~Palace Tour~

You've seen pictures of bits and pieces of the house where I'm staying, and you've seen the outside, but you haven't gotten to see where I eat, my new bedroom, where I hang out, work out, meet with people, etc., etc., etc. Well, here it is.

The front porch is where I frequently meet with people or wait for people. Haitians won't enter your home unless invited, so they frequently wait out there. I leave my shoes out here all the time and it floods a little bit when it rains. On movie nights, the Haitian women who live here and I bring the porch furniture inside for "couches." The neonatal resuscitation dolls pretty much live on the porch... that's Haiti.

During the week, the classroom is neatly set up for and full of the midwifery students. During the weekends, it becomes a storage room, my dance floor, a mini cinema, the laundry center, a dining room, and an office. There is a huge wardrobe full of sponges for practicing sutures, plastic uteruses (uteri?), and other teaching tools.

The dining room is pretty much only a dining room, but meal times are so important because it's the only time each day when everyone is together. This is where most of the planning happens for the week -- where each volunteer is going, which translators they need, what I need to do to make sure it all goes smoothly.

Shauna is seated at the table. She is a CNM who volunteered with us for 2 weeks.

The kitchen is kind of small, but it works out really well for our two main cooks, Diunney and Solimene. They are incredibly sweet and loved spending time with Carrie, so it's important that I maintain that type of relationship with them, too. They require a kiss on the cheek every single day.

Dieunny is one of our cooks

My bedroom!!! When Carrie moved out, I got to move in to this little room. Although in a way it's a downgrade from the executive suite I stayed in for the first few weeks I was here, it is cozy and open and I love it. I leave my door open all day long and sometimes even nap with it wide open. (As an aside, I love how windows and doors aren't a big deal here. There are a lot of bugs, but no one really cares, because it is too hot to shut all the doors. I love how open everything is. It reminds me of my baby days in Italy.) I have a comfortable little bed (with an extra sheet on top so Ina May can nap there all day), a desk, and a closet. It's all I need, and it's really nice to live so simply. The best part of my room is that I don't get wifi in there, so I don't do any work in my bedroom.

I always keep a white sheet covering my pillows and actual
sheets so Ina May's fur isn't all over my bed... FUN FACT:
Never in my life until this point have I made my bed every day.
Now I do. TAKE THAT MOM AND DAD

My desk is always a mess, but I try so hard to keep it neat!

Our bathrooms are very nice by Haitian standards, because we have a huge shower, a flushing toilet, and running water. It's not always the most functional and the shower is a mosquito breeding ground, but we make it work. I feel like people are curious, so here goes. We don't flush tp, though, and showers are mainly bucket showers unless you're rinsing.

The office. We're now upstairs, and this space is reserved solely for the Haitian women living in the house and American volunteers/me. When no one is really here, it is wonderfully neat and clean, but we have 13 visitors right now, so to say things are crazy is a severe understatement. This is where we store all student-related records (exams, CVs, class materials), tons of books, and any office supplies.

The office is a mess 80% of the time. Whatever, whatever, it's how I live my life.

Our guest rooms, where volunteers stay. We have bed space for 10+ people (13 if you could a full bed as two) and we have a few air mattresses just in case. Sometimes people sleep on a mattress in a tent on the porch!

The gazebo is where Kenel teaches Creole lessons each week to beginners, where we store large shipments of stuff until it can be distributed, and where the Haitians who hang out here hang out -- like the security boys during the day, translators between meetings, whoever is really around. It's pretty casual for people to come hang out here during the day.

My only picture of the gazebo is from when the Direct Relief
International shipment got here. It's not normally full of boxes!

Our student supply room is actually a kitchen, but it's where we keep all of our extra stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, scrubs, Helping Babies Breathe supplies, scalpels and medical scissors, notebooks, fanny packs (except we're out because they go like crazy here!), etc., etc., etc.

Our storage rooms and staff house. The staff lives behind the two middle doors. The door on the left is our hospital storage -- where we keep extra meds, gloves, bandages, etc. The door all the way on the right is our mobile clinic depot, where we keep the mobile clinic meds and supplies in there, as well as the huge suitcases they haul to every clinic.

Ronal is sitting on Davide's moto

I leave you with 1. a picture of Jamlex (sp?), Dieunny's 4-year-old, who hangs out in the kitchen sometimes...

I swear he smiled after this

and 2. KITTENS

I tried kicking Ina May and the kittens out of my room because they kept waking me up at night. It was unsuccessful. To make a long story short, she took the kittens to the empty property next to us (separated from us by a huge concrete wall) and hid them there. We had an American guy staying here for the night (Lucas), so he grabbed a headlamp and jumped the wall. Ronald, one of our security boys, climbed a tree to get on top of the wall. Lucas handed Ronald the kittens one by one (Ina May went running back into the house), who handed them to Peggy, a volunteer, who handed them to me. I put them all back in my closet and closed the door. As far as I know, they're still there... UGH. I guess I just won't sleep well until they're all gone, haha. Such is life, such is Haiti.