fear

A flash of lightening catches the corner of my eye from the window. I wait, breathing slowly, for the thunder to follow. I don't count the time anymore like I used to do with my Dad when I was little. Here, the anticipation isn't fun. Here, the anticipation builds and I breathe a little faster and I feel my chest tightening. I brace myself-- I can't help it-- for the wall-rattling, all-consuming thunder of the Carribean. The first boom sounds and I stop. For a split second longer I wonder if this roll is really going to shake us.

The thunder here scares me. Not in a hysterical, hide-under-the-covers kind of way, but as a powerful force outside of anyone's control that can destroy this fragile place. When I came to Haiti, I loved the thunderstorms. As soon as the rain started, or hopefully a little before, I would run into my house, open the curtains in the second bedroom and sit on the cot and watch the lightening crack in the distance. It was thought-provoking in a positive way to have finally arrived in Haiti, to be in the tropics and to feel the power of something so much bigger than myself. I knew the troubles the rain brought, cholera was already here, and I knew my job was more urgent with each passing storm. But I never felt the fear.

Ten months later, I feel it. I feel it with each bolt of lightening, each rumble of thunder, the passing minutes of a downpour. I feel it when I see young children, 6 or 7 years old, playing and splashing in the bay of trash outside of St. Mary Hospital. I feel it in the moment of hesitation before I enter the abandoned room, knowing that at any time one of the kids could be gone. I feel it when a coworker tells me his friend has had signs of cholera since the morning and I hear the trembling in his strong voice. Oh man did I feel it when we had an earthquake here. At first fear for myself, but when it was over, fear for my friends and the horrible memories I knew this small quake would bring back.

There have been so many of these moments here. And the accompanying realization that although I'll do what I can, there are powerful forces both natural and man-made that leave me helpless. To continue living in Haiti, I won't let this fear consume my thoughts. But on this stormy evening, it seems right to acknowledge it and respect it's rightful place in my experience here.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy (early) Mother's Day!!!

This is an amazing article written by my boss for Mother's Day. He talks about one of the women that we work with who is just a phenomenal person. I don't know her super well, but she is always joyful, always singing and always kind. All this, despite the fact that she has the most depressing job of all (in my opinion) of coordinating the funerals and burials for adults and children who die at our hospitals.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wynn-walent/haiti-cholera_b_1501446.html?ref=fb&src=sp&mimi=1&comm_ref=global_motherhood&comm_crv

An especially Happy Mother's Day to the mom's in my life who have helped me grow so much- Mom, Gosia, Ginny, Grandma Gayle and Grandma Charlene. I'm so lucky to have you all in my life!

concentrate

How do you possibly sit down and concentrate long enough to study for the GRE when your coworker is out getting his friend who has had cholera-symptoms all morning to bring back to our CTC, there is a room full of kids locked up in their cribs just dying for you to take them on a walk and a chapel full of amazing singers rehearsing that you know the kids would love?

Guess I'm getting up an hour earlier tomorrow... 5:30am here I come.

weekend highlights

Sometimes working for this organization is so f-ing cool. Seriously.

I spent Saturday morning cleaning like a crazy person and doing tons of laundry. Your clothes get 100 times dirtier in Haiti due to the excessive heat/sweat/dust, not to mention I spend my days in a warehouse and playing with babies that don't have real diapers. So you take those dirty clothes and try to wash them by hand... anyways it takes a while. So what do I do after my unglamorous morning? Go meet a famous actress. And by that I mean she was hanging out at the tents, so my boss introduced me and she complimented my work and we talked for a bit. She had a group with her, including some journalists, so the group of us went out to dinner. Father Rick came too and was the grand entertainer as usual, but I really respected that the actress let Father Rick be the star and tell his stories for the journalists. It ended up being a really late night, but of course as soon as we got back to the hospital, Father left on a moto to go down to Cite Soleil to our new cholera center.

The next morning we woke up early to head up to Kenscoff to go to mass at St. Helene. Mass was nice as usual, but when we got back to the retreat house, we were talking with one of the drivers about what he thought of the current President of Haiti, Martelly, which of course led to a whole discussion on politics. I could tell from his stories that he was very anti-Aristide, which became more and more obvious the longer we talked. Now this guy is super sweet. I spent my last car ride with him talking about how hard he has worked hard to give his children the education he never had. He talked about taking in his nieces and nephews when their parents died and about all the years he has worked for Father Rick and how much he respects our organization. But back to his political stories.

By now we're all in a group walking back up to the truck to go home and the driver is in a full-fledged rant. He sayss, "Do you know what Aristide used to do?! He was burning American flags on the streets! And do you know what we said when he did that, we said, 'Good! That guy won't be around much longer!'" At which point Father Rick turns to us and says, "Of course he hates Aristide, he was a tonton macoute!"

Just incase you're not totally up on your Haiti history, thanks to Wikipedia: "Duvalier employed the Tonton Macoutes in a reign of terror against any opponents... Tonton Macoutes murdered more than 60,000 Haitians."
 
I'm 100% sure that my mouth fell open, to which the driver confirms, "ya, I was a macoute." Like it was his freaking college alumni or something. I spent the drive home dazed that within 24 hours I met a famous Hollywood actress and a tonton macoute. Haiti put me right back in my place though with an emergency bathroom situation mid-way through our two hour drive. Good ol' Haiti...
 
We got back from Kenscoff, I took an hour nap, and then we left again to go down to the new cholera treatment center in Cite Soleil. It was absolutely incredible. I had gone the previous Saturday with Father Rick to put in the temporary little generator, fans and lights. When I arrived, there were 10 cholera patients being treated. I met the girl who couldn't have been more 17, who had been so dehydrated when she came in that Father Rick (he's also a doctor) had given her an intraosseous infusion in her legs. For non-medical people, an IO infusion is when they drill a needle straight into the patient's bones to administer IV fluid as fast as possible. She looked better compared to the guy next to her and she was SO brave as the nurse was pulling the needles out. She just covered her eyes with her arm and only let out a wince once. Let me tell you too, pulling those needles out of a bone is a process. I think it’s awesome that we were able to literally save her life overnight and who knows what would have happened to her if that CTC had been opened even a week later.

Came home to find another famous actress here along with her team of important people that are helping us out.
 
All in all, it was a pretty awesome weekend.

cholera update and babies

So this past week, we have been working with every donation group under the sun to try and get materials and medication for cholera. Here's what we've got:

• 7 pallets delivered yesterday of meds, IV solution and supplies specifically for cholera
• 2 confirmed 40' containers full of Ringers Lactate IV solution
• 2 more nearly-confirmed 40' containers full of Ringers
• a donation to purchase in Europe all the drugs we'll need to treat cholera for at least 6 months
• a large budget to pay for all expenses of supplies we have to buy in-country
• 2 more 40' containers for general hospital supplies

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also watched the 'Baseball in the Time of Cholera' movie which was great, I guess it won second place in it's category at Tribeca which is awesome. The movie only solidified my view that even if the UN won't acknowledge that this cholera epidemic is completely their fault, at least they could help pay for some of the treatment. The cost is all falling onto the NGO's shoulders. All of us are extremely tight on budgets espcially in Haiti because there is no more disaster funding, but the UN which has enormous amounts of money, isn't contributing at all. At the very least they could lighten the burden for the humanitarian organizations. At least it would be a step in the right direction, along with compensating all the people that have lost their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and children to this disease that hadn't been in Haiti for decades.

Alright, enough ranting.

I finally took pictures up in sal pwason of the kiddos!

Carly and Neika dancing to Lucy's bossa nova music

Nadine- full, happy and swinging to the music

my baby, Marvens

Marvens loving the camera, Neika is over it, and Ferlanda smiling and babbling to the music in the stroller

sleepy girl!

cholera

On Thursday morning, I woke up earlier than normal and decided that I would go to mass. I haven't been in the morning in a long time. I go every Sunday to the evening mass because I don't have to wake up early and it's not a funeral. Every single morning, except on rare occasion, there is a funeral for the children and adults who have died in our hospitals the previous day. Needless to say, it's a depressing way to start the day, but since I hadn't been in a while, I felt it would be good to go.

I walked into the chapel just before Father Rick rang the bell to start. The chapel is shaped like a big oval, with benches around the perimeter and the caskets and guerneys in the middle. There was a large group of foreign doctors there, the majority of our long term volunteers, a couple hospital employees and four family members there to grieve. Father Rick and our absolutely amazing group of singers began with the songs I've gotten to know pretty well. Even though I don't go to the funerals every morning, I hear them on my way to work, we sing them at memorials and other burials and sometimes even at parties. Ok so singing our songs for the dead at parties might be a little inappropriate, but when it's the priest that starts the song... what can you do??  

Father Rick burned the incense and sang our first song and then he went to the pulpit to talk about Gena and Farrah, the two women who lay in front of us. Both of their stories were horribly tragic, Gena was a sixteen year old girl who came to St. Luke so sick that they were unable to save her. Farrah was pregnant, she came to us with a severe case of cholera and between being transferred from St. Damien (because she was pregnant) to St. Philomene (because she had cholera) she died. Her baby didn't survive either. Father Rick continued the mass, leading the group in these gorgeous songs, both in Creole and English and I did my best to hold it together. I thought about that this is not only a loss of human life, but a young expectant mother who died so young, from this brutal disease that only showed up in Haiti a year and a half ago. I left the mass devastated, but with a renewed energy for finding the supplies that our doctors and nurses need to save people from this awful illness.

I've known that the number of patients we're seeing with cholera has been going up and up over the last month. We've doubled if not tripled the amount of Ringers Lactate, the IV solution used to treat cholera, that we're sending to St. Philomene CTC (Cholera Treatment Center). During the dry season the incidence of cholera had gotten so low, I had held on to the hope that cholera wouldn't be so bad this year. Unfortunately, the rains came a little early this year and we're getting a preview into exactly how bad it's going to be. Making matters much worse is that the majority of the organizations in Haiti have left. There two-year disaster funding is up and they are gone or have significantly cut back their programs. Our biggest donor of materials is no longer providing supplies to treat cholera. When I arrived here, each week we were getting at least 2400 bags of Ringers, 1800 IV catheters, hand sanitizer, oral rehydration salts, bleach... everything we needed. Now we are scrambling to keep up with the demand for materials from the CTC and the rainy season has just begun.

A room at St. Philomene, our CTC

Lucxoit and I posing for donor pictures at the CTC pharmacy

That afternoon, Father Rick called an emergency cholera meeting with the heads of the hospital and our supply team, to try and figure out what we can do about the rise in cholera. The doctors started the meeting, confirming that they have been testing the patients arriving with diarrhea and it is indeed cholera. They also said that they have doubled the number of patients in the last two weeks and so we're short on staff and materials. They're afraid that we're going to reach capacity of the CTC, 72 beds, within the next month. The other CTC that was in our area was run by Doctors Without Borders and it's now closed so there are even more people are coming to us. We discussed putting up big tents and treating people outside on cots just to keep up with the number of patients we could soon be getting. Father Rick talked about the need to open a part of our new hospital in Cite Soleil to help with the inundation at St. Philomene. Our doctors and nurses are prepared this time, they talked about how practiced they are at diagnosing the severity of cholera. This time around, they said they're going to do an even better job at gathering patients statistics, to help us know who is coming to us and how we can work to prevent instead of treat.

Yesterday morning, I went down to Cite Soleil with Father Rick to put up fans and lights at St. Mary, our new hospital. The hospital is not yet hooked up to a generator, so we brought a mini one and a lot of extension cords to hook up the fans and lights to equip the area to treat cholera. We came back to the house around lunchtime, I went to work writing emails to anybody and everybody trying to get supplies. Father Rick headed back out to buy cots and put them at St. Mary. While I was down at the hospital, I talked with some of the guys overseeing the building of the hospital who told me about their group Action Chretien. It is an organization of people who grew up in this notoriously bad area who are against the violence and gangs and are trying to help their neighbors. They are the ones who made the plans for the hospital, are overseeing the construction and will manage it's operations. I've only ever been there on Saturdays, but they're all there, working in the hot sun to get this thing up and running. They're doing a phenomenal job and it was cute to see these really rough gangster guys talking about how Father Rick is their savior. The hospital is simple and small, but you look out the window and see that people are living in mucky garbage, in huts made out of sticks and rusted, corrugated sheet metal strewn together with scrap wire. I can see why this project, organized and carried out by the leaders of the neighborhood, is a huge accomplishment and why they are so grateful to Father Rick and St. Luke for their funding.

Driving up the road to St. Mary Hospital

Father Rick putting up fans to prepare for cholera treatment

Looking out the window of St. Mary Hospital

On a separate note, a friend of mine here directed a film that debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last night. It's called Baseball in the Time of Cholera and it has a ton of footage from the tent camp next to our hospital and I actually went to watch one of their baseball practices last week. We got a copy of the DVD, so hopefully I'll get to watch it soon, but you can watch the preview for it at www.baseballinthetimeofcholera.com

our big visitor of the week

Check out the St. Damien blog to see photos from our big visitors tour of the hospital!

http://saintdamienhospital.nph.org/2012/04/19/us-secretary-of-health-kathleen-sebelius-visits-st-damien-hospital/