"What are you even doing down there, anyway?"

When people hear that I'm working and living in Haiti for a year, people ask me what I'll be doing. Before I came down here, I knew that I would be the In-Country Coordinator and that I would be the go-to person in Haiti for the organization. This information has become slightly distorted at times because the name of the NGO is "Midwives for Haiti." I am not a midwife. At the end of this year, I will not be a midwife (but I might as well be with all the knowledge I'm already gaining about midwifery!).

This blog post is going to tell you what I do and what this organization is about (and maybe -- hopefully -- it'll convince you to donate heheheh...).

Kathryn, one of our volunteers for this week, took a picture of me on my
first day without Carrie. Davide is in the orange hat, and Emmanuel,
a translator, is in the green shirt.

So, the goal of Midwives for Haiti, as I stated in my first post, is to decrease the birth-related infant and mother mortality rate in Haiti. Through the help of generous donors, volunteers, and our incredible American and Haitian staff, we do this in a few ways. First and foremost is our midwifery school. We are training 23 nurses to be the CNMs -- Certified Nurse Midwives (well, that's what we call it in the US). Their classroom is downstairs, and the school day is from 8am-2pm. They begin and end every day with a song and a prayer, and require a pitcher of Tang to be made every single day for their mid-morning break. We have two sections of the class; when one section is in lecture, the other section is at clinic in the hospital. On Fridays, everyone comes together for Case Study.

Secondly, 6 of our midwives run our Mobile Clinic -- yup, the big pink jeep. These women go out to 19 towns each month (one a day, Mon-Thur, with 2 midwives going on motos to 3 extra sites) to provide pre- and post-natal care, as well as to educate women. They have huge suitcases of medications and supplies that they lug around, and we are up to almost 500 patients per month. What a job!

Thirdly, we run a matròn teaching program. This 20-week weekly class trains typically uneducated (read: illiterate) members of a community to help women through home births. They learn the signs of major complications, like pre-eclampsia, and know when to refer a woman to the hospital. In addition, they provide advice on breastfeeding, nutrition, and infant dehydration. Just today, I learned of a patient who had been referred to the hospital by a matròn (one of the graduates of our matròn program!) because she was giving birth to her seventh child. Luckily, she complied, because after the birth, she experienced major hemorrhaging. The matròn called the blood bank (which was already closed for the night) so that this woman could have access to the 4 units she would need. The matròn saved her life, proving that the work we are doing is indeed helping!

The matròn, Felecitas, is wearing her Midwives for Haiti badge
and is holding the baby. The grandmother was just finishing the mother's hair.

Edit: This is the most brief and broad description of what we do. We partner with other organizations in the area -- mainly Partners in Health (Yes, Zanmi Lasante, Paul Farmer's organization) to help run all kinds of certification programs, continued education programs, etc. This organization does so much for women here -- way more than I could ever explain in a blog post. Come see for yourself (:

So what is my role in this? I'm behind the scenes, making sure we have all the supplies we need (3 birth kits per matron per month = 90 clean birth kits, gloves for the hospital, photocopies for the midwifery students, syringes, amoxicillin, ice in the freezer, and the list continues forever). Whenever anyone needs anything, I am the go-to person. Be it a loan for your brother's house because it got ruined in a flood, a duffel bag to keep your clothing in, or a new doppler, I am the person who can get it for you. Oh! And I keep up with all of our data collection, mainly for the hospital (how many births, maternal deaths, infant deaths, etc.) and matròns (how many referrals, deaths, etc.), and now we just started a new Mobile Clinic data collection process! My job consists of 50% answering emails, 20% making lists and planning, 10% trying to find people I need to meet with, 10% running errands, 8% pouring out ice trays/folding laundry/putting away dishes, 2% stuffing my face with M&Ms.

Here's a typical day for me:

6:45 am - Alarm goes off, I push snooze
7:00 am - Snooze goes off, I groan
7:05 am - I get out of bed and get ready
7:15 am - Feed Ina May, try to encourage her to give birth already
7:20 am - I fill all the ice trays, make the Tang, put away all the dry dishes
7:30 am - I call all the taxis, usher people out the door, deal with any immediate struggles (e.g. the jeep is broken, a midwife is sick, the translator didn't come yet...)
7:55 am - I physically push people out the door to go to Mobile Clinic or to the hospital.
8:10 am - Everyone actually leaves, I can eat breakfast
8:30-9:30 am - I answer emails, check facebook, make a lot of lists
9:30 am - Call another taxi
9:45 am - Go to the photocopy place where they tease me for bringing an interpretor
10:00 am - Go to Edgir, the office supply store, where I either buy pens by the individual unit or where they don't have what I need
10:15 am - "Chanje kob" = exchange cash. There is a man who sits on his porch and exchanges US dollars for Gourdes all day long.
10:30 am - Go to the hospital, look for people, don't find anyone.
10:40 am - Come home
11 am - 2 pm - Answer emails, snack, interview volunteers, make phone calls, facebook (the internet isn't so bad when all the volunteers leave!)
2 pm - Pile my plate with rice and onion sauce
2:30 pm - Food coma
3:00 pm - Eat M&Ms and force Ina May to cuddle with me
3:30 pm - Go to the feeding center/visit the orphanages/Creole lesson/dance lesson/go on a walk/nap
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm - Answer emails, talk to volunteers, deal with whatever has come up
7:00 pm - Dinner (still not hungry from lunch and M&Ms)
8:00 pm - Try really hard to make the internet work
9:00 pm - Fill the ice trays, put away dishes, put away dinner food, lock all the doors, turn off the lights.
9:45 pm - Shower
10:15 pm - Try to go to bed, see a bug, spend some time contemplating killing it (sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail)
10:30 pm - Put down my mosquito net, spray the room with bug spray, crouch under my net in fear until I fall asleep... (Okay, not every day, but for a few days there was a massive tropical spider living on the side of my desk. One day, Gladias -- a translator -- killed it for me, and my life has since improved greatly).

Firstly, I apologize for the lack of photos -- the internet is a mess today. I promise I will post pictures as soon as it works better. Secondly, I apologize for how late this post is! I promised every Sunday and I haven't been able to stick with that. However, I promise lots of baby pictures soon, and an extra update or two this week, 'cause I have lots to say! Thanks for reading (:

This is one of my buddies at the Azil Feeding Center.
He's one of the older, healthier children. He's chatty and very sweet.

P.S. Our ever-faithful, eternally safe, smiley, and sweet driver, Davide (who is not technically a MFH employee, but who does ~90% of our taxi driving) is driving a very old, run-down motorcycle. Last week, a tire popped (which is pretty normal), and this week the battery died. He makes around $5 for an entire morning of work for us, and we overpay him. In between errands, he sits and waits patiently. If anyone would be willing to donate $25-$50 per month to help us help him pay for motorcycle repairs, $1800 for a new moto for him, or donate so that we could pay him a weekly salary, we would greatly appreciate it. If I had all the money in the world, I would give Davide a huge chunk of it.