Village church in Lassise, Haiti

This was the site of a rural health post last Friday.

Adjusting to life in Jeremie

Hello Everyone! I have been very busy over the last couple days. I have started to have some preliminary conversations with pregnant women about their experiences with prenatal care. I think I am going to focus on how the social issues surrounding pregnancy affect when a women first comes in for prenatal care. I have gotten to go out on some more rural health posts in the mountains. The days that we go out are long. We leave early and the posts are extremely busy. Even at the smaller posts there are at least 100 people waiting for us when we arrive. Everyone is always exhausted on the way home.  The drives to get out the posts are usually at least an hour long, but they feel longer because the roads are so bad. Although I can't complain, the views are spectacular! Some of these villages seem a million miles from civilization it is hard to believe that HHF has been able to set up a health care system there.

 

Anyways I am having a wonderful time in Jeremie. I am starting to find my own way around the city on foot. People here are generally pretty friendly and I feel safe walking around. Jeremie is full of hills so walking is also kind of a workout for me. I am adjusting well to the heat; it is great to never get cold! Another thing I like about Haiti is that there is toilet paper in every public place I have been. Seriously, if Haiti has toilet paper everywhere then Paris has no excuse!

Tour of Jeremie

So after our afternoon on the beach David offered to take me for a tour of Jeremie on his moto. I was kind of scared after my spring semester critical care elective (we saw a lot of motorcycle traumas), but I figured there was no better way to see the city. David has been here since October and knows his way around the city really well. He let me wear his helmet, which was appreciated. I was the only person on the road with a helmet! He took me through some of the poorer neighborhoods which reminded me a lot of the some of the poorer places I saw in Africa. Most of the houses were one room with broken down tin roofs. We also went to "the point" which is a piece of land that jets out into the ocean which has the remains of an old French fort complete with cannons. I also saw the city center which has a plaza and a big cathedral. Attached is a picture of Jeremie from on top of one of its many hills.

Beach Day

So today is Corpus Christi (a Catholic Holiday that celebrates the Eucharist), which meant that I had the day off from work! I went to the beach with some American HHF volunteers and a Haitian HHF staff member (Emily is a nurse from PA, David is a premed student from RI and Clifford is an English/Creole translator from Jeremie).  The beach was absolutely beautiful! The water was water was calm and warm, but the sand was so hot we had to sprint from out towels to the water. There was an old sunken ship that we swam out to and jumped off of. There was also a cave that we swam into and climbed up the walls. Not many Haitians know how to swim, but there were people there wadding and floating on blocks of wood. Apparently Haitian people don't really like this beach because they believe that there are evil spirits in the cave. Luckily, we were informed that it was safe for us to go into the cave because evil spirits think white people taste too bitter!

Dental chair outside at the rural health post

How would you like to have your teeth pulled here?

Rural Health Post

Yesterday I went to a rural health post in Moron County which is about an hour and a half drive from Jeremie. I piled into the back of an SUV with 8 nurses from HHF (all men). Luckily one of them spoke English and was able to introduce me to everyone. Another SUV full of American doctors, nurses and dentists met us at the health post. Haitian nurses handled prenatal and postnatal care visits while the Americans saw all the other patients. The dental chairs were set up outside in the gravel. I weighed and took the blood pressure of all of women who came for prenatal care. There must have been over 100 of them which really surprised me since we were in such a rural area. They all crowded around the 2 chairs that were set up next to the scale and shoved each other out of the way to be the next one to get her blood pressure taken. Every time I pumped up that cuff I felt 100 pairs of eyes on me! Most of them had extremely low blood pressure (like 90/60). I wonder if that is related to malnutrition. I really needed a pediatric cuff to get accurate BPs on many of them because their arms were so thin. A few of the younger women were far enough along in their pregnancy to be showing, but weighed less than 90 pounds. I have no idea how they had enough body fat to ovulate in the first place!

            Today I officially began my research. The daughter of Bette (my summer host) has offered to be my translator for the summer which is great! Michelle, who is 17, grew up speaking Creole and English and also was in need of a summer job, so she is perfect! Judy (my professor from UCONN), Michelle and I interviewed 3 women this morning after they had a post-natal care visit. For my research I will be talking with women who come in for prenatal care, but since this was just for practice it was fun to talk to women with their adorable newborns! I am starting to get an idea of the factors that play into women coming in for prenatal at the Center of Hope. One woman today told us she could not come in for prenatal care to early because then everyone would know she was pregnant (the women all have to line up and wait together) and she was concerned about others sending evil spirits to harm the baby. I am sure I will get a bunch more interesting responses to my questions; I can't wait to do more. On the way home from work today a truck was broken down in the middle of street, blocking traffic in both directions. We had to leave the car and walk the rest of the way, a true Haiti experience!

Check out the view

This is the view from the inn where I am staying. Not what you typically think of Haiti looking like.

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Kristen Pepin
kjpepin@gmail.com

Made it to Jeremie!

Yesterday I arrived in Jeremie and I have already seen so much! We took a very small and rather unstable looking plane out to Jeremie. Even though it was kind of scary the views were absolutely beautiful. When I arrived Bette (HHF public health director/my host for the summer) took us on a drive through downtown Jeremie (see picture). The inn were I am living is like a resort. My room is very simple, but the views are gorgeous since it is up on top of a mountain overlooking Jeremie and the Caribbean sea. This week, while Judy is here, I am having all of my meals with Bette and her family, but next week I will start having my meals with the rest of the hotel guests.

 

Today I went to a Haitian Health Foundation (HHF) health fair in a local village. It took about an hour to drive there. The roads in Haiti are so terrible the car never gets out of 1^st gear! The health fair consisted on the entire village gathering in the church to watch skits. Men, women and children all sang and danced about the importance of breastfeeding. I couldn't believe there were preschoolers singing about colostrum! At the end they invited me to get up and dance with them which was so much fun! I felt like I was able to make a connection with these people even though I was unable to speak their language. The kids all loved to have their photos taken which was very cute. After the fair we went back to the health agent's home where they served us fried plantains, sweet potatoes, rice and beans. Haitian food is much better than Chinese food!! I also met some student volunteers today that are about my age, so hopefully I will get to hang out with them more in the coming weeks.  Tomorrow I will start preparing for my research!

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Kristen Pepin
kjpepin@gmail.com

Port Au Prince

I know everyone was worried, but I made it through my 16 hours in Port Au Prince without any trouble. We spent all of our time at our hotel which was full of other foreigners. During the drive to and from the airport I was able to see a fair amount of earthquake damage. There were huge slabs of broken concrete all over. We also passed several "tent cities" where people who lost their homes in the earthquake are living. The tents cities are huge and each tent is literally inches from its neighbor.  Our hotel was neat and clean, but unfortunately next to a very loud night club. That was a bit annoying, but it is good to know that with everything these people have gone through they still like to drink and dance with their friends. Now off to Jeremie!

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Kristen Pepin
kjpepin@gmail.com

I'm off!!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my Haiti blog! I am flying from JFK to Port Au Prince on Friday morning and will make it to my final destination, in Jeremie, on Saturday. I will let you know how it goes!