Reports from Haiti

Hello everyone! Jocelyn and I are getting to know our way around and thoroughly enjoying our projects, as I am sure you can tell. This weekend we have greatly expanded our cultural knowledge of Haiti, and taken on a new project!

Yesterday, Janet left us and, while we were sad to see her go, we are excited to continue to get to know everyone here. Around three or so, right after lunch, Lanaud asked if we wanted some mangoes. We said yes and followed him out to the tree. This tree is behind the school, in complete view of the kitchen ladies -I like this term much better than staff. Some of their kids were around too. Lanaud climbed up the mango tree and shook down many. The young boys – maybe 9, 8, and 5 – gathered them up. Tanna, the cutest little girl ever, came over and held my hand. We walked back and sat down with the kitchen ladies and family. It should be noted that this was a momentous occasion because they usually sit around the corner from us.

Imagine an L. We-and the family that started the school- sit on the short side of the L and they sit on the long side of the L. The “inside” of the L is the kitchen. We awkwardly sat down with them. After the mangoes were washed, they were handed to us. Jocelyn took one first and then me. We didn’t know how to eat them. So we just sat there awkwardly until Dominique came over and handed one to a five year old. He proceeded to eat the mango the correct way: take a small bite to tear the skin and peel the skin off. Being a little too eager, I just noticed that he bit it. So, I took a bite. The women laughed hysterically; I didn’t know you didn’t eat the skin. They handed me a bowl to put the skin in; I had seen this bowl earlier and could not imagine its purpose. They continued laughing the whole time we ate because we were making such a mess. Definitely laughing with us. It was quite the bonding experience.

At dinner, Sara, one of the kitchen ladies, leaned down by Jocelyn and said, “Are you finished?” Jocelyn jumped she was shocked; we don’t expect to hear English from many people around here. It turns out that Dominique had taught her. All the kitchen ladies were laughing at the sound of the foreign words rolling off their friend’s tongue.

I feel like we got a lot closer to them today, and for that I am very glad. Doing different things together definitely has the ability to connect people.

I asked Lanaud the name of the little girl who was holding my hand earlier by pointing to her as she played a little ways away on the playground. He said Machin. Jocelyn and I thought this was so funny; machin is Creole for car. Later we asked Dominique why she was named after a car, and she said that was not her name. It turns out Tanna was playing right behind a car. Dominique then told the ladies and they laughed. Their laughter is constant and musical. They are so fun.

Tanna came over on the porch and was looking at my computer so I showed her pictures on iphoto and then opened up photo booth (the application that makes those weird pictures). She loved it. Seeing her face contort to weird angles, set her off on a giggle fest. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

Today is Fabiola’s confirmation. Fabiola is Lanaud’s cousin. She lives with him and his family because her mother died a long time ago. They did not say of what. The kitchen ladies made all sorts of goodies -cakes and some cupcakes shaped like Frosty the Snowman. Fabiola even made candles to give out as thank you’s for coming. Right now she is getting ready and she looks beautiful. She is wearing a lovely long white dress. She looks like she could be a bride. We are going to Cap-Haitien for the service. It is also Haitian Mother’s Day, so I expect another good day!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention what our new project will be. Dominique asked us to teach English in the afternoons to the teachers. We gladly accepted and look forward to the challenge. We think it will greatly improve our rapport with them and allow us an opportunity to learn more Creole while teaching them.

On Thursday and Friday, Kelly and I began teaching in the classes. We decided to combine the hand washing lesson and song with a more interactive demonstration using glitter to represent germs.

Before we met with the 4^th graders, we discussed the lesson with our translator. I was worried at first about not being able to fully convey the purpose of the lesson to him, but he caught on quickly. There was definitely a light bulb moment when he understood how students shaking hands with other students who have glitter on their hands represents germ transmission.

The 4^th grade class was very receptive to our lesson! Our translator is a natural in front of a classroom, and he even elaborated on our main points and asked the students, “Do you understand?” several times. We explained that germs are small and we can’t see them, and that they make us sick, but we can get rid of them by washing our hands with soap and water (I can still hear the French and Creole words in my head … Freole?).

Kelly and I pretended to cough and sneeze to show that we were “sick,” sprinkled glitter on our hands, and held our hands up to show the “germs” to the class (the French word for glitter, scintillement, sounds like you’re sneezing when you say it anyway—hooray for onomatopoeias!). We walked around the classroom, shaking hands with the students (on Friday, we picked two students to do this instead of us, to involve as many students as possible), and then we asked them to hold up their hands to see who else got the “germs.”

We then demonstrated proper hand washing technique and walked around the classroom with a basin of water and soap so they could each wash the glitter off their hands. The first graders had a little less hand-eye coordination, so my arms and legs were also washed 🙂

All of the grades remembered the hand washing song that Tiffany and Meagan taught last year, and I thought the song was a great way for the students to associate Kelly and me with last year’s interns.

When we asked, “When should you wash your hands?” and “Why should you wash your hands?,” I noticed that the students are used to answering in unison, not raising their hand and being called on individually. In the 5^th grade class on Friday, we tried to convey to our translator to call on one student to answer the question, but he picked random students to answer, rather than asking for volunteers to answer the question. While this method may keep the students on their toes and paying attention, we don’t want to create a fearful or negative learning environment.

So we have several cultural barriers to overcome, not only with the students but with the translator as well. Overall, though, I was very happy with the lessons so far, and now I have a better sense of the students’ level of understanding and how they tend to learn.

Between the 4^th and 2^nd grade lessons, we met briefly with the teachers and discussed what science/health material their students have or haven’t covered. While we gained some useful information, the purpose of the meeting was more to show the teachers that we don’t want to push our lessons on their students, but rather work with them and improve the material they’re already teaching.

In the afternoon, we went over to the clinic (which can be seen from the school) and met with Nadia, the dentist, and Dr. Lucien.

We demonstrated the Diagnostic Lab-in-a-Backpack, including how to charge the centrifuge, microscope, and battery charger for the otoscope and ophthalmoscope batteries with the lithium ion battery, solar panel, or wall outlet. They were especially impressed with the various charging options, as the clinic only recently got power. We also demonstrated the pulse oximeter and glucometer. One of the technicians pointed out that they quickly run out of the glucometer test strips, and I explained that reusable test strips were in development at Rice.

The most exciting part of the day for me was demonstrating the ophthalmology pack to Dr. Lucien. While the pack is still very much in development, it was great to finally show the results of two semesters’ worth of work!

For those of you who have not followed every iteration of the pack’s design (comparable to watching a tennis ball during a tennis match… head-spinning and nearly impossible!), the pack is currently intended for mobile ophthalmic diagnostic applications. Basically, an ophthalmologist can take the pack to rural, outlying areas, seek out patients in need of eye care, diagnose their condition, and refer them to the clinic for further, possibly surgical, treatment. The pack includes a portable indirect ophthalmoscope, a portable slit lamp, loupes, a condensing lens, vision charts, eye patches, syringes, needles, and various medications.

Because glaucoma is highly prevalent, even in young people, in Terrier Rouge, a tonometer is also needed to measure the intraocular eye pressure, but the version we originally ordered is more time-consuming than automated versions, so we chose to omit a tonometer for now.

Dr. Lucien told us about the surgeries she and Dr. Brown, an ophthalmologist from South Carolina who has extensive experience working in developing countries, performed a few weeks ago, and I could see how passionate she is about her work here. When they first began to seek out patients, she wasn’t sure how long it would take to find someone they could treat, but she almost immediately came across a man standing under a tree who had clouded lenses. His pupils responded to light, which indicated that he wasn’t permanently blind but had treatable cataract! She said that they spent a week finding and diagnosing patients, and another week performing over 40 surgeries! I can’t wait to see (ha ha) where our work with Dr. Lucien takes us this summer.

On Friday, we demonstrated the Community Health worker backpack to Dr. Gustav, the GP of the clinic. We were told that some of the components were too advanced for the clinic’s “agent sante” (health agent/worker), but we explained that the feedback forms will help us improve the backpack. I think one of the most challenging parts of demonstrating the 3 backpacks was to accurately convey that they are in development, and that we anticipate and need both positive and negative feedback and suggestions for improvement.

So that’s mainly what I’ve been up to for the past few days. Kelly and I also began Creole lessons with a local high schooler, Lanaud, who befriended the interns last year and is quickly becoming our friend and unofficial translator as well. I emailed him a few times this past spring, and seeing my email address written in the front of his Creole book put a smile on my face 🙂

In other news, the electricity was on and off all last evening (Kelly and I were joking that because we left the fan on all afternoon, we used up all of the electricity stored in the solar panels… our bad!), but on the plus side, we got to see the stars in their full glory.

Wow—the past two days have felt like a year. I’ll try to remember everything that’s happened, but I’m realizing how difficult it’s going to be to put my time in Haiti into words.

First of all, Haiti is absolutely beautiful. I knew Terrier Rouge was near the coast, and the terrain is fairly flat in the town, but I did not expect to see the mountains in the distance. The environment reminds me of a combination of the three places I’ve lived: the climate of Houston, the lushness of Pennsylvania, and the mountains of southeast Arizona. I’ve been to a few Caribbean islands before, and Haiti has the most unique terrain of any island I’ve seen.

We arrived in Cap Haitien early yesterday morning and were promptly greeted by Dr. Lucien, the ophthalmologist who works in both Cap Haitien and Terrier Rouge. It was great to finally meet her! She helped us get through customs smoothly and uneventfully. I was worried about the eye medications we were transporting; my mom told me that when she came through Port au Prince with a team of physical therapists and nurses, a lot of expensive medication that they brought was thrown out because the bottles had old expiration dates, even though the medicine hadn’t expired. So I’m very thankful that all of the equipment and medicine made it through customs.

Driving out of Cap Haitien and on to Terrier Rouge was definitely eye-opening. It’s hard to believe that a place like Haiti exists only a few hours from the U.S by plane. I think there’s a huge misconception that we, as Americans, have to travel halfway around the world to see extreme poverty, but it’s really in our own backyard.

When we arrived at St. Barthelemy, I was astounded at its size. It’s like a grand, white beacon in the town, and I could immediately sense the pride that the community has for the school. At three stories tall, it’s one of the largest buildings I’ve seen in Haiti so far.

After the children’s daily meal, we got to interact with them a little bit—they are absolutely adorable! A few kids came over to see Kelly and me at first, and about 2 minutes later, they were swarming all around us. I think I had at least 5 kids latched on to me at all times. They were holding my hands, looking at my fingernails, asking “Comment t’appelle tu?” (which means “what is your name?” in French). The school administrator had said that we were “en stage” (meaning “on stage”) before we even met the children, and he couldn’t have described our first meeting with them more accurately. With 20 sets of eyes looking up at me, I totally forgot at first that they speak some French, but then I tried to speak with them a little. Hopefully my years of high school French will come back to me—I knew I took it for a reason!

Speaking of names, my name has put me in a funny situation, as “Jocelyn” is a male name in French. Several people I’ve been emailing thought I was a man! So for the next two months, I’m going by “Jo (sounds like Joe with a soft J)-ce-line” to make my name more feminine. For the first time in my life, people can actually pronounce/understand my name—it’s great! We’ve met so many people at the school already and everyone has such interesting names.

After lunch, we met our translator, and he invited us to his house to meet his wife. They were so welcoming and gracious. We continued to walk around town for a while, and saw a crowd of people returning from a funeral. Our translator said that a young woman, only 26 years old, had passed away suddenly. Some of the kids were wearing white at school because they were mourning their family member’s death.

Today, I woke up to the rooster (no joke) outside of our window. Kelly and I have already named him Maurice. Contrary to popular belief, roosters do not only crow in the morning, but pretty much all night too. Bring it on, Maurice.

We first met the local education inspectors (the “inspectrice” and “inspecteur”… the French version of the word sounds much cooler), and we found out that the 6^th graders have to take exit exams before the end of the year. We’re not sure if these exams are used just to gauge the students’ knowledge, or to decide who continues on to secondary education, but the 6^th grade class we observed was hard at work to prepare for the test.

The school director took us around to meet all of the teachers in their classrooms, and I was amazed at how disciplined the kids were. I’m pretty sure a room filled with 40 American 3-year-olds would not be nearly as calm and behaved as the room we saw. When we walked into the upper-level classes, the students stood up and said “Bonjour” in unison, and some classes even sang a little song that went something like: “Bienvenue à vous, nous sommes heureux que vous êtes ici” (something like, welcome, we are happy that you’re here).

After lunch, we played jump rope with the kids for a while, which felt much more natural than staring at each other and smiling.

We also watched the music class practice a song on their recorders for a few minutes. The teacher was very serious and focused, and the students both sang and played the song written on the board. I could totally see my sister Claudia, who is a music education and voice major, up in front of the room, singing and pointing at the music 🙂

The pace around here is much slower than the usual frantic American pace, so I’m still adjusting and accepting the fact that what we aim to accomplish in a day and what we actually accomplish might be very different. It’s funny how much the weather affects me—being motivated to work is much harder in the mid-day heat, compared to the afternoon and evening coolness. I’m currently sitting on our porch, watching the huge thunderclouds and lightning in the distance. I couldn’t ask for a better blogging spot!

Kelly and I have begun to plan our first lesson for tomorrow, and we’re hoping to review Tiffany and Meagan’s lessons as well as include some new concepts. Tomorrow will probably be a much greater learning experience for me than the students!

We arrived in Terrier Rouge yesterday!  Dr. Lucien (an ophthalmologist who works at the clinic in Terrier Rouge and in Cap) met us at the airport in Cap and sent us on our way to the school.  When we got to the school, we met all of the wonderful people who work here –administrators, kitchen staff, a driver, and teachers.  Truth be told, there were so many names I cannot possibly remember them all, but I have made a list so that I can do my best.

Then we got to meet our translator Josef.  He is a very nice man!  He offered to show us around Terrier Rouge and took us to meet his new wife, Ismonde.  They got married on Saturday.  We sat with them and got to know each other.  They were so welcoming and hospitable!  In fact, the way they treated me made me feel more comfortable here. 

Josef also took us into the village.  There were many people out, even though it was raining.  They were all dressed in white, the color of mourning here in Haiti.  We were told there had been a funeral for a 26-year-old woman.  They don’t know how she died. 

We relaxed in the town square until it was time to head back to the school for dinner.  Once there we met Père Bruno, the founder of this school and several others here in Haiti.  After dinner, we went to bed to prepare for our first day of school.  

Today was our first day of school!  It was sort of like jumping off a high dive, thrilling and terrifying at the same time.  We met all of the teachers and students.  Tomorrow we will teach our first lesson and have a meeting to acquaint the teachers with what we will be doing.  This way they won’t feel like we are stepping on their toes. 

More tomorrow after our first day.  Wish us luck!

Hey guys!  My name is Kelly, and I will be working with Jocelyn this summer in Terrier Rouge and Thomonde.  

We are currently in Providenciales, Turks & Caicos with Janet, our mentor who is kindly traveling with us.  It was quite a day of travel and fun.  It was raining here on this beautiful island, but we didn’t let that stop us from having fun!  When we arrived at the hotel, we settled in and went exploring.  

Early tomorrow morning we leave for Haiti!  We are flying from Providenciales to Cap-Haïtien, and from there we will drive to Terrier Rouge.

Tomorrow begins what I know will be the experience of a lifetime.  I must confess I am a little nervous, but mostly I am very excited to finally be on our way!  I cannot believe it is about to start.  I am very interested in learning about and getting to know the Haitians. I believe that my life is a canvas and all those who come into contact with it add a little something; some magenta here, lots of gold there.  It is my hope that I can color the lives of others as well. 

I also owe a big thank you to the team I worked with to develop the curriculum Jocelyn and I will be implementing in Terrier Rouge.  Darren, Valerie, and Lila, you are awesome!  

More to come when we get to Terrier Rouge!

Welcome to my blog!

For the next two months, I will be sharing and reflecting on my internship experience in Terrier Rouge and Thomonde, Haiti.

On the eve of my departure, I am feeling slightly nervous, but mostly excited. Even though Haiti is only 600 miles from the U.S., I know that I’m about to experience a country that could not be more different than my own, at least in terms of development, healthcare, economic status, etc. No matter how much I try to brace myself for the culture shock, I don’t think anything can fully prepare me for it.

As far as other preparations, however, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I’ve been so fortunate to have the resources at Rice to help prepare me for this trip, including my coursework, extracurricular activities, and even language lessons (I apologize in advance for any Creole I may botch on this blog. Or English, for that matter!). I also owe a huge thanks to my teammate, Laura, and our supplier, Scott, who managed to restock the ophthalmic supplies in the very limited time between the pack’s travels to Honduras and Haiti.

Also, I don’t know if the blog allows readers to post comments or not, but feel free to email me at any time! I’d love to continue discussing anything and everything about my experience with anyone who’s interested.

I have a few days of traveling ahead of me, so I think I’ll keep it short, but thanks for reading!