Trip to Bonbon

            I had a pretty quiet week, as I tried to finish up my interviews at the Center of Hope in Jeremie. Only 6 more until I reach my goal of 130 interviews! Yesterday I got to see another new city in Haiti. I went to the beach in Bonbon with Emily (American HHF volunteer), Pierre and Clifford (Haitian HHF volunteers). I drove with Pierre on his moto which took about 35 minutes from Jeremie. Even though I am a little scared of riding around on motos, they really are the best way to see the country. The picture above is of a place where a river meets the road between Bonbon and Jeremie. People come there to wash their motos, their clothes and themselves! It was wonderful to have a day relaxing on yet another gorgeous Haitian beach before I head up to live in the mountains for four days. That will be an adventure for sure!

Last Interview in the Mountains

Today I finished my last interviews in the villages. The rest of the time I am here I will be interviewing at the Center of Hope (maternal waiting home) in Jeremie. I am sad to be done going on the health posts because they are a lot of fun, but it will be nice not to spend so much time in the car getting to them. Even though my interviews are done, my time in the villages is not. Next week Emily and I will be spending 2 nights at the home of a health agent in Moron, Haiti. We will see all of her patients with her as well as live with her family. The home in the picture above is actually the one that we will be staying in. I think that will be a really great experience. I will keep my fingers crossed that one of the women I interviewed will go into labor while I am there!

Beach Weekend

This past weekend I spent at the beach in Port Salut with Emily (nurse/HHF volunteer) and Michelle (works for Caris Foundation/my housemate). Port Salut is on the southern coast of Haiti. It took us 5 hours to get there over winding roads. Most of the way the road was only wide enough for one car. On the way we drove through Les Cayes which is the 4^th largest city in Haiti. We were so excited to see paved roads and a traffic light that we actually stopped to take pictures.

Once we were at the beach we were really spoiled with American style food and air conditioning. The beach was gorgeous with clear blue water, white sand and mountains in the distance. We ate at one really nice hotel that had a swimming pool and a flat screen TV which seemed so out of place in a country like Haiti. It felt kind of wrong to be indulging in good food and sunbathing while there was so much suffering around us, but I have to admit it was nice to have a few days off!

Voodoo Lesson

Today I spent the morning interviewing Marion, the uncle of my summer host, and a local Voodoo expert. Marion has been studying Voodoo his entire life, but also understands my Western perspective since her studied mathematics in US and other places abroad. It was nice to interview someone in English! He is 84 and although he had a stroke last year, he is doing well (mostly sustains himself on Ensure and the local beer, Prestige).

            He spent a lot of time explaining the differences between good Voodoo and bad Voodoo (he only practices good Voodoo of course, but knows about both kinds). All in all it seems extremely complicated. For example, if I had an enemy that was pregnant and I wanted her to die or lose the baby I would go to a Voodoo priestess (only a female will do). She then has to mix poisons, preferably into a food, and then trick a close friend or family member to feed my enemy the poison. However, if my enemy catches wind that I am trying to harm her, all she needs to do is find a Voodoo priestess with a more powerful spirit than the one I hired. If the baby is born healthy I will know that my priestess lost to a more powerful priestess.  

He also told me that Voodoo services are extremely expensive; 700 to 1,000 gourde (between $17 and $25 US) is the going rate to have an enemy killed. This is interesting because many women say they can't afford to come in for prenatal care which costs only 50 gourdes ($1.50 US), but I guess people find the money when they really need it. I definitely learned a lot from Marion, and before I left he asked me to recommend his services to the pregnant women I interview if they are in need of good Voodoo!

Rural Post

So I just got back from a trip to the village of Joudant. It is about an hour and a half from Jeremie. The drive there was beautiful, which was good because the speedometer never went over 20 mph. Out one side of the car you could see the ocean (it was so clear, I half expected to see Cuba) and out the other side of the car you saw mountains. From all of these drives out to rural health posts I can definitely say that the Haitian proverb "beyond mountains there are mountains" is true!

 

The post today was set up in a cockfighting arena, which basically is just a few rows of circular bleachers set up in the middle of the forest. After I finished talking to some of the women who were there for prenatal care I got to help with some of the medical care. I took blood pressures on everyone waiting and then I gave children polio and DPT vaccines. I felt bad because we only had adult size needles for infants and toddlers, but these kids took it like champs. They cried a lot less than American kids do!

Local Flavor

This has been a very fun week! I got to do some more sightseeing with Denise, a nursing professor from Uconn. She is thinking about bringing students here next spring. We went to the outdoor market (see above picture) in Jeremie which was insanely crowded, but a lot of fun. They sell everything there from live chickens to ginger to raw meat to nail polish. They also sell used clothing from the US by the pound. Bette showed us around and helped me bargain for some baking soda and sugar so I could make cookies for our 4^th of July celebration.

 

Another fun thing we did was go to church on Sunday. Even though I had no idea what they were saying the entire time, being at church made me feel at home. The priest of this parish owns an orphanage in Jeremie and all of his children sit around the alter. One little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old, feel asleep during his homily. When the priest saw her sleeping he pulled her up on the alter and made her kneel there for the remainder of mass! He may have been a strict priest, but he did make a point of shaking every single persons hand in that church twice before we left. I have made a few more trips to villages this week; I will write another post about them soon!

Ethnographer

Things in Haiti are going well! I really enjoy talking to women and hearing the stories of their pregnancies and births. It is just amazing to me how strong these women are. Most of them deliver at home with a traditional birth attendant.  Honestly, that seems like a better option than delivering at the hospital which is rather unsanitary and expensive. One woman this week told me that she gave birth to her last child completely unassisted and then flagged down a neighbor to come over to cut the umbilical cord! I can't even imagine what that was like. I am hearing a lot about voodoo. Many people believe that enemies can use their negative thoughts to "tie a baby in the womb" and thus cause a difficult labor. The necessity for some C sections is blamed on the negative thoughts of enemies.

 

The photo above is of women staying at the Center of Hope maternal waiting home. I will not be interviewing them for my study, but they see me around a lot and we have become friendly with each other. I took this picture at about 11:30 am when everyone got tired right before lunch. They prefer to nap on the floor of the porch rather than in their beds because the floor is cool. You would certainly never see women with high risk pregnancies sleeping on the floor in the US!