No pictures, and about a tenth of the details, but this is a general idea of what I've been up to!
On Sunday, thanks to daylight savings time, I woke up too
early. Maybe I’ll go into detail about that later. But despite being slightly
groggy the rest of the day, it was actually a very good thing, because I got to
watch the sunrise over Port-au-Prince. Photos to be uploaded when I have
unlimited internet…
We then went on a bus tour of Port-au-Prince, seeing famous
sites and some places that had been heavily damaged by the earthquake.
<This church is described by many as one of the saddest
sites, because of the amount of damage it sustained>
We took a class photo in the plaza by the statue of <the
runaway slave>, and visited a quirky, well-known hotel called Hotel Olafson.
We then went on a hike in the mountain area near Port-au-Prince after a
wonderful lunch at a delicious restaurant called Florville. We ate dinner after
at the house of the parents of one of our professors, enjoying Prestige beer,
Haitain rum and coke, goat, picklies, rice and beans, banana pwese (pressed,
fried plantains), pork griot (fried chunks of pork), and four delicious
desserts – pain patat, a bread with some almond extract, a sweet, hard
cookie-type bread, and coconut dulce-de-leche type cookie.
After that, I called it an early night.
On Monday morning I joined the chronic disease team (one of
the groups in our class) to visit FHADIMAC, a local organization that treats
and attempts to prevent diabetes and hypertension. They discussed their
organization, their treatment model, and their prevention activities, including
education for groups of care providers around Haiti. It was wonderful to see
such a great organization that was, I believe, both started by and entirely run
by Haitians.
After our visit, we returned to our hotel for the last time
and jumped on the bus for our trip from Port-au-Prince to Deschapelles. a
several hour drive along the coast and back down through the Artibonite river
valley. Outside of the city, there was a large tent city that had been
displaced from its previous location inside the city. While it was probably a
good thing to diminish the demands on the city itself and reduce the population
density, the people were displaced so far outside of the city that they really
have no way of getting to the things they would normally access within the
city, and their resources are severely limited. So in the end, maybe not so
good. Our professors said that it had thinned considerably from last year, but
there were still quite a few people there, and obviously, it will be
increasingly important to help get them out of that situation and into more
permanent housing, because the longer they are there, the less that will be a
“temporary” situation, and it’s not a good location for long term.
We arrived in Deschapelles in time for dinner, and we’ve
been served delicious food every day. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to agree
with my stomach too well. I’m not sure what the issue is, but it’s been very
non-paleo, so perhaps this is just evidence that what I’ve been doing the last
few months is better for me. I’ll have to see how things go when I get back to
the US. But, I’m surviving and managing to go about normal activities, just
slightly uncomfortable.
The last few days, my group (the WASH group) has been
visiting various communities to see tippy-taps (hand-washing stations) and
latrines. Some have been amazing, some have been disappointing, and we even got
to see, in action, one getting installed. We’ve also seen several wells – bore
wells and hand-dug wells, as well as a couple of rivers and natural springs
that are also used as water sources and a couple of (currently useless due to
lack of rain) roof rainwater catchment systems that lead to large cisterns.
I’ve also spent a bit more time with the chronic disease
group going to “morning meeting”, which is a gathering of hospital personnel to
discuss relevant health topics at 7am each morning. Two days ago we had two
very interesting cases presented, and yesterday morning, we heard about the
importance of multimodal analgesia for pain management and the prevention of
the development of chronic pain. I also spent some time with the mapping and
data group yesterday afternoon, learning about the mobile phone data collection
system used by community health workers in the outlying areas that are too far
from the hospital or any of its associated dispensaries for regular checkup
visits. They currently use the system for standard checkup visits and for
malnutrition assessment for children under 5. They’ve had some interesting
snags that our data and mapping group will try to address in more detail.
The hospital itself is amazing. After spending my summer at
the clinic in Kasoa, I think I had certain (low) expectations about what
clinics in developing country contexts are like, how the staff behave, etc. But
this hospital is not on the same level at all. Still certainly not what we
expect in the United States, but it is quite impressive. I think I saw
something somewhere that said it’s 60,000 square feet, it has the capacity for
several kinds of surgeries (although not the most complex or risky surgeries),
a maternity ward, and malnutrition ward, TB and HIV/STD testing, outpatient
clinic, physical therapy, an associated prosthetics and orthotics clinic, and a
department for integrated community services, and probably other departments
that I’m forgetting.
At some point, I’ll have to go into more detail about all of
the comparisons between Haiti and Ghana. There are some things that are
surprisingly similar, but it’s left me well prepared for what I’ve found here!
The place where we’re staying has a one-eyed dog named Ti
Be, another dog (the little lady of the house) named Tig (the Kreyol word for
tiger) and a couple of other dogs who wander about. We also have pool access
and went swimming one day, but it feels a little overindulgent in the middle of
a community that struggles with water access.
We had an art showcase yesterday evening, where local
vendors brought their wares for us. It was its usual mess of everyone vying for
your attention and dollars, but I’m getting better at bargaining (though I
still hate it, mostly because I know they need the money a whole lot more than
I do) and I held firm for only the things I actually wanted and got several
very nice paintings.
We also had the chance to explore the Mellon house one
evening. William Larimer Mellon was the son of the well-known Pittsburgh
Mellons, and he and his wife, Gwen, founded the hospital. They lived on a
beautiful plot of land with a gorgeous view of the valley, and though they’ve both
passed on, their children are still very involved in the hospital, and their
house is now available for rent/use – for a large donation to the hospital.
We’ll also be going back on Sunday for dinner with Ian (the son) and a relaxing
evening. They’re a fascinating family, and Gwen and Larry (as he’s called)
chose to be buried here, showing that they really saw this as their home, not
anywhere in the United States.
And with that I think I’ll cut this off, since it has gotten
far too long, especially for something with no pictures!
Au revoir!
