In my free time...

 

 ... I prepare lesson plans, gather materials for class activities, write exams, grade exams, and do all the chores that keep a Haitian household running, things like shopping at the outdoor market, pumping water by hand, washing clothes by hand, killing cockroaches and so on. I also have great fun in my free time.

Mexican dinner on the roof. Stunning performances of Cinderella. Solitary expeditions along the river. Evening hikes up the mountain to watch the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

Death

When I got home yesterday, the first thing my neighbor said was, "Someone at church died."

The"someone" was Nordy, a young man with fantastic dreadlocks who runs the sound system for our church. Nordy was shy but we all loved when he would ask for a microphone and break out into his own spontaneous worship songs. Now he's dead, from a car accident, they say.

I came upstairs and opened a document titled "Death" that I'd written in June and decided not to post. It reads as follows:

When I lived in the US, hearing about someone dying was a rare occurrence. My grandmother passed away when I was 8. After that, it was 5 years until death touched me again when the supervisor at my volunteer position died without telling anyone he was sick.  

Perhaps it’s because my years in the US were as a child, a teen and a college student. Perhaps I was too wrapped up in my own world to hear when a neighbor or a classmate lost someone. Perhaps I didn’t notice because we don’t grieve openly or wear mourning clothes in the US like many other countries do.

Whatever the reason, I have been stunned again and again at how common death is in Haiti. In the past 2 weeks, a lot of people have died. Our nurse Wisline’s nephew died. Our nursing assistant, Samuela, lost her 37 year-old sister. Aussidieu, a neighbor in Jubilee, lost his 3 year-old nephew. An elderly patient in our blood pressure program passed away. My next-door neighbor lost her 27 year-old nephew after spending 2 months at the hospital with him. And JB, our other nursing assistant, found 3 unknown babies dead, half burned in the trash.  

 

All that in 2 weeks.

As I sit on my porch, writing this blog post, I can hear, very clearly, a woman mourning on my block. I don’t know who she is or who died, but I know Haitian custom enough to know that what I’m hearing right now is the first grief, the initial response to the news that a loved one has passed. Add this death to the count.

 

So much death makes me melancholy. But it also makes me value life more than I ever have. In this place where death is so real and so close, I find myself frequently whispering a prayer, "Thank You, Father, that I am alive."

 

I want it to change, of course. I fairly rage inside at the news of someone dying from an easily preventable disease. But I keep remembering the lesson I learned after the earthquake, that death is not the worst thing that can happen and that it does not in any way mean that God wasn't with us, and I wonder if perhaps the Haiti way isn't the more natural way to live. Maybe we should all live with death only a breath away. Maybe we should all live with our eyes a little wider open, seeing the preciousness of each day. Maybe death is actually a gift buried deep in grief.

 

Only He knows. So I sit on the porch, listen to my neighbor wail, and trust that He knows.

Darline and Angela

I first met Darline about 18 months ago when her grandmother brought her to our malnutrition program at Klinik Jubilee. She was skinny and weak but what struck me most was her disposition. Most malnourished kids have this empty, almost expressionless look, but Darline looked utterly forlorn.

 

 

Months of MedikaMamba helped her nutritional status, and then we enrolled her in Jubilee School. She has gotten healthier and stronger, but her chronic sadness hasn't gone away. Whenever I see her, she is wearing a face of rejection and loneliness that is just heart-breaking. I have seen our preschool teachers succeed in making her smile, but until recently I had never seen her act carefree and truly childlike.

 

 

A few days ago, Darline showed up at the door of my classroom. She was silently sad, as usual, nodding or shaking her head in response to my first questions, but then just standing, downcast, staring at the white tile floor. I tickled her, I kissed her, I told her about Katie's pet rabbit.

 

Nothing.

 

And then a little voice piped up from the path in front of clinic. "Darline, come on!"

 

It was Angela, the 5 year old daughter of our school cleaning lady. Darline lifted her head, a huge smile lit up her face, and she fairly danced across the rocks and dirt to meet her friend. They threw their arms about each other and traipsed off together.

 

 

I may have started crying.

My graduates

There's something really special about walking into clinic and realizing that all the staff working in the front room are graduates of my program. Of course, I loved and was proud of our first NAs who had learned from Martha, the nurse who founded the classes that I teach, but there's something different about looking at 2 people who came into my class knowing nothing and to see them now giving advice about hypertension prevention, doing dressing changes, testing urine, weighing babies, and filling out admission forms. It's my "Proud Mama" moment of the day, every day.

 

Teaching, bouncing, teaching

I started my new set of classes last week. I've got the classic adult community health agent course, the high school community health agent course that I added 9 months ago, and this semester, I've thrown in an advanced community health course for my top graduates and some students who are in lab tech school or who are already nursing assistants. All in all, I have 60 students and classes 5 days a week.

 

On my second day of teaching this fall, I was told that the school cafeteria, which is also where I teach, was going to be under construction the next day.

 

Oh.

 

Suddenly I was scrambling to try to find a space large enough to fit my classes, particularly the high school class, which, including TAs, boasts over 30 people. Construction started, and I moved benches into the back room of clinic.

 

 

 

Class is a little more intimate, significantly hotter and stuffier, but at least we all fit...if we squeeze!

Fortunately the construction has been going very quickly and it looks like I might be able to return to my usual spot in a week or two.

 

 

My TAs were completely unfazed by the bounce to a new classroom. They continue to teach and assist me with great gusto. Gerard in particular (below in black) likes to throw a few words in when I'm teaching, to re-explain what I am already explaining. He also has a tendency to forget that he is not a student anymore and when I ask questions in class, I want the students to answer, not him! But as we work the little quirks out, it gets better and better and I'm so glad to have them there. Sometimes I wonder how I ever got by without TAs before.

 

 

So here we are, teaching in the clinic. Sometime soon, we will get bounced back over to the cafeteria...until the school decides to start having dance lessons or karate in that space. Flexible, flexible, flexible. That's the name of the game here in Haiti.

Good-bye Grace

Our clinic director and my dear friend Grace is leaving us to take a position as a project manager in Cap Haitian, on the north side of the island. We are excited for her opportunities there but very sad to see her go. Cody Smith, an American nurse who lives in Jubilee with her husband and 2 teenage daughters, has taken over as clinic director, and she organized a good-bye party for Grace at Klinik Jubilee. 

 

I brought the music and the funny hats.

 

 

 

Most of the staff gave speeches, expressing their appreciation for Grace. Two staff members, nurse's aide JB and nurse Wisline, refused to speak because they were so upset. The worst or best part, depending on how you look at it, was when Katie arrived with 7 kids representing the elementary students at Jubilee School. They had made "thank you" cards for Grace and ceremonially presented them to her one by one. One of them, Ifocoeur, was very sick on Grace's first ever visit to Haiti, and since then, he has held a special place in her heart. When it came his turn to hand over a packet of cards and hug Grace, I don't believe there was a dry eye in the room.

 

 

Of our original staff from our opening in 2012, none are working full-time for us anymore. We sent Vesline, our nurse, to midwifery school, and she now works for another NGO and does teaching part-time at Klinik Jubilee. Oscar is our new clinic assistant director, but we are sponsoring him to nursing school, so he is only around during school vacations or after hours. Samuela left for personal reasons, and Valmy has simply gotten too busy with the English Institute that he co-founded. However, as Grace always says "Staff, current or former, are always welcome," so we often have former staff popping in and out, bringing a little extra enthusiasm and excitement to an average day.

 

 

It's funny - when you start out to build a health care center, like Grace did, sometimes you get more than you aimed for. She got a health center, but she also got a large Klinik Jubilee family.

Nice work, Grace. We will miss you!