Third World Problems and a Summary of the Week

Living in a third world country such as Haiti brings with it both every day simplifications and complications. Countless US luxuries are difficult to come by in a country such as this. Here, I'll give you an overview of daily life in Haiti through my eyes.

This is my temporary bedroom. A lot of the sheets and
pillowcases are bright pink -- the unofficial, but quite
appropriate,  color of Midwives for Haiti.

1. Going to bed. At home, I become tired, crawl into bed with my laptop, use my remote to turn off the light, and I stream How I Met Your Mother reruns until I fall asleep. Here, I sleep in a tent (because hanging mosquito nets just don't keep the bugs away!), and I have limited space in it. Because it is so dark here, I need to have a light to get into my tent...but if I keep the tent door open and my lantern on inside the tent, bugs will flock to it before I can get all zipped in. I don't get internet in my bedroom (even though it is only about 30 ft from the wireless router), but if I want my computer in bed I have to get up again, unzip the tent, set the computer down outside and re-zip. You get the point. Maybe I should just give up on the computer/Kindle/cell phone and go to bed.

We have laundry lines hanging all across the front of the
house, some by the side, and Monique still has to put towels
and sheets on bushes and over ledges. So much laundry!

2. Laundry. So you may be asking, "But Brittany, you have a laundry woman. How is this difficult for you?" It's true, our neighbor, Monique, does the laundry for us. She bleaches everything wonderfully, it all comes out fabulously clean, and she hangs it on the line for us. It is, however, my job to bring it all in and fold it. But it's the rainy season, so the rain begins in the afternoon anywhere from 3pm-8pm and is unpredictable. Sometimes the gray clouds roll in slowly, sometimes quickly. Sometimes the thunder warns you, sometimes your drying clothes are already dampened by the time you can run out and get them. It usually takes a few days to get clothes dried, and they usually end up smelling like mildew. Sigh.

It looks goofy, but it has made showering much less painful!

3. Showering. Though the MFH house has plenty of water, we still like to conserve as much as possible. Every shower has buckets that you can fill to use with a washcloth. We only turn on the faucet for rinsing. But it's cold water! I usually shower in the evenings during the rain, when it's a little cooler and the day is winding down, but by then the water is very cold! Thankfully Carrie told me about solar showers -- these bags you can fill and set in the sun to heat the water. They have a nozzle and you can hang them up anywhere. Mine has a temperature gauge and sometimes it gets up to 116 degrees!

4. Drinking water. Since the water here isn't treated, we can't drink out of the faucets and we have to wash all of our dishes with Clorox. For drinking water, we use water in these huge blue jugs that we buy in bulk. We have a fancy little contraption it sits in that tips so you can pour comfortably. The green cup keeps bugs out. We use this water for brushing teeth, too -- which is its own struggle, because if you've ever tried to rinse out a toothbrush with a water bottle, you know how hard it can be. I guess the only bright side to this is that I've become very aware of how wasteful we can be in the US, and I keep better track of how much water I drink, which is so important with the heat here!

5. Communication. Frequently, things don't go as planned in Haiti. In January, we asked for transportation for 17 people + suitcases. One van came. Sometimes, to get something done, you have to go through long strings of people (someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who can help). Even if you have been meeting with someone every Friday at 9 am for the past 2 months, you still need to confirm with them that you'll be there or they will not be there. Further, technology is rough here. The internet is unreliable and weather-dependent, as is electricity (thank God we have a generator for back-up!), so sometimes email just flat-out doesn't work. In one way, it's inconvenient, but in another, it's nice to be able to accept it and do something else for a change. (Carrie keeps telling me that you could spend hours upon hours sending emails for MFH, so it's important to close the computer once in a while).

Jonal fixed the Jeep today, and the neighbor boy
(a security guard in training) helped get him tools.
What a cutie!

6. Transportation. Literally everything in Haiti is falling apart. There is nothing new, there is nothing reliable, and only some things can be fixed. Though Haitians are very good at making things work (i.e. shorts as a baby hat, gum as glue, etc.), sometimes things just won't work... and most often, it's vehicles. Most Haitians who own vehicles drive motorcyles (motos), a few drive cars, and even fewer drive trucks. We're lucky enough to have our fabulous pink jeep, but when it is busy or out of service, or when we just need to go somewhere quickly, we take motorcycles. Riding a moto requires you to balance on the back of the motorcycle (2-3 people if you're American, 5-6 if you're Haitian), one hand holding whatever it is you've bought or brought, one hand possibly holding on to the back of the moto. This complicates things, because driving lots of people or going long distances is a struggle -- especially because it greatly increases the chance that something will go wrong with the vehicle. However, on the bright side, you can only do so much at a time, you become less dependent on vehicles, you walk more.

When I think of more big differences in daily life, I'll post them. For now, I'll give a synopsis of my week:

View from outside L'Hermitage -- can't see the hotel, unfortunately!

Most days, I would get up around 6:30, eat breakfast (oatmeal with banana, sugar, and cinnamon; kon flaks -- corn flakes -- with powdered milk in water and sugar; one day I had beef jerky.......). Carrie and I would call Davide, our favorite taxi (moto) driver, and go into town to run errands. I've met probably 70+ people in the past week, including the Haitian staff who work here, of course, several Americans, the medical director of Ste Thérèse Hospital, several people who work for MSPP, the Haitian Ministry of Health, all the midwives and midwifery students, the people at the photocopy place, all the translators, etc. They all call me "Bwit-ney," because they pronounce most "r" sounds like a "w." After our errands, we would come back to the house and go over my job manual, meet with other people, do office work, etc. Lunch is at 2, we would go somewhere in the afternoon (the orphanage, the feeding center, etc.), come back for dinner around 6 or 7, shower, and go to bed!

Friday, Carrie, Mayano (the only volunteer for the week) and I went to L'Hermitage, a local hotel found in Pandiassou. Our $7 breakfast included coffee, lime juice, bread with chadek (Haitian jam), and a ham-and-cheese omelet. Clearly only blans eat there, haha.

Then, we went to the class for Matwòns, trained birth attendants. Though Matwòns don't have a medical degree or license, they are known in their communities for their abilities to recognize major signs of pregnancy complications. Since the majority (as in, maybe 80% or 90%) of women give birth at home, these trained attendants are very important. They use clean birth kits to prevent infection, look for signs of complication, refer women to the hospital, transport women to the hospital, and help with post-natal care, like breastfeeding, nutrition, and signs of a baby in distress. This class reviewed nutrition (last week's topic) and talked about dehydration and diarrhea in babies. They used songs to remember a quick recipe for rehydration fluids, and I was very pleased to see that about half the class is men! They have one more week in their 20-week curriculum and will receive certificates at their graduation at the end of July.

This man is demonstrating the proper way to
hold a baby while breastfeeding.

Then, we met up with some American friends who work in Thomassique, Haiti, at a small clinic. John (a fellow Hopkins alum and the friend who told me about MFH) and Danielle are the outgoing "Global Health Fellows" in their program, and Sam and Mary are the incoming ones. We met at Ebenezer Restaurant in downtown Hinche, where we ate lunch and got this fabulous juice made from a mystery fruit that I've only seen in Haiti.

Mmm!

From L-R: Me, Mary, Sam, John, Danielle, Carrie

 Sunday (today) brought tons of excitement and chaos. Here at the house, we held a staff party/goodbye Carrie party. Though the party wasn't to start until 2, the cooks (substitutes, since our usual cooks are members of the staff and should not have to cook on the day of their party) arrived between 7 and 8 am and cooked until at least 3! We ran some errands in town this morning, visited the hospital and both the boys' and girls' orphanages. Brother Bill (who helps out at the boys' orphanage) and I planned to bike to Pandiassou to meet the other Brothers later today.

We came back and waited for the guests to arrive. In true Haitian fashion, no one really showed up until 3:30 or so. When they did, they brought their families and children, so the place was full of babies. Carrie said goodbye and thank you to everyone on staff, and most staff members stood up to say something about her. My Creole comprehension isn't 100% yet, but everyone said wonderful things about her and warmly welcomed me. Then we ate! The cooks made tons of food, but every bit of it was eaten.

After we'd finished eating and people were socializing, we got word that Brother Bill had gotten into a bicycle accident on the way to our house. I jumped in the jeep with Jonal (our secondary driver/handyman) and Ronald (a security guard) to take him to the hospital. A moto had come up behind Brother Bill and hadn't stopped or swerved to miss him, so he collided with Bill's bike from the right. There was a huge swarm of Haitians arguing, and the police had arrived but were apparently useless. Ronel (our main driver) had seen the entire thing, which was fortunate, because he knew Bill was a friend of ours. Everyone knew it was the moto driver's fault, so they told Bill that the motorcycle was now his. When we arrived, however, Bill's elbow was horribly swollen and his leg was cut deeply and bleeding a lot. He'd wrapped his sweatband around his calf for pressure and to stop the bleeding. We got him into the jeep-turned-ambulance and got him to the ER. In Haiti, though, there is little sense of urgency, so although he was badly injured and very worried about infection, the ER staff was very calm and took their time attending to him. Ronel came with us and argued with the staff for better care, but as long as the woman was speaking, she wasn't caring for Brother Bill. Eventually, they got his leg cleaned and stitched up. I was sent to get his medication from the pharmacy, which was a mini lesson in Haitian culture itself (more on that some other day...). Then we drove him home in the jeep and came home safely ourselves. What a week!