Photo blog: The hike to Capiat

Capiat is a mountain village scraping the clouds above Montrouis, Haiti. It's perched on an icy spring that bubbles like crystal, irrigating acres of vegetables and breadfruit trees.

Last Thursday, I made the 4-hour hike with a team of missionaries from Alabama. It was strenuous, but breathtaking.

Here's a photo blog of our journey up the mountains and into the mountain oasis.

It was perfect weather for a hike. We left at 10:30 am, as tropical storm Emily threatened to thrash Haiti's southern coast with heavy rainfall.

The sky in Montrouis was a delicious blue. We set out on a road steep road leading to Capiat.

Horses, donkeys and goats graze nearby, with no owners in sight. As I panted with the ascent, I fought the urge to try my luck at bareback riding.

After 45 minutes of hiking, we made it past the first village and onto a bridge with an amazing view. One of the missionary women took my photo -- hope you're happy, Ma!

Taking photos was an excellent way to chug water and catch our breath. The road took a sharp turn skyward after this point, the most tedious part of the hike.

As we climbed higher into the mountains, the coast reappeared and shimmered behind towering palms.

We reached some farmland on the outskirts of Capiat. My Keens were muddy and kept sliding off my feet as the road narrowed into a rough trail.

Nearing the summit, we walk through more irrigated farms and a new perspective on Haiti's coast.

We reached Capiat. Families gather along the cement constructed waterways directing the fresh water spring down the mountain.

Men and women gathered to wash clothing, bathe and socialize under breadfruit trees.

Children from Capiat poured out of the village to stare at our team of blancs and Canaan kids.

Whitney (left), me (center) and Rebecca, part of the Birmingham missionary group, cool off in the deliciously frigid mountain water.

The missionary women visiting Canaan posed before some of us (daringly) submerged ourselves in the icy oasis.

I was incredibly happy to have made it. Capiat mean't that the the rest was downhill from here...

The sky was getting dark and it started sprinkling. We decided to leave, fearing tropical storm Emily was finally done brooding in the ocean below Haiti.

We passed more horses and donkeys tied up next to the road, while little kids peeked out of small houses and called out for candy.

I was amazed at this donkey, weighed down but walking ahead of his master. Most of the time, I see donkeys refusing to budge while their owners whip them on the side of the road.

It was a relief following the road downhill after a strenuous ascent.

The rusting roof of a house peeks out from behind a cornfield. 

A tiny house is engulfed by the mountains.

From the mountains, we could see the tip of Gonave Island.

A stunning photo of the coast and the dazzling water of the Saint Marc Channel.

As we neared Canaan, more horses munched. As I once again considered a bareback ride to carry my tired body home, a man popped out of the bushes and startled me.

All signs of a storm disappeared, and in the last leg of the hike, we were able to see the distant Massif de la Selle (left) and Gonave Island (right) on the horizon.

As the Canaan kids and fellow missionaries made it back to Canaan in Montrouis, it felt amazing to be alive and exploring this beautiful country.

Thanks for hiking with me!

Foreigners at Pierre Payen Hospital: Mamba babies and medical specialists

Scuttling, scraping daggers on the tin roof. The rats are active again. The sound makes me cringe and uneasily eyeball the cracks in the cement walls of our tiny house.

It’s a cool, mournful evening after the first rain in a week.

I feel stressed out today—this week has a sense of urgency, especially as my time left in Haiti dwindles. The clinic is in serious need of an organizational overhaul, and not just for supplies and storage. The staff is incredibly busy, but without an administrator, it is not operating efficiently. I’m praying it will get better, because today reception turned away several sick babies and elderly people. The doctor was home in Port-au-Prince with a cold, leaving only two nurses to see all patients.

There is a team of American doctors and Canadian nurses visiting the hospital in Pierre Payen until Sunday, including a pediatric urologist and orthopedic surgeon.

Caroline and I have a lot of time to pay to Haitian waiting rooms.

We woke up earlier than usual to rally the moms of babies in the Medika Mamba program requiring extra medical care. It was hotter than ever, and even with the raspy air conditioning, the truck reeked of sweat.

I hardly notice the smell anymore, this pungent perfume of hot bodies. But today it made me pine for ice water and a swimming pool… And some Febreeze.

Perre Payen Hospital has a homey guesthouse and a large, well-constructed facility with high walls and breezy ventilation. Once we were admitted past the guard at the iron gates and thrust among waiting patients (some sitting, most standing, but all cramped in the hallway clutching their files), a nurse arrived to sort the babies to specialty doctors and therapists based on their needs.

The hospital examination rooms were roomy, but sparsely supplied, painted in the surprisingly antiseptic hue of yellowing newspaper. The orthopedic doctor had only an exam table, a wheelchair, basic orthopedic wraps and an x-ray machine. The urologist had an examination table and a packet of sterile gloves, seeing patients behind blue surgery drapes pinned above the doorway like flapping laundry.

The foreign staff walked fiercely from room to room, hair frizzed and sweat rolling. It was funny to watch them move while Haitians patiently waited, falling their faces with manila envelopes containing scribbles of their insides and histories of their pain. More than once, I was grabbed and asked to translate. I am sorry I had to refuse them. I am trying to hard to wrap my brain around Creole, even with my French language background.

James is a 13-month-old with an ectopic bladder. His condition requires multiple specialized surgeries to repair his bladder and reconstruct his genitalia. He lives in Sous Bogne, the little community below Canaan, and in a previous post I talked about my visit to his home with Katie my first week in Haiti. He has been rejected from two hospitals in the states already for lack of funding, especially because he will need a lot of recovery time and after care following his surgeries. As the pediatric urologist examined him, we were told nothing new… except that he is at the perfect age for surgery and that his condition is treatable. The doctor said it will be almost impossible to treat him in Haiti, and offered his contact information for his hospital in Nebraska.

Please pray that James’ surgery will be accepted and covered by this doctor’s hospital. He will need to stay in the states for a while, accompanied by someone from Canaan because it will take months for his mother’s birth certificate to be found in the Haitian national archives. James needs the surgery now, and Haitian time is slow time. I wanted to throw up my hands and scream when the doctor explained the specific microscopes her needed for an effective surgery and recovery.

Haiti doesn’t have this type of medical care readily available, especially not for babies in poverty.

A little girl, Gueraldine, has had severe joint malformations. She was discontinued from the Medika Mamba after failing to gain weight, but she’s still scrawny and malnourished. After she fell in February, her wrists began to jut abnormally, which was formerly diagnosed as untreated breaks.

The orthopedic surgeon who examined Gueraldine today gave some clarity—it’s a congenital condition, and the x-rays revealed missing bones in her hands and wrists. The doctor and physical therapist were able to mold her two removable splints out of casting. It was painful to watch the baby scream as they pushed her angular wrists into normal positions and wrapped them tightly. However, it was a relief to learn simple stretches the mother could perform to aid in proper growth and development. Plus, the baby doesn’t need extensive surgery, which was a relief to the mother and us—less letdowns and hoop jumping this way.

The Haitian doctor Jean Robert was expecting a pediatric cardiologist to be with the team of Americans, so the 5-year-old requiring heart surgery for her defect was turned away. She’s been waiting for 2 years now to see a pediatric cardiologist with the means to operate in Haiti. Unfortunately, the specialty equipment is difficult to come by, especially for short-term doctors and surgeons.

Since the team does have a general doctor to see all the patients that don’t fall into the available specialty categories, there’s another baby at Rousseau with a chest and lung malformation will still need to be looked at, although our hopes of specialist treatment are dashed. After the Mamba mobile clinic Wednesday, we’ll be bringing the mom and the x-rays we obtained in St. Marc to wait once again in Pierre Payen.

Waiting, waiting and more waiting. It’s so difficult for me to sit still and accept that this is how life rolls in Haiti.

People die waiting.

Caroline and I vented with M&Ms and danced the cha cha with some of the younger girls, Magdalena and Jessica. It was my first genuine smile of the day, besides entertaining the babies in the sticky hospital heat. Thank you to chocolate and my fiesty Haitian friends.

It’s only 8:30, but I want to just lie in bed and decompress. I need a massage, but I'll settle with some IB profen for now. The mosquitoes are munching.

Before the storm: Medika Mamba and mountain hikes

There’s a tropical storm, Emily, hours away from making landfall in Haiti. It could turn into a hurricane, so Canaan has been storing drinking water and positioning rain barrels and old oil drums to collect rainwater, and checking the cisterns for any leaks. 

I’ve taken clean water for granted. Water is a daily discussion at Canaan, and a few of the boys’ chore are solely to clean the water tanks and filter water for consumption. It’s a luxury to have drinkable water delivered straight to your faucets, or any water for that matter. In villages with a single well or water pump, women crowd with paint-crusted buckets and stained bleach jugs to catch precious drops, hauling them miles home on dry, fumy roads.

With all the work it takes, I am grateful for rain to fill our buckets for showers. And until then, I'm praying for the families living in the tents and shacks to weather the storm with ease.

Mamba is in full swing, and the past two days have been hectic with the missionary team and Mamba researchers from Georgia. I have sensed some of the Haitian mothers’ apprehension with the amount of Americans peeking in on exams, procedures and watching the rusty gears turn in our tiny rural clinic.

Each week, word of the Medika Mamba program spreads like pond ripples in the villages sprawling across Montrouis. I felt stressed as the new admissions to the malnourishment program crammed under the shade of sparse willows, packed in CESANOJE’s hallways and spilling into the consultation rooms.

We saw close to 50 patients and checked about 15 potential cases of malnourishment. I had my face between my knees with exhaustion in the heavy heat between patients, wondering how the mothers could bear waiting in the breezeless afternoon.

Some of the babies were shaking with hunger or thirst after waiting since 6 am for the consultation. One boy had a 104 fever and was crying feebly as I poured medicine down his throat, too weak to swallow.

It was difficult to feel enthusiastic when most of the babies seemed to be sick and loosing weight, or staying the same. Most of the babies graduate in six weeks or less, but out of all the enrolled babies, we had zero graduates Tuesday.

We did, however, readmit some of the children into the Mamba program— babies who graduated plump and vigorous 3 months ago, but now whittled back down to malnourishment.

Discouraging.

There’s a science to the Mamba. We can predict like clockwork—a well-researched bell curve—with how much weight babies should be gaining with proper feeding of the Medika Mamba. With my translator, Jennifer, I was able to demonstrate proper feeding (allowing small spoonfuls for the child to eat slowly, or mixing the thick Mamba with clean water) to help prevent vomiting with the babies. Many of the mothers had been force-feeding their child, and causing them to become ill and refuse the Mamba.

There were a couple patients who improved, and I did feel joy in giving mothers praise for their progress. Graduation from the program is a source of dignity and empowerment for the mothers as well—a contrast to the emotions of shame and avoidance we often see in those new to the program.

Malnourishment is as much disease as it is stigma.

Three women, public health researchers from Atlanta’s Moorhouse School of Medicine, interviewed mothers in the program to see if or how their breastfeeding habits changed when their malnourished babies were given Mamba to eat.

I’m really looking forward to their findings, although I was skeptical at first. Many of the babies are cared for by women other than the mothers, so we had to figure our which moms qualified for the study. In addition, many of the mothers had stopped lactating or stopped breastfeeding before the baby reached 6 months, when other foods can be introduced to supplement. This caused the malnourishment in the first place.

It’s awesome that Canaan will have a study that’s relevant and informative for others advocates of the Medika Mamba program to follow. I’m considering coming back for some research myself, focusing on the re-admissions to the Mamba program.

For the mobile Mamba clinic in Rousseau, I arrived with a nasty headache. I forgot my Excedrin at Canaan. One of the Haitian doctors, Dr. Guidson, saw me clutching my head and brought some migraine pills. I ended up sleeping, knees curled up to my nose, on a lopsided hospital bed while Caroline and Mis Joanne saw patients. With the tropical storm looming, many of the mothers stayed at home. My little power nap was magic, and I felt great around noon when the hospital closed, in time for the jarring drive back to Montrouis.

When Caroline and a couple visiting from Kansas City, Josh and Rachel, made our daily 2-hour hike up the mountains, we ran into groups of Haitians riding horses and carrying spades and shovels. A little girl followed us all the way back down, begging for candy and our (empty) water bottles.

A teenage boy attending English school in Montrouis asked me for my phone number, tagging behind me for the last 20-minute stretch of our hike. He was incredibly pushy, resolute and undeterred by my age. He’s the fifth Haitian male to ask me for my phone number, and wouldn’t accept no for an answer… even the fact that I don’t have a Haitian phone, and emptied my purse to prove it.

Perhaps it’s cultural for the men to approach a potential female interest with frustrating tenacity.

I can’t believe I have two weeks left in Haiti. Tonight I sat on the cistern at the top of Canaan’s hill—an enormous, panoramic view of Montrouis. It felt incredible to share prayers and stories with Americans conscious of Haiti’s needs and who share my love for this island. The team cooked cake and brownies for the Haitian staff, and we stayed late singing, playing guitar, and watching one of the babies, Marlucia, dance across the cafeteria table with every strum.

Rambling update: Beach bugs, graduation parties and swiveling hips

I'm rubbing red eyes as I type this blog, courtesy of my shower—a concoction of concrete cistern rainwater and a cap of bleach to sabotage microscopic vermin. There’s still no running water at Canaan since the second generator, the clinic's main power line, came to a sputtering halt last week. The big generator is still broken down, and all of Canaan has been operating sporadically from a small gasoline-powered generator.

Lack of running water has helped me appreciate every precious drop. Conservation is key. Thunderstorms have washed my laundry the past few nights, and that water has been preserved to flush the toilet and wash hands. There’s no such thing as single-use water, except perhaps for drinking.

The water business has hardly has put my spirits down. I feel so grateful to be in the company of my new Haitian friends. It's funny how living and eating together knits cultural gaps.

A team of 11 college-aged missionaries from Alabama arrived Saturday, two couples arrived Sunday, and three women conducting Mamba research arrived today, which has livened up Canaan with new faces.

With new arrivals, the Canaan kitchen has been running on almost constant generator power, which means meat and veggies have been added to the rice/beans/pasta repertoire. It's so nice to have refrigeration! The influx of variety has elevated my mood to an all-time high here.

What can I say; I'm a guiltless foodie.

Canaan spent all Saturday preparing for the high school graduation party of Rose May, a Canaanite who came at age 15 after living in domestic child slavery. She started her ABCs and plunged into English.

Just 7 years later at age 22, she was cheered by all of Canaan and her guests in her cap and gown, proudly clutching her high school diploma. I hope I can share more of her incredible story in a later post.

Caroline and I started off Sunday with an hour-long hike up the mountain behind Canaan. We passed a few families with babies enrolled in the malnutrition program, and women who I had talked to while taking vitals at the clinic. They called out to us like old friends.

It’s charming how the longer I’m here, the smaller this island becomes. Between the bustle of market and the serenity of the coast, there are welcoming faces and skinny limbs waving Bonjou. A walk a morning here does more for the soul than body.

Church was fun, despite the heat. One of the babies started fussing in the service, so I scooped him up and he immediately sank into sleep on my hip, drooling as his head slid onto my chest. Haitian church is vocal and active, and he miraculously dozed as my hips swiveled to hymns and the flies hummed.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that the orphanage kids love Justin Bieber with ferocity. I left my iPod unmanned on a cafeteria table, and before I could say "baby," a feisty 13-year-old Thadjina had scrolled down to the "J"s in her hunt for Justin Bieber songs.

While I don't have any Biebs in my iTunes library, I did have a song my brother Justin wrote after a rough break-up. The table filled with preteen girls who picked up the chorus of his song after a few refrains, entranced by the fact my brother was an artiste with the Biebs' namesake! The girls demanded to see photos of him, and once I showed a picture of my twin with long, side-swooped hair, they unanimously agreed he looked like Justin Bieber.

Whenever I see Thadjina, she'll sing me part of the song, "How could you be like that?" and giggle like it's our private joke. 

Hear that bro? If my iPod circulates anymore, you're on your way to becoming a new heartthrob.


We went with the Alabama team and a truckload of Canaan kids to a private beach just outside of Montrouis. The water was absolutely delicious and boyant --a summary of this past weekend at Canaan. 


However, while I sucked the salty nectar through my pores and thought how lucky I am to be in Haiti, I was stung by a tiny jellyfish-like water bug on my chest. Robin and a few of the others were stung -- apparently the beasts multiply when it rains. I still have a painful rash trailing a couple inches on my breast. 

There’s been plenty to celebrate. Tonight was Caroline’s birthday, and we had a great night at one of Montrouis’ resorts—Moulin Sur Mer. It was great to decompress after another day of thorough clinic cleaning and chipping away at the massive inventory project I started 3 weeks ago.

I feel blessed and ready to sleep.