Hilarious fact: The kids at the orphanage love Justin
Bieber.
As I’m typing, there’s a boyish chorus of “baby, baby, baby
ohhh…” punctuating the thunderclaps from the steps of the nursery. Robyn, a fellow
volunteer, said some Canaanites even made up a dance to his Lonely Girl album.
They may not care much for Harry Potter (today I’m missing the final
installment!), but pre-adolescent Haitians are pumped about the Biebs.
I want it to rain today; the hillside next to the clinic is
looking sullen and dry. Seeing the rainclouds envelope the mountains in velvet
mist is breathtaking— a purple thumbprint of clouds.
I constantly feel like I’m seeing Haiti through a National
Geographic magazine. Vibrant cascading blue, hazy and sharp, hungry and
filling.
Life here is never quiet, between the dogs and children and
trucks bumbling by. Singing fills spare silence. The women in the nursery clap
their hands and hum to the babies. The Haitian radio loops techno, pop, Creole gospel
songs and classical Spanish for hours at a time, mostly talking and taking
callers with poor connections and chanting political jargon like an auctioneer (the
DJ typically shouts “Hallo? HALLO?!” rather obnoxiously over the songs before
any introductions are made).
Last night, a Haitian man sat shirtless on the hill above
Canaan, shouting and singing prayers for hours into the evening. The rats
scratch in the ceiling above my bunk. The rooster cackles.
I took vitals and helped triage patients for an hour, and
spent the rest of this morning and after lunch filing paperwork and entering
patient data onto the receptionist’s laptop. The system is disorganized and
there were several files missing. It’s tedious to dig up files for returning
patients and then file the mounds from the day, especially because I find a
paper in the incorrect place for every new chart I file. According to Elsie,
who runs the clinic, the filing system is an ongoing project. With an average
of 80 patients a day, it is constantly backed up.
A few pathetic chickens wandered into the clinic. It was
amusing to watching them strut lethargically between patients as if they, too,
were waiting for the doctor.
The staff at the clinic is under tremendous stress because
the medicine donations from doctors in the states have not come in for a few
months. There are no more antibiotics left to prescribe to patients, so Elsie
has been purchasing medicine with her personal money at the U.S. Embassy.
For an appointment at the clinic, people pay 75 goudes, about $2, USD. They receive free
medicine to treat their ailment as long as the medicine is stocked. The clinic
is also out of a variety of standard tests, including HIV. The parasite and
urine screenings are the only tests remaining.
As I walked up the hill separating the Canaan property and
the clinic, confident boys demanding chocolate and soccer balls in French. They
called me Caroline, the name of the full-time Mamba clinic director, also
blonde, who is away on vacation. Je ne
pas du chocolate… I felt guilty for refusing them because they were playing
soccer with soiled plastic containers, but I suppose the mission teams that
cycle through each month supply them with toys, candy and chewing gum.
My eyes are getting heavy and I’m enjoying my lazy Friday
evening. There’s much more down time than I ever expected, but time seems to
run less urgently in Haiti. No one seems to stress — it’s a refreshing attitude
that’s seeping deliciously under my skin. Speaking of refreshing, we finally
have water in our house. I took my first shower this afternoon, although the
humidity had me sweating before I pulled my clothes back on.
There’s an obese black lab, one of Pastor Henry’s dogs,
throwing up outside my window, and a couple puppies toddling in the bushes. I miss
cuddling my own puppy, knowing these crusty mutts aren’t for loving, but for
safety and vermin control.
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