this is long. TIA for reading it. So desha, what do you do all day? How many patients are you seeing? Well, it would probably be easier to tell you what I DON’T do. lol I don’t see patients, we only do mobile clinics, so it’s not like I have a regular clinic to operate here on a daily basis. On Thursday mornings I go to Maranatha, which is one of our mobile clinic sites, and I do BP checks, mostly on the teenagers that are enrolled in school there. This keeps a constant presence in that area, as the mobile clinics can be 6+ months apart, because of the volunteer brigade schedule. Our community health worker comes along and does a nutrition spiel when needed, is learning how to take BP’s and is working on her English skills. I am here to primarily be the eyes and ears for NWB ‘on the ground’. It is exceptionally hard to manage an organization in a foreign country, especially when you are not there. Because of my presence here the last three months, several things have come to light that NWB has now been able to address and therefore enhance the ability to keep moving forward as a NGO in Haiti. My daily interactions are mostly with the NWB employees. We have some new ones, which means they need to be taught who we are and what we do, what goes on at the NWB house, and what doesn’t, what is expected and what is not. What is a project of priority and what is a project of ideal opportunity. During the week I venture out on errands for house supplies, for street food, for market shopping, and for a cookie/ice cream run every now and again. Often time the employees get sent out to do errands because if I go the price will be significantly higher and not able to be negotiated properly. Sad but true, so as much as I’d like to attend all errands, usually about 60% of them are done best without me. Every day there is something that doesn’t go as planned, so the days turn into weeks and it feels like nothing is getting done, but really things are getting done, just not on the American timetable that I have grilled into my head. Stuff takes longer here. And is expensive. It doesn’t matter what it is you want to get done, it will take 3x the cost and 10x the duration that you think it should. This makes me feel like a failure and/or incompetent, and/or ineffective, every time. I’m learning to accept that it’s not my fault, that it’s just the way things get done here. I’ve learned to stop caring about the petty details and I’ve learned to throw all deadlines and agendas completely out the window. I do anxiously await the day when I don’t need to constantly be at the house managing the employees/tasks and will be free to have a stronger presence in the medical/NGO community, by actively being a part of it. The rainy season brought with it lots of leaks and floods and damage and ruined supplies. The rainy season has not necessarily ended and keeping up with the water is a constant struggle. Getting things fixed, then waiting to see if during the next rainfall it actually was fixed. (The Haitian fix for all things water/leak related is cement. I know I know, cement is water soluble, but it’s the way things are done around here) I am trying to meet people, local and other ex pats. Unfortunately everyone else is busy doing things with their jobs/orgs, so the interactions are harder to schedule than one would hope. I don’t have a solid means of transportation so getting from my house to an NGO is often near difficult, especially since many of them are further out in the country side where the local taptap buses don’t run frequently. With regular traffic it often takes an hour+ to go a short distance, like a mile or two. Being here alone is socially isolating, it’s painful! I’m a people person. I’m used to being the social butterfly. I try to get invited to the social events, but they’re often late at night and it’s not safe to travel on a motorcycle by oneself at night, so I’m not keen to do it. That’s if I get an invitation at all. A lot of the ex pats get together amongst themselves for dinners and such, but they aren’t open invitation. Also I’m not the late night owl I used to be, and the idea of meeting at 10 pm for drinks and a concert isn’t as appealing as it once was - I don’t really drink and I don’t have any spare change to spend on concerts. I am meeting people though and occasionally I am leaving my house at night on motos and I am spending a bit of money here and there on dinners out or a day at the beach to build connections with the other ex pats. One of the main difference between them and me is their paycheck, as in, they have one! I am also meeting locals. Doing language swaps is a useful tool to build a relationship with a local and I’m trying really hard to find the time in the daily schedule to do just that. I go to church on Sundays not for any religious reason (I haven’t attended a church in 15 years), but for the opportunity to build a community of my own and pay it forward. My congregation loves having me, and even though I can’t understand what they’re saying, I feel welcomed and valued. And as far as the children are concerned I’m a freaking celebrity there! Having my medical equipment stolen at the end of October slowed down the opportunity to show up at other clinics and be of much use with BP and physical exams. [minus the 2 weeks of student brigade volunteers in November] Having a severely sprained ankle at the beginning of Dec REALLY slowed down everything. I am constantly on the lookout for new collaborations, new opportunities for NWB, new ways to interact and be involved, new resources to utilize and all that fun stuff. The ones I have ‘scouted out’ already have been excellent. I was invited to give a short presentation at the last cap-haitien health network meeting, and that was really fun. I’m enjoying getting NWB on the radar. I’m trying, and failing, to learn Kreyol. My analytical literal brain is having a hard time learning an informal, unwritten, unrecognized-anywhere-other-than-Haiti language. I’m a visual learner with a photographic memory and since it is an unwritten language that has no rules, there isn’t much in the way to look at. Everyone can spell the words however they want and its never wrong. And to make things even harder for me, the Kreyol in cap-haitien is different that the Kreyol in the rest of Haiti. They like to shorten a lot of words, cuz why say the whole word when you can just say the first syllable and because of the context of the sentence, everyone just ‘knows’ what you’re saying. Umm yah, no. there is no verb conjugation but there is a lot of word contractions. Cuz why say three words when you can squeeze them all into one word. Ummm yah, no. I realize that there is probably an element of American elitist vibe in this paragraph, but it’s not so much that as knowing how my unique brain works and that Kreyol just isn’t working. Another element of difficulty is the nasal sounds and the deep throat guttural sounds. I blame my classical voice lessons for this. I am completely unable to make nasal and guttural throat noises. I’m trying hard to, and it’s not working. Which is both frustrating and hilarious. Simple things like peeing, showering, cooking, and cleaning up after a meal take a lot of thought and planning. I don’t have any running water in the house. So that means I have to pump water from the well every day. The well water is clear, but that doesn’t mean it’s clean, which means I have to wash dishes with an extra rinse of bleach. I have to clean in order to cook, cuz the food comes covered in caked on dirt, which gets the knife and cutting board and counter dirty, which I have to then clean in order to chop and prepare it after I scrubbed it, and then I have to clean up afterwards – which honestly doesn’t happen cuz by the time I’m done cooking I’m done with cleaning! Which means I have to clean prior to the cleaning process for the next meal. So the entire process takes literal hours – for one small simple meal. Often times it’s a fight to get myself to even do it because it’s such a hassle. And we all know how prone I am to not eating! So when I say it’s a fight, I mean it’s a horrendous inner battle. (no I’m not anorexic, I am just used to single handedly keeping places like burgerville, chipotle, and laughing planet in business) I don’t have a refrigerator, cuz that requires electricity which I also don’t have, so any leftovers are a waste and it’s harder than you’d think to make a meal that only lasts one meal. And when you look at the analysis of what effort goes into the meal, again – inner battle – cuz it’s NOT worth it!! I’m doing good if I’m eating one meal a day, I’m doing exceptionally well if I have 2 meals. I like to graze on snacks and I do a protein/greens/electrolyte powder shake every morning. Sadly none of the locals or church members have invited me over for a meal! Also, it’s not worth paying someone to cook my meals for me, because the cost to pay the cooker is about 10x the cost of the food itself. I’d rather starve then pay someone 10x the cost of the food. If I have to pee I have to check the bucket level first to make sure I can flush and wash my hands after wards. If I have to shower, I need to plan ahead otherwise the water fresh from the well is freezing. (this was a good things a couple months ago when the heat and humidity were suffocating) if it’s a really cold day then I have to plan even further ahead to get some water heated on the stove to add to my shower bucket so I don’t get pneumonia and die. Anything involving water throughout my day probably adds at least 30 mins to the task at hand. A 3 minute trip to the bathroom is easily turned into an event in and of itself. It’s very frustrating as I’m used to efficiency and struggling to accept being so inefficient. I have to plan my day around well pumping because it’s not safe for me to pump water after dark- the sun sets at 5:10 pm, thanks to the zombie attack. (which I still need to write about) So all in all it feels like I don’t do anything most of the time. Especially compared to what I used to get done during the course of one day. But I’m doing something and that’s what matters. Things eventually get accomplished, and that’s what matters. Being here, is what matters.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 00:31:31 +0000
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