The Women

Tuesday, February 26, 2012

After a day of nothing quite working out right, we finally got to spend most of our day in the place we aimed to be. I’m getting the feeling I don’t even know the depth of what we are doing or what could be cooking here. It seems like the aim of the trip is just being present and working on building relationships. Today I walked from house to house with one of the young women who knows the alleyways and people well. We would stop and ask if we could talk to the women for a few minutes. I was hoping I could get an in with them as I told them I’m new here and just want to understand their health, life, and struggles better. The women are harder here; harder to get them to crack a smile, always cautious, and not making much eye contact. So different from the outspoken, almost immediately-accepting way of the women I’ve met up north. As we just sat with people in the morning, it’s obvious, the women are almost hidden; either out trying to do “commerce” to make a few dollars or are at home trucking buckets of water back and forth, washing clothes, and just sitting because they cannot even afford to buy anything to sell for a few dollars. I just keep thinking how the oppression of poverty falls to a deeper level to those women.

Most of the women are young, single, caring for their children, and have no way to gain income. They are most likely powerless to the man who wants to spend the night with them, because perhaps that man will give them something to eat or give them some money to live for the next day. This could mean powerless to abuse, powerless to infection, powerless to pregnancy that gives them another mouth to feed. If this is not injustice, I don’t know what it.

I think the reality of what we saw is beginning to sink in. One woman, 35 years, who sat in a 5 X 6 room that is her home. One twin mattress she shares with 3 kids and all their belongings crammed in the room. She sat there washing a mountain of clothes in a bucket. She sees her husband every now and then, maybe next month… Another woman with a 5 year old with severe conjunctivitis, but had no money to take her to see the doctor. A 24 year old, mother to an 8 year old boy; the man she is with now beats her and doesn’t even give her money or food as he used to do. The women who walked past me perhaps 10 times this morning, each time carrying a 5 gallon bucket of water she had refilled at the community faucet on her head to her house.

I know this is just a glimpse I’ve seen and can’t even comprehend what is really going on. Even that they shared with me this much is a gift. The women are on my heart tonight.

Sunday February 26, 2012

Having a nice slow morning. Nothing like bread and cold coke for breakfast. Only in Haiti… A good time to think. It seems like I do a lot of that here. How to answer the call that people suffer so much here and Haiti is deep in my heart…. I somehow keep running into Proverbs 20:24, “How can we understand the road we travel? It is the Lord who directs our steps.” I’m just hoping I’m on the right road and someday I will get to that understanding part because it’s driving me crazy. As the Haitians would say, “Bondye konnen” (God knows)…

Today Leah and I are going to visit a home for orphans outside the city to see how they function. Leah has big dreams and so we will see how what directions our steps will take and perhaps what seeds could be planted in these few weeks. Tomorrow we will go back into Cite Soleil. Just working on relationships, working on plans for the summer, working on how to come along side the people there to empower their own visions for their community. Leah is still working on plans for the summer and I don’t know if, but I’m hoping to see if I can talk to some of the women about health issues in the community. We shall see…

Miss Veronica

Tb of the spine

Passe Catabois, Ti Visit

So spent a good five days in Passe Catabois. It’s always worth the trip. I always feel so many emotions coming back. We had such a good visit just sitting and talking with so many people, blan and Haitian alike; making a few house visits and walking around the community seeing what trouble we could find... That’s what I love about Haiti; it is perfectly reasonable to spend an afternoon sitting and chatting with people about how they are and what’s been going on. Leah had some brainstorming meetings to try to figure out kids camp for the summer and I chatted a lot with Miss Jacqui, the Dutch nurse who is here again working her guts out with Anne Marie and Michael and Esther. I love and respect them all for all that they stick out and all they sacrifice. It’s a hard life.

I hang around the hospital a lot and as always see the worst medical cases as poverty and lack of medical care is rampant. A seven year old girl with Tb in her spine so she will be hunched over all her life; but who is also maybe the most joyful girl I’ve been around in a while. After almost 2 months of treatment she is running around pretending she is a nurse. And also a 3-year old boy who had all of the skin burned off his right lower leg in a fire; who will be there for the long haul as skin grafting is not possible. A 7-month old girl with Kwashiorkor malnutrition whose mother (age 15) hasn’t had breast milk in many months. Medical issues plus social issues plus life in Haiti makes everything so difficult. And as always, people with severe TB, HIV, and difficulties with labor and deliveries.

Sou BIS

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Back in Port au Prince. I have just spent the past five days for a ti visit up north in Passe Catabois. Leah and I weren’t sure if we could hack it, trying to make our way north to see everyone in such a small amount of time. But north we went on the bus via public transportation aka the cheapest way we could find. This is an experience probably everyone in their lifetime should have. A school bus, a little pimped out (a lot), with maybe 80 people packed in. The way up there is maybe 120 miles, and should take about 4 to 5 hours but on the way there we broke down, of course, so it took 7. Leah and I planned this thing well. We didn’t drink anything all morning because we knew the bus wouldn’t stop at the local McDonald’s for a bathroom break. When we started getting dizzy sitting in our seats I thought maybe it was time to drink something. Hehe. It worked. However, our bus driver stopped a lot at the demands/yells of the Haiti women saying, mwen gen pipi!! So stop we did and everyone’s irritated and saying, oh man, not again…look the white girls haven’t peed yet! So I told them our plan: we didn’t drink anything! Everyone was laughing, so that was good.

At any rate, the experience was so good. The road is paved up to Gonaives, which is halfway, but after that it’s your normal gravel/clay/potholes/river crossings of a road. I now understand why people fight to not sit in the back of the bus because you’d be hitting your head on the roof every minute or so. Life is so tough here. It’s everyday life for the Haitian and for us, you adapt or go home.

Back in Haiti

Saturday Feb 18 2012

I’m not exactly sure where to start. I’ve found myself in Haiti once again and am finding it hard to pinpoint exactly what the goal, work, and reason is. All I know is I want to be here and Leah was going, so it seemed like an obvious decision! So just Port-au-Prince for now. We are in Cite Soleil for a little over a week’s time trying to build some bridges for what will go on this summer. Also, it’s my introduction to Cite Soleil and I am thankful that Leah has paved the way already in previous visits. Our first day in was yesterday. As I said Leah has paved the way with previous visits with getting to know a certain neighborhood through painting murals (Caitlyn) and doing camp with the kids. She’s connected with a community leader who has a lot of vision that is a breath of fresh air and is exciting to think we could actually be a part of it. But, going in is overwhelming and humbling too, to think that I could actually do something here in this short time. I won’t kid myself… But so far this time has just been spent being there, getting to know people, being present, and trying to understand what life means for the people who live there. Assessment.

And of course I’m putting on my nurse goggles to see how I can weed my way into health here too. My conclusion: I don’t know yet. I’m hoping I can do some home visits and talk to more of the women just to somehow see life through there eyes and meet them there. And maybe that’s a lofty goal. Yes, it is. And I actually don’t even know what that means but I’m praying Jesus somehow guides me to something small and attainable I can do. Again, it makes me feel so small…

At any rate, it’s so good to be here… in my homeland, ha! Despite the massive mosquito bites I keep getting, including the one on my eyelid; yes I definitely woke up to an eye swollen shut this morning! Always looking my best here in Haiti.