Week One Complete...

I am sitting in my guesthouse as the rain pours outside, drenching my previously almost dry laundry. Such is the life here! Today was a working day, as I will be working 11 days and then be off for three. This is my weekend “on.” More to follow on today's adventures.

Wednesday was spent at the clinic meeting Mis Delice, another of the nurses I will work with at the FWAL clinic. She speaks good English and repeats everything I say as I say it. We reviewed all of the new paperwork that will be for the charts, and talked through the policy book with her. We took a little walk to Maison Handal, a Haitian version of a department store, which reminds me a lot of a scaled-down TJ Maxx, with ridiculous prices. We grabbed a hamburger for lunch – the place serves a variety of foods! - and saw numerous Embassy and UN workers as they filed in and ate. I wonder how many of them actually take the opportunity and experience the culture, interact with the people and really look at the country. I hope a large number of them do. It was a strange collision of worlds – the well-dressed, clean – cut professionals eating at the table right next to yours truly, in my scrubs, no make-up, sweaty from the morning's work and the long walk. The afternoon was a great success – I met the new clinic doctor, who speaks Spanish! What a fun gift for me! She is very enthusiastic, accommodating and easy to work with. We had a general meeting with the nurses, doctor and directors with our observations of what is needed at the clinic so far and how we can progress toward getting our basic function improved. All of the nurses so far have been extremely cooperative. Dinner Wednesday night was absolutely delicious, cooked by the Italians – pasta with pesto sauce, cooked in veggies. SO yummy!

Thursday morning, Lisette and I met with Kenson, the director of FWAL, and he took us to the hospital to introduce us to the staff there. We will be obtaining medications and supplies for the clinic from them, and will also bring any kids who need hospitalization there. A few kinks need to be worked out in terms of the process for all of this, as FWAL is still new and the clinic is really only recently known to others throughout NPH Haiti. We then had a very productive morning sorting through the dossiers for each kiddo in the St .Louis program, alphabetizing them and reviewing plans for more work with them. Many children arrived at the program with no official date of birth – that is not something that is recorded anywhere – so many of them have had a birthdate assigned to them. It gets tricky, because so many of the kids here are small for their age, both in height and weight, so what a non-medical person may decide is the age of the child has conflicted with the nurses' opinions once we have seen them!

Upon our return to St. Louis, we were met with a festive crowd! It was the feast of St. Louis, so there was a day-long program of celebrations. Oh my goodness – it was the sweetest show of talent for the remainder of the morning, with singing, dancing, skits and laughter. These kids must come out of the womb with rhythm – they are extraordinary dancers! A native dance, Shakira, it doesn't matter. They are gifted. All dressed up in their white dresses and long-sleeved white shirts and long pants, they had a blast. A huge cake was brought out at the beginning of the show, but still had not been eaten by the time we left in the afternoon! Bummer for me, the dessert lover. Oh well. In the afternoon, I was able to meet the third nurse, Mis Boirand, who is a light-hearted lady with a huge bright smile. We introduced ourselves and reviewed with her what we had talked about with the other nurses. She has been at FWAL since the beginning of the program, and was very excited to hear our plans. She was a little nervous that Lisette was leaving so soon and that I did not yet speak Creole, but we made plans to have lessons when things were slow at the clinic, me teaching her English and she teaching me Creole/French. We then watched a soccer match after work, and I sat while the kids played with my hair, asked me more questions, sat in my lap, opened my backpack and asked me what everything was. So fun to just sit with them and enjoy their company. Thursday was also Sr. Kathleen's birthday, so we went to a historic museum and restaurant, Cane Sucre (Sugar Cane), for dinner. There is spice in everything here! Even in what I thought was plain white chicken breast. Can't escape it. Then cake and Rocky Road ice cream for dessert – Mmmmmm.

Watching the festivities 

The guys

A new pair of glasses, just received!

Friday morning came with another visit to Ste. Anne to meet the director of the house and look again at how medications are given and where they are stored. They are in a cabinet – good – that is left unlocked for most of the day – not good. One of the clinic nurses, who works 8 hours a day from Monday through Friday, spends time at Ste. Anne every morning giving meds before taking kids to the hospital for tests or exams. It was heartbreaking to look more closely at one of the little girls, who has clearly been abused. She is very neurologically challenged and has a likely seizure disorder of unknown origin. There are visible healed scars on her back where she was whipped with something repeatedly. She was also sexually abused. Her age is unknown and she is identified by the staff as “ababa,” the only sounds she makes. She smiles and loves to hug, but needs serious therapy and one-on-one attention. The home has wisely assigned one staff member to care for only her and the other two little boys who are disabled. Another little boy was abandoned in the Cholera camp and is physically challenged – it appears to be Cerebral Palsy – but has the most beautiful wide smile!

The rest of the day was spent at St. Louis, taking inventory of what is in the clinic, discovering that there is a container with many more medications and supplies, much to my excitement, and then having our first Creole/English lesson for the afternoon. Body parts, at the request of the nurse. She is delightful and laughs a lot. Another walk, then a chill evening in anticipation of working today.

This morning the doctor and myself did physicals for the kids at Ste. Anne. Remarkably, all of the about 35 children were very well behaved! There is a lot of catching up to do, but that was expected. The doctor is very fun to work with, excellent with the kids, and efficient. The rest of today was a lot of online catching up, cleaning the bathroom and then we have another goodbye party tonight, for one of the French workers who has been working with water projects. So many moments to try and capture!