Haitian lessons: Overdue

So many thoughts, it’s hard to get them out of my head and onto the page.

An adorable matching mom and baby
at their postpartum/well baby visit

To start, it has been an incredibly good couple of weeks since we last wrote. I (Leah), am absolutely loving being at the birth center and working with the midwives. The last two months have really helped me understand the rhythm of what goes on each day, and I’ve gotten the chance to learn about what the midwives want to review and go over. Some of you know that I was planning on doing clinical education with the midwives, what we call in the states “continuing education.” I am really excited to continue to do this and now have a real grasp on what the midwives want to learn about….

I wrote that first paragraph a week ago. I’m now sitting down again, on a Monday night, to write a post. Tonight I realized that we left for Haiti two months ago today. What a weird feeling it is, to know we have been here two months… so much has happened, so much has been learned, yet it sincerely feels like it has been just a few weeks. In some ways, it feels really good to know that two months can go by so smoothly… in other ways I wish it had gone by slower, especially so I could have learned more creole than what I know at this point! Language learning is so frustrating—especially when you are trying to fit so many new lessons in your brain.

The "Hemoglobin" station. Dab a drop of blood
on the paper and estimate the Hgb by color

The days, the week, go by in a routine now. Mondays are very busy—at the birth center we see new patients on Mondays, which is usually the busiest day of the week. Today there were 41 new patients, 41 new pregnant bellies and smiling moms visiting the clinic for the first time. Well—not all 41 were pregnant, there was one 49 year old who was convinced she has been pregnant for 2 years—and of course the pregnancy test was negative. But it didn’t matter to her because her last pregnancy lasted 4 years, so basically she will prove us wrong in a couple. You can’t make this stuff up. Anyway, there were also two births; uncomplicated and peaceful births. When I was leaving the birth center this afternoon, so was the mom who had delivered at 10am that morning. Dad carrying the baby, grandma carrying the stuff, and mama taking her time walking out of the gates. What a happy sight. So after a full Monday of doing patient education on chikungunya (a new mosquito borne epidemic), checking hemoglobins, making birth kits (for the mothers who will deliver at home with a traditional birth attendant, per their choice), and organizing the pharmacy, I headed home. My housemate, Amy, met me at home and we headed out to town to the market. Bought some Chilean wine, gloves for the birth center, canned milk, bananas, mangos (50 cents for 10 mangos—it is the season of course), and our dinner of fried pork and fried plantains to eat at home. Normal, right? It feels like it to me. Amy is going to the states this week for a wedding and to visit her family for about 2 weeks. She will be in California, seeing some of our best friends and staying a night at our old place. It was odd talking about it, as we walked through the Haitian market-- weird because being away from that life makes it feel like it doesn’t exist without me there. Silly, I know, but life here feels so normal now, its almost like I imagine that other life we lived to be on pause. Not that I don’t miss our friends (y’all know I REALLY miss you), this just feels like another life.

Anyway, as I think about the rest of this week, I feel like I know what to expect. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are usually about 9am-4pm days at the clinic. Prenatal and postpartum visits with births mixed in. Wednesday we will have a midwife meeting in the afternoon and go over some of the ed topics—this week probably talking about skin to skin and doing some chart reviews. Friday is education day, with an infant massage class and a breastfeeding class for moms with babies over 8 weeks. Saturday or Sunday we may go to the beach, or sleep in. And as I spit out my routine, I smile because I really do enjoy it. I like showing up at the clinic and helping with whatever needs to be done next—seeing a mom who has mastitis, or doing a newborn visit, or measuring some bellies, or providing labor support. There is always something, and its always something I like.

Anyway, on to a different Haitian lesson: I burnt my leg getting off of a motorcycle last week and long story short, the burn turned into a bad infection AKA cellulitis. Thanks to my handy grad school resources I was able to self diagnose (purulent vs non-purulent cellulitis?) and get a big gun antibiotic on board (ugh Clindamycin—it is a MRSA infection, yuck). Thank God it is getting better with frequent bandage changes and religious antibiotic compliance. Thanks to my leg I had to miss out on the beach this weekend, which did I mention, the beaches here are BE-AU-TI-FUL. Why share about my sicky leg on my blog? I don’t know, for transparency sake. I mean I am living in Haiti and these things do happen (and its not like there’s an urgent care here). All the cool ex-pats have scars on their inner right calf from a moto burn, so I just had to join the club ;-)

Oh, one more thing that has been on my mind. The other night we went to dinner at this restaurant that had a TV and American cable or something, and a commercial for a weight loss product came on. Do you know how ironic it is to be in Haiti watching an American commercial for pills to make you lose weight? Let me point out that Second Mile Haiti, where Armen volunteers, is a center for severely malnourished children. ~~Sometimes~~ Being abroad can really point out absolutely crazy aspects of your own culture.

Speaking of Armen, her is some of the yogurt!

Alright, well Armen is in bed with something like the flu—with as many mosquito bites that we have gotten, we keep our fingers crossed it’s not anything else. But really, I think its just a virus (congestion, fever, cough, etc). The power has gone out every night for the last 6 nights, and of course tonight our internet is down so this blog will wait until tomorrow. But being disconnected from the web gives you a certain kind of ease—like you really can just relax (and write a blog post).

One more thing—two months hasn’t been enough for us so we have decided to stay a couple more. We have gone back and forth because we are a bit nervous about finances but it just feels like we should stay here a bit longer. For one, we really like it… and at this point it feels like we are just starting to get the hang of language and the rhythm, so why leave now. Probably here till mid-July… so I guess we will see you then friends.

Much love, and enjoy some pics!

Fertile soil from Second Mile's Farm

P.S. Ok, it is Thursday night and we finally have internet, so up it goes. Enjoy the pics, they are a bit overdue cause we took a trip to Jacmel like a month ago but better late than never ;-)