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!

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!