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.
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.
The female staff house, where we spent most of today out of the rain.
It’s Sunday already, and my first time at a Creole Christian
worship service. The Canaan church is a squat concrete building painted powder
blue. The tin roof, coupled with short windows covered in mosquito wire, heats
up the building like a convection oven. With no power during the day, the metal
fans were lifeless and taunting on their wall mounts. I fanned myself with
cardstock as we sang for an hour, repeating lines of gospel translated into
Creole to different drum rhythms and pats of tambourines, and listened to
Pastor Joelle’s sermon for another hour—the longest I’ve ever been in a church
service. Breakfast had upset my stomach, so it felt even longer.
I had difficulty enjoying the new experience. The service
was in Creole, and I caught snatches of the sermon when the Creole resembled
French. One of the older Canaan girls was translating on and off, but I was too
far away to catch what she was saying over Pastor Joelle’s bellowing voice as
he paced back and forth behind the pulpit, his bible held high. This, like the
singing, was very repetitive and met with generous rounds of “Meci, saviour!” and “Hallelujah, amen!” with upturned palms.
Half way through the service, a baby from the front pew
started pulling on my skirt, so I pulled her on my lap and bounced her until
she squirmed free and crawled to another woman in the row behind me. It melted
my heart.
Again today, the clinic is closed. The three other staff
women and I planned to go to St. Marc after church, but the tap taps (trucks you “tap” on the back
of to catch a ride somewhere, like a public bus or open-air taxi)don’t run late Sunday afternoon and
Pastor Joelle forbade us from leaving, in case we might be stranded. Since,
I’ve had a lazy day that’s only made me a little homesick.
The sky was dreary and looked on the brink of a storm all day.
I tried interacting with some of the kids, but my duties as
a clinic worker separate me from their chores and summer reading school
schedules. Jessica, 13, took my arm and chatted with me in French and, without
luck, tried to teach me “Leave me alone!” in Creole. I couldn’t quite nail down
the syllables to repeat them correctly to her. Rosalie, 7, taught me “pays boire” and “za” (spelling?), to describe in Creole a “skinny tree” rooted
outside the cafeteria door.
I relieved one of the young girls of a baby she was
carrying, a 16-month-old with saucer-sized, exploratory brown eyes, as she
wiped down the cafeteria tables. The baby just stared at me, putting tiny,
endearing fingerprints on my eyeglass lenses. Anyways, they’re constantly smudged and slipping down my
nose as I perspire.
I’ve read for hours today and have a headache. There’s no
happy medium for my eyes—reading in either squinting sun or mosquito/ dog-inhabited
shade. Our house is dark, but we burn candles to keep out mosquitoes and gnats.
Wearing glasses here has also it difficult in the sun because I can’t wear
sunglasses AND see. If I were to do this again, I would definitely have brought
a couple pairs of contact lenses and risked getting eye infections. Wearing
glasses (and toting my flashy Canon camera) makes me stick out even more and
feel pangs of guilt for owning these luxuries.
Our toilet is broken. We spend the afternoon waiting for
Pastor Joelle to come help us with a repair, but turns out we’ll have to
manually flush with a bucket of water and the occasional cup of bleach to
prevent gagging episodes. That’s another thing taking adjustment – scarce water
for bathing and flushing and other hygiene rituals that often seem so mindless
back in the states, but are regarded as wasteful and luxurious here.
We missed lunch since we had originally planned to eat in
St. Marc. To tide us over until dinner, I went with the women to make a
sandwich in the kitchen, where thousands of flies were diving leisurely around
the entrance. I had never been in the kitchen other than to put my dishes away,
but we were met with the fierce stink of rotting food. Since the generator has
been broken, the kitchen’s fridge and freezers have not had power. I almost
went into an episode of dry heaving when I opened the fridge door to spaghetti
sauce rimmed with a thick sponge of mold and the reek of decay. We tried the
cupboards, and a very tubby rat ran screeching up the wall into a hole in the
ceiling.Appalled, but not yet
totally having lost my appetite, we found some instant rice to snack on. The
moment we poured the package into the pan, out dropped about a hundred tiny
black squirming insects.
That’s when my appetite completely left me.
Needless to say, the meals are usually simple but flavorful.
Other than some expected digestion issues, I have enjoyed everything that’s
been prepared—usually varieties of pasta and rice with beans for protein. We
ended up being called down for an early dinner around 4 pm, and my stomach is already
grumbling as the sun goes down. Being hungry often is something I hope I’ll
adjust to soon. It’s not pleasant, but here it’s a necessity. Food is expensive
and not available to everyone.
Black expresso, Haitian style (minus the scoops of raw sugar I've seen the older men and women drink!)
The most exciting thing that has happened today is the thunder
and rain, plus my cup of morning black coffee. Rain means the week will be cooler, and the past few days we’ve had
dark clouds… without the storm. But now, it’s a pleasant downpour. I’m glad I
took my laundry off the line in the garden before it was soaked. It’s calming
to hear the steady pings of rain on the tin roof of our house, and the earthy
green smells it flushes into my bunk.
Tomorrow my duties at the clinic resume. I just want today to end...
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.
It's been two weeks since beginning the fundraising efforts for my month and a half long medical mission to Haiti. Together we've raised $480 of the $2,950! Thank you so much for your support!
If you're just now checking out my blog, please scroll down to the previous posts with background on Canaan and information about the medical mission in Montrouis.
Much love,
Brianna
Haitian proverb of the day: Bondye Bon. God is good.
Summer 2011 is promising to be both challenging and exciting. Once I finish summer school at LSU, I will be flying more than 2,000 miles to serve as a medical missionary from July 12th to August 17th at Canaan Christian Community’s clinic in Montrouis, Haiti, located about 50 miles north of Port Au Prince.
The clinic serves up to 70 patients each day, as well as many of the children at Canaan’s orphanage located on site. After a tremendous amount of prayer and months of correspondence with the head nurse and founders of Canaan, I’m looking forward to this amazing opportunity to share my love with one of the world’s poorest countries.
I am travelling alone without any support from any organization or group. Inspired by faith, I have planned this trip on my own, but cannot get there and back without the support of my family and friends. Anything from prayers to monetary support will help me on my journey! This is not a vacation or site-seeing trip. I will be spending all my time at the clinic, orphanage, or anywhere the clinic needs me helping the Haitian people. My main expenses will be for travel, food and shelter in the time I’m away: $2,950. Any extra money I raise will go towards the children living at the orphanage and clinic, but I still have a long way to go.
As a medical anthropology student and Christian woman, I am passionate about providing culturally competent health care. Canaan's medical clinic (in conjunction with the orphanage) is the type of cross-cultural setting I best serve.
I did quite a bit of research on organizations that pursue medical missions, and I learned about Canaan from my friend from LSU’s Tiger Band, Tommy Chapman, who served as a teacher at the orphanage last summer. Canaan feels like a good fit for my interests in medical missions, my skills in medical practice and childcare, and my desire to serve within a spiritually committed environment.
I previously travelled to Mexico for an orphanage-renovation project in 2005 and participated in inner city Houston ministry missions in 2006 with my home church, Crosspoint Community of Katy, TX.
Although I'm still a student, my professional background is in medicine: I work at both Baton Rouge General hospitals as an electrocardiogram technician and have also spent some time at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic hospital. I am comfortable working in a clinic, where I serve most often at the General hospitals, as well as in Emergency Room care. I’m saving all the extra money I make from my job as an electrocardiogram technician at Baton Rouge General Hospital, as well as babysitting on the side, to pay for as much of the trip as I can.
This trip embodies the work I want to do for the rest of my life.
I speak intermediate level French, and have always been drawn to Haiti because of its Francophone roots. The health clinic at Canaan no longer has any interpreters working at the clinic, and I'm thrilled to know that my enjoyment of speaking French can be used to help communicate with patients and clinic staff. Hopefully by breaking down the language barrier, Canaan can improve the degree of care provided to patients.
I’ll be documenting my journey (only when Internet is available) on my blog. My e-mail is bapiche@comcast.net, so please feel free to send me a message with any questions, concerns or words of wisdom. Please send me your e-mail addresses if you’re interested in receiving updates on how close I am to my monetary goal of $2,950. I will post expenditures on my blog and, if I surpass my goal, I will post the amount of your donations going directly to the clinic. If you're interested in donating, please e-mail me and I will send you my address!
Thank you so much to supporting me in any way you’re comfortable with. I hope this letter catches you in good health and good spirits, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. I have approval from the clinic and they are expecting me, so I will need to purchase my plane ticket soon. Please be a part of this experience with me.
