Okay so I left off on 2 Fridays ago. We went out to Moron for the day to a post. Laura came which was good because she was able to keep me with what was going on. It was a bumpy ride but not too long. At one point we had to stop and walk across a river. We had coolers and boxes to bring so some local women came and carried things on their heads. Laura and Sergo had pants on so they had to take them off and carry them but luckily I was wearing a skirt so I could just walk across. The water wasn’t that deep but because I am short it went a little higher on me than on everyone else.
That week was international breastfeeding week, so we talked all about that at the post. Different mothers groups and girls groups did skits and songs about breastfeeding and waiting to have sex. Breastfeeding is really important for babies (obviously), but especially here when people have so little. There is no reason babies should be malnourished if their mother is able to provide breastmilk for them. The women sang about some of the benefits of breastfeeding. Sometimes women may think with the heat they need to give their babies water, but there is water in the milk so babies will not be dehydrated. Also, bringing the baby right to the breast after birth helps the mother’s placenta to drop which eliminates health risks for her too.
The next day, Saturday, we went to Numero 2 where they had a party for Fete Saint Louis. This is the party season apparently. They had a band and dancing. It was fun except for the part where the thatched roof fell in on the tables. No one was hurt though, it was just annoying. After the party Laura’s boyfriend Jacquelin brought me home and I pretty much went to bed.
On Sunday morning I went to church at HHF with Clifford. Then he came down around noon so we could meet Marie Pierre and go to Anastazi (the beach). It was really hot, and it’s a really long walk so we decided to take taxis. I thought I had 100 gourdes but apparently at church I gave my 100 bill to the collection instead of my 50 gourdes, so when we arrived at Anastazi the taxi driver was none too pleased with me. Although, before we left I asked him how much and he said “Senkant gourdes”… 50 gourdes but apparently he meant per person and just failed to mention that detail. Marie Pierre had to give him the other 50 gourdes. The beach was nice though. It was going to storm so it was cool and refreshing. Mapi’s other friends were there so we all swam and the guys played soccer on the beach. Then the UN came and they played soccer. They are all Uruguayan and assorted other South American nationalities though and only speak Spanish. After the beach we walked alllllll the way back into town and Mapi bought us some bread and then a taxi back up to Caracolie to my house. From there Clifford walked home and Mapi came up to see the house… she is thinking about moving in here. It would nice to have a friend once Callie leaves ☹
Monday into Tuesday Callie and I went andayo out to Castillon. That is one of the farthest villages from Jeremie. It was a LONG and BUMPY ride. Towards the end it was raining and the roads were pretty hairy but we have a good car and experienced driver. First there was a post where the nurses looked at pregnant women (took blood pressure, weight, etc) and then we all headed down to the soccer championship for that area. We went in the car because Callie had sprained her ankle plus it was raining and muddy. People packed into the car though.. we had 14 people in a 10 passenger car and from the clinic to the soccer field the roads were pretty bad.
The field was nice.. although one side of it went way uphill. It was clean though and had pretty even grass, unlike Jeremie’s that is covered in litter and has dirt paths and moto tracks through it. This girl Nancy came with us from Jeremie who is a player from a different village but she wanted to see the game. She held my hand from the car to the field and told me to be careful and had her arm around me for a good part of the game. I made some little girlfriends while we were there too. This one girl whose name was something that sounded like Ketchia (Katria?) kept holding my hand and reaching up to touch my hair and face. Leaving the field after was a disaster though because people were hopping on the back of the car like it was a tap-tap (kind of the same idea as a city bus) and we would have to stop so Tifrere could get out and yell at them. I think he slapped one kid in the face too…
That night they had music and dancing at the clinic because we brought a generator. The opposing soccer team had to stay overnight because it had gotten dark so there were a lot of people there. I went to bed early because I was exhausted. There was a ton of rain and wind though… it was so loud! And people were up dancing until 3 am! The next day we got up early and headed back. I showered and headed up to work. I did a little bit of work but then went online for a little while to catch up on some emails and stuff
Wednesday into Thursday I went andayo again, but this time on my own. I went back out to Moron to a village called Terre Rouge. I went around with the health agent Maude and took pictures of houses that will be rebuilt for the Happy House program. The houses were in really bad shape. Most had thatched roofs, or didn’t even have walls. And almost none of them had latrines. There were probably 10 (out of 50) that had multiple families living in them as well. My first day with Maude included a lot of walking and sweating, but it was really good. I got a good chance to practice my Kreyol with her and her children. At her house I met her 3 children: Emmanuel Nelson, Marie Anastazia, and Samanda. They were all adorable and were so good. They were always helping and cleaning. Nelson helped me with my Kreyol too.
It was an odd experience at Maude’s. She was serving me like I was someone important, and at almost every house we went to she would ask the family what they were going to bring up to her house for me. I was like noooooo. At her house she made me so much food and juice and kept saying “sa tout pou ou” it’s all for you. I do not like being waited on like that.. it was so awkward. By the time I was leaving, her entire living room was filled with fruit and sugar cane for me to bring back with me. I told her that I wanted to share, so she kept some of everything, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. She enlisted her neighbors to come help carry things, so I had her husband carrying my backpack, her children carrying sugar cane, and her with 3 other women carrying sacks of fruit on their heads. I felt horrible.
Anyway, Maude told me she loves me and will never forget me and wants to come visit me in the United States. She told me she has no money and I told her that neither do I, but maybe some day. Marie Anastazia is now my goddaughter as well. I don’t know how I get myself into these things. I didn’t get back until after 5 on Thursday so I just came home and relaxed.
On Friday Callie and I just went into the office to do computer work and then I got to talk to Mom, Marl, and Jenn all on skype! That was exciting. Friday night Clifford came over for a little while, then Love and Sadrak came up when Clifford left and hung out and ate for a little while.
Saturday I slept in then Callie and I went to the soccer game, then we were supposed to go to the beach for a party there, but she went out to Dayere to bring a soccer team back so I hung out at home with Love and Sadrak. I was planning on going to a boat party on Sunday, but it was beginning at 6AM and I wasn’t feeling up to it so I stayed in all day and was lazy. Love and Sadrak came over from about 2 to 7 and we watched movies on my laptop after they did the dishes and fed the dogs and then had lunch. I also made them eggs for dinner. They entertain me. I texted Callie and asked her to bring me fritay home… that’s when things went terribly wrong.
Fritay is fried vegetables and meat that you can buy on the street and the put pikliz in with it which is kind of a spicy coleslaw. Well, I think the meat was bad in the fritay because it tasted kind of funky, and when Callie ate it she spit it out because she said it tasted like poo. Shortly after eating it I got diarrhea that didn’t go away for over 24 hours. It was horrible, but I took ciproflaxin and now I feel better. I lied in bed all day yesterday and most of the day today because I couldn’t really do anything else. Clifford came over around 4 today so that got me out of bed. We just did some Kreyol work then watched Bend it Like Beckham.
3 days in bed consisted of me watching stuff on the computer. I watched My So-Called Life, Arrested Development Season 1, The Hurricane, Family Guy, Run’s House, Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and some other things. I was feeling realllllly homesick late this morning. I think mostly because I had been sick, and lying in bed all day doesn’t do much for a mood-boost. I think I’ll be okay though.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Finally!
I am finally here! I can’t believe the day actually came. I feel like I have spent all of this time preparing and talking about going, but I don’t know if I ever realized it was really going to happen!
The actual traveling part was kind of a disaster. I was fortunate enough to be on the same flight as two seminarians from my Kreyol class who were also coming down to HHF. I arrived at JFK at about 3:30 AM exhausted and sad, but still excited. Tom and Robert (the seminarians) got there around 4:45 and came and sat with me. We began boarding the plane on time, but then the pilot got on the intercom and said that something with our generator needed to be looked at. A while later they decided our back-up generator would be fine if they put fuel in it. Evidently they were wrong because we had to surprise land at Washington, Dulles airport in DC. The back-up generator had failed.
The landing is fine, but now we need to fix the plane. I am half-asleep for most of what goes on in the airplane at all times throughout this whole trip, by the way. Because we have been sitting on the plane for a while now, they bring out those mobile lounges to take us into the airport and they give us meal vouchers. We ate and then waited, and waited, and waited. We were told we would board a new airplane flown in by American Airlines and depart by 2 PM. At around 5 we finally board and then depart a little after 6 PM. Arrival in Miami is a mess at this point because EVERYONE on the flight needs a place to stay so we are ALL in line for meal vouchers and a hotel stay.
After landing at 8:15 we wait in line for almost 2 hours for our vouchers. It turns out we will be staying in the Doral Resort which is seemingly a 5-star hotel. However, it took until midnight for us to find the shuttle to the resort because when we called the hotel they were describing to us a blue shuttle that said Doral resort on it. It turns out to be an unmarked white van. Anyway, at around midnight we arrive at the hotel (which would have been really nice to be in 2 hours earlier…) so after a bath and a phone call I go to bed.
Three hours later we are up and getting ready to get back to the airport for our 6:45 AM flight to Port-au-Prince. THANK GOD everything went smoothly for the flight. But, (of course there’s a but with the way this trip was going so far) our luggage did not come in on our flight. We had to wait around for the next flight from Miami to receive our luggage. At least it was on there even though Tom’s was basically the last bag to come off the trolley.
The driver hired by HHF, Parice, picked us up at Toussaint L’Ouverture airport and brought us to the small airport to catch a Tortug’ Air flight out to Jeremie. On the way, we stopped at a gas station to eat and it was actually really delicious food. I got full and felt reallllllly bad about wasting the leftovers. Our short flight to Jeremie was quick and on-time. Callie arrived only about 5 minutes after us to pick us up and bring us to HHF. We dropped off Tom and Robert and she brought me to the house. I was exhausted, and wearing shorts (and shorts is never really the best option- esp. in the countryside, which I knew and had something to change into, but going back to the house was preferable anyway).
I unpacked and Callie talked to me and showed me around the house. I met her friend Jessica who works in Abriko and her friend Popo who lives close-by. Later on a girl named Naima came over. She’s from UConn med school and is staying with Bette until next Thursday. We all went down to bathe in the Grand Anse so we got moto taxis (Callie’s friends, not random taxis) to drive us down, and then walked back up. It was nice to cool down after the hot day. I passed out and then slept in the next morning because I really needed to catch up on sleep.
After lunch I went into the office with Callie to begin learning my job. She went through a lot of the soccer program files, and is going to give me a lot of computer work tomorrow. We left work around 4:30 and went to the house to get ready for a little party that a local youth group was having. The girls of ORCJC was celebrating the one year anniversary of their youth group. Now, when I say “We went home” I mean we started walking home but stopped every hundred feet so Callie could talk to someone she knew. You cannot just go somewhere in Haiti because you must stop at everyone’s house as you pass. We don’t worry about being on time here.
When we did get home, we put on dresses and headed over to the party. It was held on the roof of someone’s house and the roof was all decked out with pretty curtains as the stage backdrop and a bunch of benches and chairs. They had huge speakers and a CD player and microphone. The girl who appeared to be the MC was not shy at all and had no problem speaking in front of everyone. The same goes for all the girls who performed songs, dances, or skits.
I was impressed by how many were involved. There were moms, dads, siblings, friends and neighbors all helping out. They had cooked a feast and had soda and beer to give out. Callie and I ate before we went because we didn’t want to have to eat a lot of their food when there were other people there who needed it more. While there I accepted a Prestige and a piece of cake though, to participate. At the end they just turned on music and everyone kompa danced around the roof. I got passed to four people in one song… I guess because I’m the new girl! The first girl I danced with seemed pretty amused that she was dancing with me because she kept getting her friends’ attention and pointing at me. After the party we went back to the house and I went to bed.
Friday morning we arrived a little late to work because, once again, we had to stop and talk to people. This is good for me because I get to meet all of these people as well and start to form relationships with them. At work from 8-12 I put in education data. By the end my eyes were swimming and I could barely recognize the numbers. We took a long lunch (to talk to people as we walked home) and I put in data from 2-3:30. The computer I sit it to do work is in a grouping with other people who actually arrive to work on time and leave on time, so those computers get shut down at 3:30 even though we usually will stay much later.
So, my computer got shut down at 3:30 and Callie still had a lot to do, so I left with Naima. We went back up to Bette’s and went swimming. After that we showered and walked back down to my house. It was pouring and thunder and lightning so we hung out and watched a show on my computer for a little while. Callie and Laura got back in the rain and then Laura’s boyfriend Jacqueline arrived so everyone was speaking Kreyol. I tried really hard to pay attention, but I was so tired I decided to take a little nap. I did not get up until Saturday morning!
On Saturday Naima took me downtown to exchange money and get a phone. We went to Kay Brunell which is a nice, legit bank. Plus it has air conditioning so it was nice to be in there for a little bit. I found out I can cash my own checks with Western Union so with my stipend and my own money I should be fine. From downtown we went back up to Bette’s house and ate then went back down to the Center of Hope to meet Naima’s friend Gerald. He gave me a tour of Jeremie on his moto. It was actually pretty helpful because I was able to put things into perspective. After the tour Naima and I went to the beach. We met up with Marie Pierre who is a French girl working on the Water Project. After the beach we caught a moto back up to Bette’s to shower and eat. After such a busy day we didn’t really feel like doing much so I got a ride from Ronald back down to the house and went to bed.
On Sunday Callie and I went to the beach then to a party at this place called Vertigo. It is a club/hotel by the river. There were a lot of people and live Reggae bands there. The music was really good, but it’s hard not being able to have a good conversation with people. I can’t wait til I’m better with my Kreyol.
This week we’ve just been working at the office. I finally finished entering the data I started last week and did a little project for Better and Sr. Maryann. On Tuesday and Thursday there were soccer games that we went to. On Tuesday I met this boy named Clifford. His English is pretty good. He is 17 but he looks younger. We are gonna go to church together on Sunday, and then he is going to help me with my Kreyol… I hired him as my tutor! He also wants to teach me guitar, but for now I’ll stick with Kreyol. I am excited for tomorrow and next week—I finally get to go andayo! Out in the countryside to different villages.
Friday I am going to Moron to a post. At posts they give vaccines to children, have a handwashing station, weigh babies, check on pregnant women, etc. I loved going to the post in January and clipping and washing the little kids’ fingernails. I am glad I can be useful tomorrow. Then next week I am going back to Moron overnight to see all the houses they are going to rebuild for Kay Kontan or Happy Houses. I have to take the “before” pictures and then later go back out and take “after” pictures. By that time I should be able to get stories by interviewing the owners and pass the info back to HQ in CT.
Some observations:
-It’s sad and awkward when people ask to have your earrings or your bag or what’s in your bag.
-No one seems to really get embarrassed here.
-By no means is everyone nice here, but when you say hello, people tend to smile and say it right back. I’ve never been ignored.
-No one tries to hide that they are staring.
-I am constantly looked at and stared at. Children smile back when I smile at them or say hello back when I say hello. Other people are not so nice… It’s usually pretty easy to tell when they’re being rude so I ignore it and keep walking.
-I finally know what it’s like to be the minority and different from everyone around me.
-Yon moun se moun. A person is a person. Right?
The actual traveling part was kind of a disaster. I was fortunate enough to be on the same flight as two seminarians from my Kreyol class who were also coming down to HHF. I arrived at JFK at about 3:30 AM exhausted and sad, but still excited. Tom and Robert (the seminarians) got there around 4:45 and came and sat with me. We began boarding the plane on time, but then the pilot got on the intercom and said that something with our generator needed to be looked at. A while later they decided our back-up generator would be fine if they put fuel in it. Evidently they were wrong because we had to surprise land at Washington, Dulles airport in DC. The back-up generator had failed.
The landing is fine, but now we need to fix the plane. I am half-asleep for most of what goes on in the airplane at all times throughout this whole trip, by the way. Because we have been sitting on the plane for a while now, they bring out those mobile lounges to take us into the airport and they give us meal vouchers. We ate and then waited, and waited, and waited. We were told we would board a new airplane flown in by American Airlines and depart by 2 PM. At around 5 we finally board and then depart a little after 6 PM. Arrival in Miami is a mess at this point because EVERYONE on the flight needs a place to stay so we are ALL in line for meal vouchers and a hotel stay.
After landing at 8:15 we wait in line for almost 2 hours for our vouchers. It turns out we will be staying in the Doral Resort which is seemingly a 5-star hotel. However, it took until midnight for us to find the shuttle to the resort because when we called the hotel they were describing to us a blue shuttle that said Doral resort on it. It turns out to be an unmarked white van. Anyway, at around midnight we arrive at the hotel (which would have been really nice to be in 2 hours earlier…) so after a bath and a phone call I go to bed.
Three hours later we are up and getting ready to get back to the airport for our 6:45 AM flight to Port-au-Prince. THANK GOD everything went smoothly for the flight. But, (of course there’s a but with the way this trip was going so far) our luggage did not come in on our flight. We had to wait around for the next flight from Miami to receive our luggage. At least it was on there even though Tom’s was basically the last bag to come off the trolley.
The driver hired by HHF, Parice, picked us up at Toussaint L’Ouverture airport and brought us to the small airport to catch a Tortug’ Air flight out to Jeremie. On the way, we stopped at a gas station to eat and it was actually really delicious food. I got full and felt reallllllly bad about wasting the leftovers. Our short flight to Jeremie was quick and on-time. Callie arrived only about 5 minutes after us to pick us up and bring us to HHF. We dropped off Tom and Robert and she brought me to the house. I was exhausted, and wearing shorts (and shorts is never really the best option- esp. in the countryside, which I knew and had something to change into, but going back to the house was preferable anyway).
I unpacked and Callie talked to me and showed me around the house. I met her friend Jessica who works in Abriko and her friend Popo who lives close-by. Later on a girl named Naima came over. She’s from UConn med school and is staying with Bette until next Thursday. We all went down to bathe in the Grand Anse so we got moto taxis (Callie’s friends, not random taxis) to drive us down, and then walked back up. It was nice to cool down after the hot day. I passed out and then slept in the next morning because I really needed to catch up on sleep.
After lunch I went into the office with Callie to begin learning my job. She went through a lot of the soccer program files, and is going to give me a lot of computer work tomorrow. We left work around 4:30 and went to the house to get ready for a little party that a local youth group was having. The girls of ORCJC was celebrating the one year anniversary of their youth group. Now, when I say “We went home” I mean we started walking home but stopped every hundred feet so Callie could talk to someone she knew. You cannot just go somewhere in Haiti because you must stop at everyone’s house as you pass. We don’t worry about being on time here.
When we did get home, we put on dresses and headed over to the party. It was held on the roof of someone’s house and the roof was all decked out with pretty curtains as the stage backdrop and a bunch of benches and chairs. They had huge speakers and a CD player and microphone. The girl who appeared to be the MC was not shy at all and had no problem speaking in front of everyone. The same goes for all the girls who performed songs, dances, or skits.
I was impressed by how many were involved. There were moms, dads, siblings, friends and neighbors all helping out. They had cooked a feast and had soda and beer to give out. Callie and I ate before we went because we didn’t want to have to eat a lot of their food when there were other people there who needed it more. While there I accepted a Prestige and a piece of cake though, to participate. At the end they just turned on music and everyone kompa danced around the roof. I got passed to four people in one song… I guess because I’m the new girl! The first girl I danced with seemed pretty amused that she was dancing with me because she kept getting her friends’ attention and pointing at me. After the party we went back to the house and I went to bed.
Friday morning we arrived a little late to work because, once again, we had to stop and talk to people. This is good for me because I get to meet all of these people as well and start to form relationships with them. At work from 8-12 I put in education data. By the end my eyes were swimming and I could barely recognize the numbers. We took a long lunch (to talk to people as we walked home) and I put in data from 2-3:30. The computer I sit it to do work is in a grouping with other people who actually arrive to work on time and leave on time, so those computers get shut down at 3:30 even though we usually will stay much later.
So, my computer got shut down at 3:30 and Callie still had a lot to do, so I left with Naima. We went back up to Bette’s and went swimming. After that we showered and walked back down to my house. It was pouring and thunder and lightning so we hung out and watched a show on my computer for a little while. Callie and Laura got back in the rain and then Laura’s boyfriend Jacqueline arrived so everyone was speaking Kreyol. I tried really hard to pay attention, but I was so tired I decided to take a little nap. I did not get up until Saturday morning!
On Saturday Naima took me downtown to exchange money and get a phone. We went to Kay Brunell which is a nice, legit bank. Plus it has air conditioning so it was nice to be in there for a little bit. I found out I can cash my own checks with Western Union so with my stipend and my own money I should be fine. From downtown we went back up to Bette’s house and ate then went back down to the Center of Hope to meet Naima’s friend Gerald. He gave me a tour of Jeremie on his moto. It was actually pretty helpful because I was able to put things into perspective. After the tour Naima and I went to the beach. We met up with Marie Pierre who is a French girl working on the Water Project. After the beach we caught a moto back up to Bette’s to shower and eat. After such a busy day we didn’t really feel like doing much so I got a ride from Ronald back down to the house and went to bed.
On Sunday Callie and I went to the beach then to a party at this place called Vertigo. It is a club/hotel by the river. There were a lot of people and live Reggae bands there. The music was really good, but it’s hard not being able to have a good conversation with people. I can’t wait til I’m better with my Kreyol.
This week we’ve just been working at the office. I finally finished entering the data I started last week and did a little project for Better and Sr. Maryann. On Tuesday and Thursday there were soccer games that we went to. On Tuesday I met this boy named Clifford. His English is pretty good. He is 17 but he looks younger. We are gonna go to church together on Sunday, and then he is going to help me with my Kreyol… I hired him as my tutor! He also wants to teach me guitar, but for now I’ll stick with Kreyol. I am excited for tomorrow and next week—I finally get to go andayo! Out in the countryside to different villages.
Friday I am going to Moron to a post. At posts they give vaccines to children, have a handwashing station, weigh babies, check on pregnant women, etc. I loved going to the post in January and clipping and washing the little kids’ fingernails. I am glad I can be useful tomorrow. Then next week I am going back to Moron overnight to see all the houses they are going to rebuild for Kay Kontan or Happy Houses. I have to take the “before” pictures and then later go back out and take “after” pictures. By that time I should be able to get stories by interviewing the owners and pass the info back to HQ in CT.
Some observations:
-It’s sad and awkward when people ask to have your earrings or your bag or what’s in your bag.
-No one seems to really get embarrassed here.
-By no means is everyone nice here, but when you say hello, people tend to smile and say it right back. I’ve never been ignored.
-No one tries to hide that they are staring.
-I am constantly looked at and stared at. Children smile back when I smile at them or say hello back when I say hello. Other people are not so nice… It’s usually pretty easy to tell when they’re being rude so I ignore it and keep walking.
-I finally know what it’s like to be the minority and different from everyone around me.
-Yon moun se moun. A person is a person. Right?
Friday, August 14, 2009
UGH
Okay, so I literally have a 4-page Word document that I have been working on that I was going to post today. However, this computer does not recognize my document :( So I am going to try to bring my laptop to the clinic tomorrow and connect to the internet on it, then load it that way. Until then, here are some pictures of my house!
I lied. The pictures aren't working either. I know this is lame. Sorry.
I lied. The pictures aren't working either. I know this is lame. Sorry.
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