6-Months in Haiti: A Reflection

Yesterday marks 6 months in Haiti for me.  This fact is just crazy.  Some days it feels as though I've lived here 10 lifetimes while other days I feel like I just flew in and this is a completely foreign land.

The end of October, 2010 Sean and I packed up what was left of our stuff (we sold or gave away most of it...I gave my clothes to my sister knowing that I can always get them back.  Smart huh?) into our two cars and drove from Phoenix to Livermore, CA where Sean's parents Gary and Sheila live.  We then unloaded all our stuff, sorted it into "sell", "keep in the US" or "take to Haiti" piles and re-packed for Haiti.

I took off a few days early to fly to NC to spend a few days with my sister Lisa, brother-in-law Brian and nephew Carter.  (By the way Carter is the cutest, smartest child alive in case you were wondering). At that time there was a good chance Brian would be deploying soon so I wanted to spend time with him in case I couldn't say goodbye before he left (he didn't end up deploying which let us all breathe a sigh of relief).

Sean and I were supposed to meet in Ft. Lauderdale Halloween night to fly out to Haiti the next day, but my flight to Ft. Lauderdale was cancelled and there was no way I could make our flight to Haiti so I ended up staying at my sister's two extra days while Sean flew to Haiti by himself to get things going.

I'm not sure what we were all thinking but the plan was for us to arrive and then volunteers to start arriving the very next day.  Never again will we do something so crazy.  Not only was I unable to make it to Haiti with Sean, but his AT&T phone wouldn't work. Just wouldn't work despite the fact that he had called to ensure he was on the "Haiti Plan."

So he was here all alone shouldering all of the responsibilities trying to get the house set up and make sure the volunteers had a good experience, we couldn't contact each other 'til he got a Haitian phone, the house wasn't complete and wasn't liveable, plus we didn't have any supplies.  We had a woman who was supposed to cook, clean and do laundry and she didn't really know how to do any of the above let alone cook for a big group in an unstocked kitchen.  This is all in an unfurnished house with no electricity, no power and lots of openings to the outside for rats and other night-creepers to get in.  Yuck.

While Sean was in Haiti trying to get the ball rolling, I spent 48-hours freaking out, wondering if he was OK, if he had met up with the person who was supposed to get him at the airport, etc. When I arrived Sean was a crazy-person.  He was going on pure adrenaline, was sleeping like 4 hours/night, eating once/day and I became terrified about what Haiti was going to do to him, me and us.  The house was like a construction zone and was no more finished than when we had arrived in September.   For the first three weeks Sean slept on a dollar store pool floaty and I slept on a camping mat then for the next three weeks we slept on a twin air mattress together.  We took bucket showers (read: we hauled water up from a well with a rope then carried it upstairs and dumped water over ourselves) and managed to eat at least once/day.  In reflection I think if we can make it through those first few weeks, we can make it through anything.

As it turned out we survived and now .

• The house is now liveable, we have power most days and when we don't we have headlamps with an endless supply of re-chargeable AA batteries.
• We have Haitian cell phones plus Sean's US phone now works in Haiti.
• We have satellite internet that works if there are no clouds in the sky with a battery backup for emergencies.
• We can skype and have a google voice number for texts so we can keep in touch with our friends and family members who we miss desperately. Come visit! Yes you. Come visit!
• We have running water with a water heater.  This is especially amazing and rare in Haiti and so great for someone like me who will have to bundle up after a cold shower no matter how hot the air temperature is.  I WILL get goosebumps after a cold shower.
• We eat three times/day plus snacks and if anything we desperately need our cook Dieula to cut down the portion size...she thinks a huge plate of rice is normal for someone of my size to eat.  She also tells me at least 2 times/week that I need to get bigger.  For women in Haiti, much like 80's hair, the bigger the better.  Thanks Dieula for looking out for me.  She also likes to ask if I'm pregnant and when I'm going to become pregnant and don't Sean and I want to have a baby? :)
• We have more patients than we ever thought possible in our first 6 months (well 7 now) of practicing medicine: we've seen about 1250 patients as an organization since November.  Wow!
• I've realized that I love working with kids. Love, love, love.  I don't really like working with adults unless they're cute and elderly or pregnant.  I also am not a fan of delivering babies. While this is really ironic since I work at a birth center, I've realized that births are not where it's at for me.  Birth is a very beautiful thing and I sure do appreciate midwives and their dedication to making this beautiful thing safe and wonderful for all involved but it's not what lights me up.  With that said I love playing with the babies once they come out.
• Our busy birth center is now becoming a VERY busy birth center with at times multiple births/day and we've helped to deliver around 30 babies (4 at the St. Francois hospital in November and the rest here since mid-January) and have referred countless others to have a (hopefully) safe birth at the Justinian Hospital.
• I did my first intake in Creole without the help of a translator yesterday.  Sure I couldn't ask everything I wanted to but I was excited that when i found myself in a situation where a translator wasn't available, I could get the information I needed, make a diagnosis and formulate a treatment plan.  The perfectionist in me feels like I should have been doing this months ago, but given how busy we've been and how little time we've had for Creole-study and how great our translators are, I'm just glad it happened at all.
• We've become decent at diagnosing and treating many strange diseases.  These are things we were told in our pathology and other "ology" classes that we would never see.  Never ever so don't worry about studying them.  Too bad SCNM (our school) didn't have a tropical medicine class so we didn't have to teach ourselves many of these things.  Fortunately we can read about most of them in books. 
• We have made some good connections with many of the other aid groups working our area and consider two Haitian doctors friends of our organization.  We are also in with the Minister of Health and the head of the largest nursing school in Cap.  These are all good things.  
• We've been here through several political demonstrations (including one where we had to evacuate due to limited supplies) and while that was freaking terrifying, now it's no big deal. It's like growing up in Nebraska during football season with weekly parades.  Except there are burning tires and cars with men high on cocaine holding rocks and bottles.  Pretty similar.
• I have eaten at least 5 times my weight in rice and beans and while I haven't gotten sick of it yet, I do love getting to go to La Kay for cheeseburgers and fries (just found out the beef is imported from the US...probably not grass-fed, grass-finished but at least it's not from one of the poor emaciated Haitian cows).  I don't however love when our cook decides to make spaghetti with chopped up chicken liver in it.  Sick, sick, sick.  FYI we're not supposed to eat things like livers.  It's not natural.
• I have doctored patients through several medical emergencies now and while it's still terrifying I no longer feel like I will have a heart attack.  Patient with a headache and a BP of 230/120 likely having a stroke in our post-partum room? No problem, I know what to do! Unresponsive child with vomiting/diarrhea x 3 days which is most likely cholera. I've got it under control.  
• Sean and I have each lost 20 pounds and have battled countless bouts of diarrhea, headaches, sinus infections, dehydration, cholera (yes, and yes it was on my birthday as if that wasn't a kick in the face...), worms (that came in through our feet making it so we can no longer be barefoot hippies...yes Kim and Korina we've both had "the hook") leading to anemia and we're still going strong.  I liken it to a first-year school teacher who gets every child's sneeze and sniffle.  Except here the sneezes and sniffles are Dengue fever, Malaria and cholera.  Our immune systems will be able to handle anything after this.
• In the beginning we answered people here in Spanish instead of Creole (why is it that si and wi rhyme? For someone like me with dyslexic tendencies this is so not cool.) and got funny looks but now when we try to speak Spanish we answer in Creole.  Fortunately our guard Jason speaks Spanish and Creole so if we're confused we can just go talk to him and he will understand.
• I am now comfortable with the knowledge that there are cockroaches and spiders who live in our house.  BIG spiders too.  I would not have been able to sleep if a spider was in my house in the US but here I'm just glad they're (usually) downstairs.  By the way we're not super-dirty people who's filth attracts insects, this is just normal for most places outside the US.
• We have learned to garden.  By we I mean Sean, Zeenia, some of the staff and many of the volunteers.  The only credit I can take for our plants growing is that the things I planted didn't grow so there was room for someone who knew what they were doing to plant over my non-growing plants.  I am always happy to taste-test others' successes though.
• I have officially been over 6 months without coffee and have cut my migraines down to about once/month.  For those of you who know me well, you know this is a huge improvement.  I was off of chocolate too but have started having a little since Zeenia's mom sent down peanut butter M&Ms.  Peanut butter M&Ms and Reese's Peanut butter cups are like a drug to me. I can't resist them. Can't. Just can't.
• I am striving for a balanced life and am doing yoga and meditation so I can be a calm loving wife to my husband. Chocolate helps me to be this person too.
• I have a Haitian goddaughter names Sabina who is the second cutest child alive (after Carter).  She's 4 months, has a great appetite and is super cute.

In summary this has been a time of growth in every single way imaginable and I'm so glad we took a leap and did it.  I wonder how much more evolved and settled we will be at our 1-year mark?  I hope I haven't lost another 20 pounds and had another myriad of diseases by then.

Thanks for reading,

Dokte Sarah