a physical therapist and x-ray tech. We got an x-ray machine donated and the tech was so amazing she basically learned how to do the film processing and we went from having this machine in the closet to taking, processing and casting fractures in 2 days! We had an elbow fracture, wrist sprain and pelvic fracture all in 3 days. I worked along side the PT translating so I also got to see some interesting cases, we also had our first case of sickle cell anemia. The clinic seems to be getting busier and busier each day and I am leaning something new all the time! I have also been busy with home visits, following another pregnant woman who is bordering on pre-ecclapsia her BP remains stable on bed rest for now.

Peter, who will from now on be referring to himself in the 1st person, has also been busy. Lately I have been spending ever afternoon at Jaden Florence, our youth community garden. We have started up the program with about 15 middle and high school aged students who will each have their own garden plot to manage. We have all been working together after school to form our nursery beds and seed vegetables that we can transplant into the main garden once we get some rain. We have also finished building our chicken coop and just bought three hens and a rooster. The chickens will provide fertility and also (hopefully) help to support the program financially. We also repaired an old cement water basin that we are going to use to make worm compost. In the Nativity Village the rabbits are starting to take off. We’ve had three does give birth in the last week, with 8,7, and 3 babies respectfully.

One other group I work with here in a women’s group called GAFAT whose main activity is transforming local fruit into jams, jellies, liqours, and were hoping to keep experimenting on solar dehydrating. We’ve been working on a business plan together and we gave them a micro loan so they could produce a few cases of several products, which will allow us to do some local market research. This has been an enjoyable project to work on because of course we need to be taste-testing the product. So far we’ve had grapefruit jam, orange marmalade, candied peanuts, and I know they’ve also made passion fruit and pineapple jam which I’ll try to get my hands on soon.

Other interesting things to note- we had another Cholera campaign up in the mountains this past Sunday. That really is Meredith’s favorite type of nursing here, having the time to sit down with a family and do prevention work is so important and rewarding too. Going up in the mountains is a whole other world compared to TR. There are children everywhere! It is getting us excited for our trip to the southern mountain village of Douchity in March... more on that later.

On a sadder note we attended our first Haitian funeral this past weekend. It was the brother of the pharmacist from the clinic and he was also a member of the group Peter works with IDDH. We had to borrow the appropriate attire from friends since I ( back to Meredith typing now) did not have a black skirt and Peter needed a tie. The affair started at the families house where we paid our respects then everyone walked to the church. This was a very well liked and respected individual and the church was packed, we stood in the back for the 2.5 hour ceremony. The music was incredible and there was incredible tropical plant and flower arrangements everywhere. I know people talk all the time about the resilience of Haitians, their determination to endure and prosper and their incredible ability to be so hopeful and spirited. Being at this funeral just reaffirmed that cliche. Here was this 50 year old man that died on his way being transferred to Port Au Prince because he was having trouble urinating, the first hospital he was seen at was unable to give him any answers so he was being transferred and died in the car. He started feeling sick in December and died January 25th. His family still does not know why he died and his wife is left behind with no children and no parents or siblings, all of who have passed away (including their daughter). The health system has failed this poor man and his family, but he is only one of the many many out there continually enduring this injustice. And here all these Haitians sat and stood singing and crying for this tragic loss of life, enduring the heat and discomfort of the packed church. As people flooded the streets after the funeral to walk to the cemetery for the burial the road was shut down and all you could see was a sea of white and black. The inequality that exists in our world is truly astounding- let us never settle for this inequality.

Thanks for listening,

M and P