Birth

Yesterday was amazing.  I was privileged to watch and help with my first birth.  It was the mom’s fourth birth and fifth pregnancy; she had lost a set of twins once.  I rubbed her back and stomach while she was laboring.  Her husband had gone home before I got there to take care of the other kids and eat I think he had been up for a while.  I believe the lady’s name was Jolien.  Her mom came and brought her food and offered me some.  I am going to miss Haitian food a lot.  It’s so good.  A mom that had given birth the day before came in to get checked and to just double check that everything with her baby was alright, so Beth put me in charge of Jolein for about an hour.  I just timed the contractions and made sure she was comfterble.  Her contractions were starting to spread out again and when back to almost 6 minutes in between.  When Joanna and Beth came back in they decided to do something different with the contractions to speed up the birthing process.  The time between the contractions shortened to 2 to 1.5 minutes quite quickly.  After about a half hour of doing that at 3:05 mom was kneeling on the floor because she was tired but we didn’t want her to sit.  Joanna and Beth were talking about something important about what they had been doing (Joanna is teaching Beth and helping her through midwifery school).   I saw the head of the baby and exclaimed, “head! That’s the head , the babys coming!” I put out my hand to catch the baby in case she fell while Beth and Joanna scrambled to grab gloves.  I was not wearing gloves and they were able to get them on before I would have had to catch her so that’s good.  I quickly moved behind mom, knelt, and held her while she pushed.  I only took about a minute or so from the time I saw the head to delivery for the baby to come out.  It was all very fast and unexpected.  We thought she had a few more hours.  Beth put baby girl on mommy’s stomach and she and I worked on stimulating the baby, she wasn’t crying.  While we were doing that, Joanna worked to birth the placenta. That took about ten minutes.  The baby still was not crying and mom had not screamed once.  We worked on the baby some more until her color was right, then tied and cut it umbilical cord.  We moved mom and baby back onto the bed and quickly cleaned up the mess.  Joanna took the baby and worked on getting the amniotic fluid out of the baby’s mouth and lungs and nose.  She explained to me later that when a birth happens that fast it doesn’t give enough time for the fluid to be squeezed out of the baby and that was why she had a hard time breathing.  She got most of it cleaned out; her right nostril still had some blockage but nothing to be too worried about.  

                 

When we were done we gave the baby back to mom so she could eat.  She was very hungry.  Jolina went to go get cleaned up and go to the bathroom after a bit, so I held the baby.  The baby cried for the first time when I was holding her, she was hungry.   I gave her back to mom when she came back.  After she ate some more we washed her off and dressed her.  We drove mom and baby to the hospital for the night so they could be watched.  I went home to eat dinner and praised God for a new baby.  There might have been tears. 

the past week

This week we had a group come from Idaho.  They built a house for Erez and her family (Erez is one of the ladies that clean our house) I went with them yesterday and helped them finish it.  Antonio and Erez have 7 children. The two oldest boys, Ray and Agape, help us translate during the camp we do with the kids in the neighborhood.  Agape helped us a bunch nailing the plywood walls up.  It was fun watching him and Jeff work together.

                This last week at with camp has been really fun.  The group from Idaho helped out so much with the kids. It was great having so many more hands, it made my job easier.   I had two extra girls helping me with my group Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then on Thursday I had four.  Things went a lot smoother.

                Pause* I must interject.  Today we were supposed to go to the beach.  Unfortunately that was canceled because the city is out of fuel and won’t be getting any more for a while.  The group from Idaho was going to go and Brittany and Nick and I were going to go along.  I was so excited for this because I love the beaches here and the snorkeling is phenomenal.  Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed when I found out that we were not going to be able to go.  However as I was writing this this morning Nick came in and handed me his phone.  He said Joanna (our midwife here) wanted me to call her.  A few weeks ago I asked her if I would be allowed to help with a birth or at least watch and learn about it because I really think its an important thing to understand and especially since I’m want to go medical.  She had told me that that would be ok if I came.  So when I called her today she love me that they had a woman in labor and that I could come help.  I’m happy we didn’t go to the beach.  So right now I’m the back rubber.  

                Back to camp, there are two girls in my group that I absolutely adore.  The younger one is Stephanie the other one is Dina.  They are sisters.  Both of them are usually very quiet and stick to themselves.  On Tuesday, we had the kids make masks.  I helped Stephanie because she is around six but acts much younger.  I showed her how to use the markers and drew on her mask with her.  She didn’t really draw a face on the mask she just slowly made squiggly lines and odd circles.  I kept praising her and telling her it was beautiful and she slowly got more excited about it.  I got so excited when she drew a house and a person standing next to it.  I asked her “moun?” or person.  She flashed her white teeth at me and said, “oui” yes.  Her person consisted of a head and two legs.  She then proceeded to color red hair on it. I felt very honored.   

                Dina, her sister, is starting to go through puberty.  I noticed a while ago that she needed a bra.  I asked her on Tuesday is she had one.  She said no.  So on Wednesday I gave her one that I had found.  It was a little too big for her but I told her that she would grow into it.  She was very excited to have it.  I think having a bra is very important for a young girl.  If she doesn’t have one it gives boy’s one more reason to ridicule them, especially here. It gives girls self confidence.  Boys and men can be very mean to girls here and we have kicked out quite a few of them from camp because of this.  I told Brittany that she should ask her mom to possibly bring some training bras; I had noticed that some of the other girls were going to need them soon.  Brittany said that it was something that she had been thinking about.  We brain stormed for a couple minutes.  It would be great if they could start a program for the young women to teach them about purity and that they are important.  A lot of girls here just get pushed around by guys and have little self worth.  If we can talk to them before they have had too much exposure to ridicule and abuse then we can eliminate some negative developmental things from happening. 

Who has the power?

     One of our security guard’s wife died.  He said it was because someone cursed her.  She was having night mares.  In one of them a snake impregnated her, a few days later she was pregnant.  They found out that it wasn’t a baby because nothing showed up in the sonogram.  I’m not sure what the clinical reason why she died was but it had to do with her non infant growing in her.  There is another lady in the Women’s program here that is pregnant.  She told our mid wife that her baby will die a few months after she has it.  She said its happened to her three times.  She said a witch doctor helps her get pregnant and the gestation period is 11 months.  When she has the kid it has very black skin and red eyes, then the baby dies. There is a medical reason that this can happen, our PA explained it to me, but there is so much superstition surrounding things here.  The Haitians also believe that when a child dies it didn’t actually die, the ware wolf came and ate it’s soul.  Some women will stay up all night fending off the ware wolf so that it won’t take their children.  I feel like I landed in Ancient Egypt or am living among the Native Americans or Inca.  

   It seems like Saitin has so much power over these people.  I find this slightly frustrating because he only has power if you let him.  His power is a false power that will not last. He only is able to do things if God allows him. So to be afraid of Satin or to resort to asking him for help is so hollow because he is not even able to do anything unless God allows him.  To any of Gods people any way. But why worship or fear him when you could live for the God who Created him and you and has infenitly more power?  This confuses me but so do a lot of things.

Easter/Hope

Several day after I got here, I realized that I was going to miss Easter at home.  This saddened me a little because Easter is my favorite holiday and I enjoy spending it with my friends and family at home.  I quickly dismissed it and just told myself that was one of the things I was going to have to give up, like pickles or trustworthy pluming.  Last Sunday Pastor John said that we were going to have a sunrise service up the mountain overlooking the city.  We were going to sing and pray over the city and the people in it.  That made me exited cuz I’ve only done church outside twice and one of those times was the first week I was here.  Everyone eles really wanted to go too. 

                So Easter morning John woke me up at 4:30 (I had slept through my alarm).  We ran around trying to get the kids ready and the Haitians that were riding with us.  Left the house somewhat late, 7 people in a 5 seater.  I had to stick my head out the window most of the time because the Haitian girls we had with wore way to much perfume and it was a windy bumpy road, like all the other roads in Haiti.  I felt very sick on top of already being sick, the ride wasn’t the most pleasant one.  I almost jumped out a few times and climbed on top of the other truck, but it looked really full already. 

                We watched the sun come up as we were driving up the mountain.  It was a great sunrise but I didn’t get any good pictures of it because of the trees.  Once we got to the place where we held our service the sun was all the way up but shrouded in clouds.  We began by singing, and then prayed over the city.  As we were praying, the clouds started to part and a ribbon of bright light fell across the center of the city.  Maybe I’m just corny but for the first time since being here I felt like there is hope for Haiti.  I started thinking about it.  Haiti has no hope.  It’s a war zone.  It looks like the city has been bombed because of all the fallen buildings and holes in the roads, UN and other military helicopters fly continuously overhead, I feel like I could touch them if I stood on the roof they fly so low.   Bodies of people are still under the rubble and everyone is turning their little tents and sheets and sticks into permanent housing.  The hills outside of Pourt au Prince are covered with thousands of little huts made from sheets and pieces of metal. They will all fight to stay standing when the heavy rains come.  Aid has always been promised to Haiti even before the earthquake but fractions of it get here because of empty promises and corrupt government.  We have a country that doesn’t have jobs to get food because there is nothing to do, so all of those people rely on handouts.  Imagine what that would do to your pride after a while.  What would you do if you couldn’t even grow crops because most of the dirt has been washed away by the rains? But I was thinking about all these reasons and realized that these are not the main problem, they aren’t even close to being a problem.  The problem is that most of these people don’t know God and are controlled by voodoo.  There is hope for Haiti but it only comes from God.  Once Jesus changes a life the way that person does things is affected by Him.  Morals and ethics play a huge role in the making of a nation, so when the government and many of its people have bad ones it destroys that nation.  Likewise when the tables are turned a nation then has the potential to turn around and change.  When people cease doing things out of selfish ambition, arrogance, and pride many things change.  This is where Haiti has hope.  God is always able to change lives. 

Not so cynical how bout?

                Okay, so I read some of what I’ve been writing and thought, “Wow, I’m being very cynical”.  So I decided to write about all the things I love about Haiti.  The first is the sun, obviously.  I don’t have to sleep as much because there is so much more light, I have way more energy.  Some of you know that I have a problem with depression sometimes, ok a lot.  I haven’t had to deal with it once down here, I let things get to me and make me upset but I don’t get depressed.  I know that has to do with the amount of light.  Even when I'm sick (like at the moment) unless I’m dehydrated I feel 100% more healthy than I do at home.  My fingernails actually grow and look good.  This is the first time in my life that I’ve had beautiful nails that are all the same length and are long; they aren’t always peeling and falling apart. Beth told me that was also because of the Vitamin D.

                 I love how the sunrise wakes me up at 5:30 on my balcony, I usually go back to sleep for another hour, but I usually watch it for a while.  I love how the birds here are so different sounding and there is always a new one to wonder about.  I can never figure out what sound goes to what bird.  There are pigeons here and they are so pretty.  None of them are the same color.  I love that I can walk into our court and smell lilacs.  There is a tree here that smells exactly the same as a lilac; it has pick flowers that sort of look like roses.

                When I was teaching the kids in my group English they were all engaged and wanted to learn.  They soaked it in.  There were some that had a really hard time but you could tell they were trying their hardest.  I was shocked at how fast a few of them caught on.  That was a very encouraging four days.  I’ve gotten so much better at working with kids. I was hoping that would be something I’d learn here.  Haitian kids are way different than kids in the USA though, so I don’t trust my skills here with the kids at home. We’ll see how that works.

                There is a house behind our house that’s wall fell over in the quake.  The man who owns the house lives in the states.  He came back and hired some guys and they rebuilt the wall.  I got to watch them work when we walked by taking the kids home.  I told the guys “bon travy” good work, and “li bell” it’s beautiful.  It was wonderful to see people working.  I’ve seen a few groups of men with sledge hammers breaking up the rubble of fallen houses.  There was a whole group of street sweepers sweeping dust off an already clean road.  I didn’t quite see the point, but so what they were getting stuff done.  

                I love how you can go to the store and find sourpatch kids occasionally.  I found out that they do have stores btw.  I never saw one the last time I came so I assumed there weren’t any.  They even have an equivalent to Costco, granted it smells like rotting produce but hey, its air conditioned.  O yeah, the only time I experience air conditioning is in stores.  But then it’s almost too cold so I don’t really mind not having it. 

                I love that the rats here are cute; never thought that about rodents at home. 

                I love that I can learn things here without paying an arm and a leg for school.  I love that if I had a dental emergency it would cost half as much here.  I love that I can get tested for malaria for free, or get an IV if I absolutely need one.  If I’m sick I’d much rather be here cuz I don’t have to feel guilty for paying an astronomical amount of money. 

I love how we have a pool and can go swimming whenever we want.  Don’t have that at home.  I Love how all of my showers are freezing cold, it’s very refreshing.  The one warm shower I had I wished it was cold.  I love how I don’t need as much food here to function at the same level at home. 

I love driving here.  Driving at home is completely boring.  I think that will be the biggest shock when I go back.  There are no speed limits, or no one knows what they are. There is so much traffic though you don’t usually go over forty in the city.  No one wears seat belts (that’s probably not a good thing) but it makes things more interesting, we mostly don’t were them cuz most of them don’t work.   Your horn is a massive necessity and is used often.  Passing people on the left is totally ok.  If you get in a fender bender no one cares.  You drive here, you expect to beat up your car; it’s like bumper cars, with a little more avoidance.  It’s great. We regularly shove 10 people in a 7 sweater and have gotten up to 17. We will be taking at least 11 I think tomorrow to the sunrise service on the mountain. 

There are a bunch of other great things about Haiti but I should probably go do something more productive. 

Camp

sorry i just reolized that this never posted. I wrote it on the first

Last Monday we started the kids program for the two tent communities in the neighborhood behind our house.  It was much more exhausting than I thought it would be.  

The first day John, Nick, Bigeyes, and I went to go pick up the kids from the first community; it seems like months ago.  I have never worked with kids before and had no idea where to start.  When we walked into the first community Bigeyes when and said something in Creole to some people with a bunch of kids and looked at me.  It took less than two seconds for those kids to cover the twenty feet and tackle me.  I quite literally got dragged back to our house where I tried to untangle myself; occasionally I would be free of little hands but not often.  

We have two groups of kids we are reaching out to.  We started with thirty on Mondays and Wednesdays and another thirty on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  That number has grown to almost sixty each day.  Each day we start with singing and Bible stories.  We teach them songs like Father Abraham and My God Is So Big in English and Creole, and then we act out a Story from the Bible.  So far we have done the fiery Furnace, Daniel in the lion’s den (I was the lion), David and Goliath, and the last two days we taught on Jonah.  With Jonah we incorporated in the Resurrection of Christ because of Easter coming up.  I was a great way to incorporate the gospel.  After doing those two things we break them up into three age groups.  I have the middle age group from 5 or 6 to about 10 depending on maturity and if some of the kids really want to be with me.  I started out with a little less than 15 kids the first two days, yesterday and today though I had almost thirty.  I gave up trying to count exact numbers.  We have three stations we go to.  My first one is some sort of structured game (I started with duck duck goose and have done bubbles) the second station is some sort of art project and the third I let Agape (my translator) play soccer with my boys and I play jump rope or other games with my girls.  Then we give them lunch and pray over them and send them home with food that they can share with their families. 

The last week during my structured game part I have been teaching them parts of the body in English with head and shoulders knees and toes, and with Dani says.  My Mon, Wed group was a little slow on learning but my other group was much more engaged and soaked up everything I said.  Then the last two days we made pipe cleaner people and I used that to reinforce what I had been teaching them.  Even though I had almost twice the kids this week was so much smoother than last week and I think had a much greater impact on the kids. 

It is going to be very hard to leave some of them.  We take the kids from the hospital to the camp too.  One of their names is Rosemond.  His left leg is twisted crooked and he has skin grafts on his legs and some on his head.  His arm was crushed but the bones not broken so he has extensive nerve and muscle damage in his hand and for arm.  It is usually in a brace and we take it off occasionally for physical therapy.   All of this happened because he was trapped for three days under his house.  His mom and dad and all his siblings were not so lucky.  If I understand right, they were all killed under that house.   His grandma is all he has left.  Now all the people that he has been living with at the hospital are leaving; the nurses and the doctors that he has made relationships with and other patients.  

I was sleeping on the couch this morning and he woke me up so he could sit with me.  I rubbed his foot that was hurting him while he just stared off into nothing.  He is ten years old and he has lost everything, the weight of this didn’t hit me until today.  I’ve never seen him so depressed; he is always laughing and smiling, but wouldn’t anyone be depressed in that situation?  Honestly I don’t know how he is handling it so well.  I had a difficult time not crying while we were sitting there.  I have cried since then.  I don’t know how I’m going to leave him.  I’m so glad that God spared his grandma.

Some of these kids are dealing with PTSD.  I saw some of the results of it this week.  One of our guys was making tables and used a drill while I was teaching my kids how to put the pipe-cleaner people together.  Two of the girls freaked out and jumped up and were looking everywhere like they were about to explode. One girl figured out right away that the ground wasn’t shaking and was ok but the other one who is about six; I grabbed her hands trying to get her to look at me.  It took a bit but she finally did and I explained to her in Creole that the man was working and showed him to her.  She calmed down right away after that and went back to what she was doing, but I will never forget the look of sheer terror that was in her eyes when she looked at me.  

One of the girls I’m living with has the same problem. She was here when the earthquake happened and can’t sleep at night.  The other day some cans fell over and I thought she was going to have a heart attack or was having one.  I was ignorant at first and laughed cuz she jumped so high.  But then she wasn’t able to stop the pain in her chest for quite a while and I realized what had happened and felt horrible for laughing.

These last two weeks have been physically and emotionally exhausting and I’m spent.  I moved out to the balcony so its cooler and I can use my mosquito net (there was nothing to tie it to in my other room).  It rained hard last night.  I was too tired to move and I thought everyone else is sleeping in a puddle why can’t I?  So I didn’t move and slept with half of me soaked.  It was warm cuz its Haiti so it really wasn’t that bad, at least there wasn’t mud in my puddle.  

The last three nights though I have been waking up more exhausted than when I go to sleep.   I spent most of today sleeping hopping to catch up but so far it hasn’t worked.  I think I’m getting sick that’s probably why I’m so tired.  I feel a huge sense of accomplishment though, being able to work with these kids.  It gives them something to do and we can show them love that they might not get otherwise.  I was terrible at first with them cuz I’ve never Worked with kids before but I’ve gotten a lot better.  Next week we are not going to do camp because Nick and John are leaving to go work in a different part of Haiti. They will be back the next week and we will start again.