Between mountains and sea: first day of clinic work

The view of the ocean from the hill above Montrouis. The clinic is just downhill to the left.

The scraggy dogs sleep all day under limping mimosas, but at night howl and moan and rustle past my bedroom window until sunrise. My day began at 6 am. I woke up covered in sweat, sun and stagnant heat but I slept peacefully through most of the night, with the occasional interruption from barking dogs.

The scrawny dogs that live at the bottom of the Canaan
hillside are constantly battling over territory with the
Canaan pastor's guard dogs.

After a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes smothered in Medika Mamba (Creole for "peanut butter medicine"), the enriched peanut butter used to treat malnutrition. It's not much of a Haitian breakfast, but the peanut butter is a staple here, where Canaan houses 60+ orphaned children. 

Today was my first experience at the community clinic. The new building still needs a tremendous amount of construction and electrical wiring, but it’s functioning well. Three nurses and a doctor staff the clinic during the week, as well as several receptionists and “floaters” who take vitals staff the clinic and help with patient consults. Remembering names has never been my strength, so I'm trying to focus on meaningful introductions. Luckily, the staff speak French and some speak a little English, so I was able to communicate and learn some Creole phrases. It's amazing how harsh syllables are sometimes the only separation between Creole and swooning French.

View of the mountains surrounding Canaan, a short walk
uphill from my house.

Elsie, the clinic's head nurse, taught me how to take the patient's vitals before their consultations -- an extension of the clinic used to triage patients. For most of the morning, I weighed infants, helped elderly Haitians onto the scale to take their weight in kilograms, and took temperatures and blood pressure. When the trickle of patients halted, I filed in reception. It was daunting at first, with more than 17,000 patient files from the past three years are crammed into two filing cabinets, but I finished in time for lunch. 

It was difficult to communicate with patients with French alone, as the majority of Montrouis speaks only Creole. I need to improve my bedside manner -- a Bonjou is not enough to help assess patient needs. I did a lot of pointing, my own timid version of Creole I had overheard from the staff (and filled the rest in with French when I was unable to convey myself) to direct patients to the scale and to unbutton their sleeves for the blood pressure cuff. Haitians are friendly and to the point, especially when they come to the clinic. The smiles in Montrouis are infectious. 

I love it here.

There were not as many patients as there normally are, 60 versus the normal 80, so the clinic closed early. I went on a hour long hike with Amy and Robyn, volunteers from North Carolina who are leading the Canaan kids in a summer English reading program. Just up the hill from Canaan is a gorgeous view of the ocean. Villages sprawl from mountainside to the beach, elegant and haphazard. 

Villages scatter the mountains surrounding Canaan.

We followed a rock-paved road for a mile, and I saw a few mopeds hurl by crammed with 3 or 4 Haitian men and women and their groceries, clutching one another as they kicked up dust. A man on a donkey greeted us with a "Bonswa! Komon ou ye?" as goats wandered in the brush. I felt out of place with my camera strapped across my shoulder, looking like a blanc with my blond ponytail and grape-colored Keens. 

At dinner, I was able to speak French with the Haitian doctor, Jean Robert, and share a delicious meal of noodles with pieces of pepper, onion and raisins. Earlier at the clinic, I met Mis ("nurse") Marice, an LPN from Haiti who speaks French as her langue maternelle. It has helped build my confidence in the language, and has made it much easier to translate the patients' Creole. I could ask her to translate the Creole into French when English was not sufficient. Although I stumbled through my rusty French vocabulary, it felt fantastic to smile and laugh and talk about my life. It's a grounding experience to make a friend and delight in a language not my own. 

This is Canaan's cafeteria, where we eat all our meals.
Usually, we have to step over dogs in the process!

I am typing with some urgency because the generator is going to be shut off very early. The large generator that usually feeds Canaan electricity in the evening has broken down, so a tiny generator is burning the bulbs for the entire camp. There hasn’t been water in our house tonight, so I’ll make-do with the dredges of the laundry water and my spare bandana.

I'm off to bathe before the power goes, and the dogs claim the night. Bonwi.