One more post about Haiti

On Tuesday during our visit, Cardinal Sean O'Malley from Boston came to Milot.  We passed a group of school girls on the road on our way to watch his helicopter land.  What adorable girls!

A group of children assembled to sing for the Cardinal, and a young patient was chosen to present him with flowers.

He arrived in his Franciscan robes.

Mass was held outside of the patients' tents.  A choir led the procession in.  They sang in Creole, and it was beautiful.  I recognized the melody to some of the songs.  I wished James or my mom had been with me.  They both have a more musical ear that I have & they could have named the hymns.

One thing that amazed me was the ability of the women to balance items on top of their head while they walked.  I don't know if that coffee pot was full or empty, but I was impressed anyway.

We had a good trip, but I was glad to get home.  It is never easy to be away from James.  This was the first time I had traveled outside the country without him.  I realized just how much I depend on him daily.  His absence was felt from the start of the trip - from not having his help with my bags to not having him "to come home to" after the day's work was done.  When I'm having a rough day, knowing I'm going home to him is my motivation to get through it.  I called him every other day, which helped a lot.

Some of the other things I missed were milk, my pastor's sermons, and my dogs.  We didn't have any dairy products the either time we were in Haiti. . .no milk, no cheese, no yogurt.  There were lots of goats, so I'm not sure why there was no goat's milk or goat cheese available.  Maybe there was no facility where it could be processed?  A lot of our pastor's sermons are available online, and I usually listen to one of his older messages while I exercise.  I could have downloaded them on my iPhone, but I would've had to pay for it, and I tried to keep the phone bill to a minimum.  James sent me two emails during the week that were "from the dogs" along with a photo.  He brought them to the airport with him when he picked me up.  It was good to see them again.

Thanks again for your prayers.  There were times when they were felt.  One of those times was when we were about the leave the airport in Cap-Haitian.  Our plane to Fort Lauderdale was ready, and we were heading home.  We had to show our passports several times at the airport and get it stamped.  There was an immigration officer standing at the doorway that lead to the plane.  He had to him our passport one last time and then we could walk to the plane.  We all made through, only to be sent back inside by our pilot.  The airport had not finished the necessary paperwork.  So waited some more.  They called for us to board again.  We got our passports out again to show to the immigration officer.  When I stepped up to show him my passport.  He said "stop" and started yelling at his staff in Creole.  I had no idea what set him off and I was scared to leave.  Would he come after us?  One of the nurses that we worked with was standing outside and she told us to come on out.  So we did.  I don't know what that was all about, but we were glad to get in the air!

Souvenirs from Haiti

The road between the compound we stayed at and the hospital was lined with vendors selling their handiworks - or handiworks of their friends.  I tried to buy at least one small item from everyone.  The items in the picture above are made out of  wood.  There are no zebras or elephants in Haiti - think the local make these items because tourists are suckers for them!  They will also tell you that there are elephants, "on da uddter side o de mountain."

These are lovely hand painted cards.  I am amazed that these didn't get bent on the flight home.  They were in my camera bag.  I'm thinking about framing them.

I bought several bracelets.  I have another one that is made in the same fashion as the one below, but it has my name on it and the colors are black and lavender.

These two pieces of metal art are currently on my dining room table.  There are cows and lots of lizards in Haiti.

I bought a couple of paintings.  I should get these framed.  The one above is a painting of the patient tents.

I bought several sets of these necklaces in different colors.  They are made out of beans and seeds.  Some of them are coco beans, some are coffee beans, and I don't know what the red seeds are.  

These two items are my favorite things.  I think they are both made out of mahogany.  The mask is going to hang in our basement, and the mortal & pestle is sitting in our entertainment center with the other two I have.

Side 1

Side 2

The pestle

I brought back gifts for my mother and my mother-in-law, but I have not seen them yet to give them their gifts, so no pictures yet of those things.

I was amazed that I fit all those things in my suitcase.  I had some room because some of things I had packed were donations that I left there.  I still had to pack carefully, though!

Sights of Milot

Milot was the name of the town that we worked in.  We were able to squeeze in some time for sightseeing.  We hired one of the Haitian translators and an employee from the hospital to serve as our tour guides.  The first thing we visited was the cemetery, maybe an odd thing to tour, but it was interesting.  It reminded me of the cemeteries in New Orleans - which makes sense considering the Creole influence in New Orleans. 

There were some disturbing things to see there.  According to our translator, after a person has been entombed for 15-20 years, the family will remove the body and burn it and the casket.  This is done to make room for another casket of a recently deceased family member.  We saw a casket that had been removed, but not yet burned.  I had to maintain my emotional distance and just observe the situation from a cultural aspect.

On a lighter note, the other tour we took was the San-Souci palace that was built in the early 1800.  Wikipedia has a good article about it here.

It was about a mile or mile and a half from the hospital.  I went with three other women and our two Haitian tour guides.  It occurred to me while we were at the palace that I had just done something that I would never do here in the States.  I was in a remote area with no American male, no weapon, no idea how to contact the police or hospital if we had an emergency with two Haitian male tour guides that I had know for a few hours.  I did have two nurses with me.  I felt totally safe the entire time.  The Haitian guides were thankful for the work we were doing and they wanted us to return to Haiti with our husbands and stay for a while.  As I said my goodbyes to one of the guides, he told me that he would pray for me.  When's the last time someone that you did business with here told you that?

These are a couple of murals in Milot.  The one above is of the citadel in Milot.  We didn't have the chance to tour that because it was quite a bit further away than the palace.  It was built during the same time period.  The mural below is across the street from the hospital.

This is the front of the hospital.  They were able to perform some complicated surgeries and they had the ability to do lab work and x-rays, but there were things about it that we rather primitive.  For example, they kept a fly-swatter in the ICU to swat the flies in the ICU.  That is unheard of here.

I mentioned in a previous post that the roads where in terrible shape.  Here's an example.  The entire road was like that, pothole after pothole.  The picture below is an example of the public transportation.  It looked rather unsafe!  After being on those road, I don't think I'll ever get unnerved about a traffic situation here in the States.  If you were walking, you had to be constantly on the look out for motorcyclists.  Most of them were good to honk and let you know that they were behind you, but not all of them did that.  If you were riding in a vehicle, you better have taken some Dramamine before you embarked.  It was an incredibly bumpy ride.

This is a the Catholic church near the palace.  Services are still held there.

This man was one of the street vendors.  He sold bracelets and paintings.  He gave Amanda a pineapple.

The Patients

Note: I received permission from each patient pictured before I took their photo.

The hospital relied heavily upon the family of each patient to provide their food and clothing.  This is a picture of laundry day.  The patient's family washed their clothing outside in a tub with a bar of soap.  Their were close lines strung up between the tents, and those were also used to dry clothes.

 These are the tents that the earthquake victims stayed in.  There were four of them full of patients, and it got terribly hot inside them.

 Many of the patients were amputees.  This is the prosthetic leg that the therapists used for the patients that had had a leg amputated.  I had never seen anything like it.  It inflated with air, like an inflatable mattress.  I thought this was a very interesting design.  By inflated with air, it provided a custom fit for each patient.

This lady had both legs amputated, and the therapists installed a "grab bar" over her bed that she could use getting in and out of bed.

The patient pictured above had a leg amputated, and she had a wound on her arm that needed treatment.

This patient was working at the parallel bars to regain balance and strength in her leg.

No crutches!  The patient above was walking slowly, but successfully without crutches.

This gentleman had an external fixator, and he was able to walk with aide of a walker.

The patients needed a smiling face and they wanted to feel beautiful.  This young volunteer painted this patient's nails.

The work at hand

While we were planning our trip to Haiti, I wasn't sure what kind of work I'd be doing.  The organization that we were going to volunteer at didn't seem to have a need for pharmacists, but I told the people in charge of volunteers that I'd do any kind of work they had for me.  I didn't what I'd be doing, and even wondered if the trip would be worth the time.  Well, on Saturday morning while we were waiting outside of our hotel in Fort Lauderdale for the shuttle to take us to the airport, I checked my email in my iPhone.  I received an email from the pharmacist that had just been there.  She gave me a list of projects that she wasn't able to finish.  It was great to feel like I had a job to do. The main job I had was that of relocating the pharmacy.

It was in a tent, which was unsecured.  The narcotics, maxi pads, and protein shakes where all locked up.  Theft was a problem with the maxi pads and protein shakes, not so much with the narcotics.  I think that says something about the poverty in the local community.  People were concerned with getting their basic needs - like personal hygiene and nutrition- met.  They were not concerned with getting high.  This is what the pharmacy looked like when I got there.  It was a barely organized mess.  I had a very hard time finding stuff.

I didn't have a tremendous amount of patient contact.  Most of the time I was getting medication for a nurse or doctor.  I did have a few patients come for medication.  One patient was a young man, probably about 20 years old.  One of his legs had been amputated because of an injury during the earthquake.  He was getting around with crutches.  He told me that both of his parents were dead.  My heart went out to him.  I wondered who was caring for him and what his future would hold.

It was hot in the tent, and that was another reason the pharmacy needed to be moved.  It is not good to store drugs above room temperature, and it was certainly above room temp!  Things were pretty basic.  No computer and no real filling system.  I didn't even use bottles to dispense the meds.  The nurses wanted their meds in little plastic bags because they took up less space.  So that's what I used.

It had been about 2 years since I had worked with traditional medication.  I had to look several things up, but most of it came right back.  One issue I had was with foreign meds and foreign names of medications.  The hospital used some medications that aren't used here in the states, and I had to quickly educate myself about them.

There was a degree of improvisation needed.  We had a lot of sharps containers, but I could not find the lids for them anywhere.  This what a nurse and I rigged up.  At least it provided a separate waste container for their used syringes.

 This is Lou Lou.  He was a Haitian volunteer who helped out in the pharmacy.  He spoke a little English, and he tried to teach me some Creole, but it didn't take.  He was very helpful on the day we moved the pharmacy.

This is where the pharmacy was moved.  These men were building shelves.  It was a secure room with an iron door that could be locked.

This is what it looked like after everything was moved.  I had help from several people getting everything moved and organized. 

Much better.