Zanglais

I spent 4 days last week on retreat with the youth group at a camp near Les Cayes on the south side of the island. Marc and I took 40 teens and a few new leaders over the mountains for a weekend of waves, games, singing, camp fire, Bible study, and getting to know each other better.




Ever since I started leading at youth group, I have been frustrated by the division between the poor Haitian kids and the upper class and missionary kids. The Haitians feel inferior because they are poorer and because their English is not as good, while the other kids think that they don't want to be friends because they don't approach them. Along with the problem of division, the Haitian youth are much more shy and are very unwilling to talk to us leaders about what is really going on in their lives. Since the earthquake, all but 3 of the missionary kids and upper class kids evacuated, so we have a youth group that is almost entirely Haitian now. Without the social pressure, we have seen those shy teens come out of their shells. And on a 4 day retreat, we finally were able to touch some of the toughest ones.
















Part way through the weekend, it came to our attention that some of the boys had been teasing the girls rather ruthlessly about their appearance. So Marc and I took the boys and talked to them about being gentlemen. Meanwhile, the girls received an encouraging talk from Scott and Erta about their worth in God's eyes. Something must have stuck with the boys because they snuck into the gazebo during the girls' meeting so they could serenade them! Later that evening, the boys got permission to go through the dinner line first, the one time they would have priority all weekend. I watched in awe as boy after boy filled a plate and carried it to a girl. It was the most beautiful act of brother-sister love that I've seen in a group of teens!



Zanglais is a beautiful place, so green and peaceful compared to Port-au-Prince. It was wonderful to be with friends and with God in such a haven.

I bet you didn't know...

- that in Haiti, construction workers don't send one guy out to buy coffee for everyone like they do in the US. Instead, the coffee comes to them.


- that one of the most popular songs in Haiti right now is titled "Aba Dekomb." If you can ignore the English curse words blaring at you through the loudspeakers and focus on the Creole words, it's a pretty clever song. "Aba Dekomb" means "Under the Rubble".


- that when this structure was built by President Aristide it was intended to be an eternal flame and a site for human sacrifices. It was never completed.


- that Haitian drivers can squeeze through spaces with less than a millimeter to spare.


- that a famous Haitian artist has adorned walls all over the city with this drawing of a crying Haiti. Underneath the grafitti is frequently written, "Obama, we need change!"


- that this is a pharmacy!


- that after more than 4 months, this is as far as the deconstruction has advanced on the palace.


- that May 18th is Flag Day, an equivalent to American 4th of July. The celebrations were subdued this year because all of the empty spaces generally used for partying were full of tents. Instead, there were protests downtown. President Preval, who has not accomplished much during his term, was petitioning the Senate to extend emergency powers that would allow him to stay in office for an additional 18 months. The people don't like the idea so they protested. The police don't like protests, so they shot on the crowd and killed a handful of people. The president doesn't like people getting killed, so he abandonned his quest.


- that no one in Haiti walks their dogs, but they do walk their cows!

A victory won

We have been working on Oyis' medical visa for over 3 months and have hit many bumps on the road. When I was visiting him last week and saw how badly his leg needs proper surgery and how bored the little man is at the hospital, something inside me snapped. (It probably didn't hurt that Oyis looked up at me that morning with his big brown eyes and said, "You're my mom, aren't you?") The very next day, I was able to arrange a meeting with the Mayor of Port-au-Prince. Five minutes with him and we were back in the car, going to the Ministry of Interior. Next thing I knew, I was face to face with the Minister himself and was being told, "You speak remarkably good Creole!" Apparently, he was impressed enough to pull the necessary strings and get us approved.


This morning, I took Oyis to the airport with friends of mine who were flying out. We waited and waited for the representative of Immigration who was assigned to meet us and give us the one-time departure authorization that would allow Oyis to leave without a passport. The flight was at 8:50am and at 8:00, the man was still not inside. At the ticket counter, I overheard the ladies close our flight. I sprinted to the counter and began my most enthusiastic Haitian arguing. It's pretty simple: you cannot take "No" for an answer.


Leslie, my Immigration friend, came waltzing in at 8:15 and the wonderful women at American Airlines graciously reopened the flight and got Oyis and company boarding passes. Everything looked good until we got to Immigration where the man at the desk flatly refused to honor the authorization even though it had the Minister's assistant's signature on it. Leslie ran outside, got his own stamps from his car and stamped Oyis through himself. So finally at 8:38am, Oyis rolled through security and onto his first airplane. Yay!

Many Mainers and then some

I played host to a team of 8 people from a hospital in Maine, not far from the summer camp where I work. Added to the Mainers was a couple from Ohio to bulk out the team with a pharmacist and to provide my Shoebox with a handyman.


Big teams mean a lot of logistics - double cars and drivers on most days, a lot of translators, plenty of water, guesthouse reservations far in advance, and the most confusing part, multiple work sites! We were all together for a day clinic at Delmas 24, for the ravine walk, and for a visit to Wings of Hope to see the handicapped kids. On the other days, half the group went to Cite Soleil to see patients while others went to Dorothy's. One afternoon, we ended up at Dr Joey's hospital for more general consultation and for some minor surgery. Another day, part of the group helped out at a feeding program while others went to another clinic site with Dr Joey.







Changing sites every day, sometimes multiple times in a day can be tough on the docs, but it is really tough on the pharmacist. Connie had to pack and repack the meds a million times but she did it with a big smile.


The team did great work. They got Dorothy's older kids to the park for the first time in months. They helped the staff at the Cite Soleil clinic see more than double their usual patient capacity. They fixed my Shoebox up to make it even more home-like. They gave me pointers on a few of my sickest ravine kids. They restocked my medicine shelves. They surgically removed a 6th toe that had been plaguing a friend of mine since childhood. They got me the physicals and referrals that I needed on several medical visa cases. And through it all - the long sweaty days, the dehydration, the sunburns, the constant moving from place to place, even a little Haitian happiness (aka diarrhea) - they remained cheerful and flexible and enthusiastic.




The team made me proud, but my staff of translators made me even more proud! Three of them were new; I met them and trained them last month in anticipation of this team. Three others have been working with me at Delmas 24 since the earthquake and are the apple of my eye. All of them, as well as my drivers Eres and Edjour, kept their smiles on the whole time and made the clinics not only possible but enjoyable. I cannot believe how fortunate I have been to claim this particular staff as my own!




Thanks for the hard work and the good times. See you soon!

Change of scenery

If you're wondering why the blog has been so quiet lately, I have a pretty good explanation. I left Haiti during the first week of May for a series of speaking engagements in the US. It was a very quick trip and a very hectic one; I literally went from one event straight to the next and barely had time to see anyone outside my immediate family.

One of my speeches was delivered at my nursing school's graduation ceremony at Northeastern University. At my high school, we wore white gowns for graduation, and I missed my university graduation because I was in Haiti, so standing at the podium last week was the first time in my life that I actually wore a cap and gown. It was very special to be up there with all my former professors and to encourage these new nurses to never give up, no matter how bad the earthquakes of their lives turn out to be.

The next big event was Magic 106.7's Exceptional Women Awards. It is hard for me to accept that I was invited there because I lived through 45 seconds of shaking and a few weeks of horror; the other honorees, who were all at least 15 years old than me, have done incredible things with their lives and made huge impacts in Boston and elsewhere. I don't feel like a hero. I feel like a dustier, tired-er, older version of myself. But I was proud to stand there and speak about the courage of the Haitian people, and I am glad that we are not forgotten. The whole experience was rather overwhelming, especially coming straight from Haiti, but it was an honor to be part of it.




Magic 106.7 very generously paid for my flights to and from Boston. I would not have been able to attend otherwise and I greatly appreciate the chance to be with my family and with a few of my closest friends. In addition, I got the wonderful surprise of seeing my favorite teacher from high school. I had not known that she was attending the awards and it was wonderful to see her for the first time in 6 years.




A final highlight to my trip was when I met one of the founders of Jordan's Furniture, the most famous furniture store in New England. The founding brothers are sponsors of the Boston Red Sox and I am a life long Red Sox fan. I had made casual reference to the Sox during my speech and so when I was placed with the founder for a photo, he put something in my hand. "You're a big Sox fan, right?" he said. "Put this on." It was a genuine 2007 World Series championship ring! It might have been the best moment of the afternoon!



I am back in Haiti now and just finished coordinating clinics for a big group from Maine. It's been very busy, but I will get photos and news up as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience!

Smiling faces

Come to Haiti! At places like Dorothy's, you can have your pick of gorgeous smiling babies!

When it rains, it pours

And sometimes, it floods.

On my little street, all the rain water from the neighborhood runs down the road, past my front door, and then down the little path that lies between my Shoebox and St Joseph's. Until the demolition crew starts dumping thousands of pounds of rubble into that little path. Then the water does something different.

I was sitting on my porch after a delicious dinner of pancakes with my friend Patricia, and my neighbor kids, Emerson, Manezda, and Camille. Manezda stuck her head out of my door to look at the rain that was pouring down. "Kez," she said very matter-of-factly. "Your house is going to flood in about 2 minutes." I jumped up and sure enough, the water was rushing down the hill in front of my door, as usual, but with the path blocked, it was simply staying there, in front of my door! I stepped outside and it was higher than my ankles and lapping over my stoop. And the rain was still coming down in buckets!

I think I screamed.


Patricia, Emerson, and I grabbed brooms and shovels and buckets. We went to work against the elements, trying to redirect the water to the slightly uphill other side of the Shoebox. From there, it could run down a little path and into the abandonned homes of my neighbors. We were soaked to the bone in about 12 seconds and working like crazy to save my home. Manezda stayed inside and used a basket of dirty towels and sheets to barricade the water that had already entered the porch, to keep it from reaching the kitchen. Outside, we continued paddling.

It was a losing battle.


Reinforcements arrived in the form of the 15 year old child slave from next door. I tell you, it pays to be kind to the slaves in the neighborhood! Over at St Joe's, a major leak was flooding one of their rooms, but once they had things under control, the boys came to help us too. For two and a half hours, the rain played games with us, slowing to a drizzle and just as we were beginning to breathe, drenching us once more. Finally, it stopped, and we retired to our respective homes, exhausted, wet, and very proud.


And this is why living in Haiti is never ever boring.