Change of Address

Note to self: always pack shampoo in your carry-on. We left for the airport at 4:30am Monday morning. And can I just say that I’d been packed for 12 hours at that point? I actually went to sleep the night before. Anyways, my flight was at 8:40, and at 9:00 we were still on the ground. Then they announce that there’s a mechanical issue with the plane. Something with rivets. But that flight was not going to be taking off until at least 12pm. Flights to Port are quite limited (because really, who goes to Haiti?), and I figured that mine (which was supposed to depart around 2) was the last of the day. I waited in a line for over two hours to have the ticket woman ask me if I’d rather spend the night in DC or Miami. I picked Miami.

So I browsed through the bookstore, bought a book my mom already ordered, and paced around for awhile. At one point, I sat down and some boy came and sat next to me. I truly hope he could hear the Campus Chorale songs blaring from my ipod.

My flight to Miami was half an hour late, not that it mattered. What I was thinking of as a fun adventure was rapidly growing less fun. I tried to check my email in Miami, but they wanted to charge me for wifi. So I walked to my gate and found a suitable spot to curl up in a ball on the floor. But I only managed to sleep in sporadic 20 minute increments throughout the night because it was so flipping cold. I was wrapped up in my sweatshirt with the hood up. I pulled the tshirts out of my backpack and wrapped those around my legs. What a fine and pleasant misery.

My 6:45am flight to Port-au-Prince was delayed by an hour and a half due to issues with the intercom. Personally I thought they should all learn Morse code. Mostly because I felt bad for Mark, who had to get up in time to be at the airport at 7:40, and had no idea I was going to be late.

I arrived safely in the hot sun, sleepy and with dirty hair. I may have a mild obsession with washing my bangs. My roommate made fun of me fairly frequently during college because I was too lazy to take a shower, but always washed the front of my head in the sink. So I was a bit distressed when I discovered that we couldn’t go home right away. Well, not “home,” but to the house they moved into while I was gone. We had to take Maeve, Clare (the ESL teacher for We Advance’s literacy program), and two volunteers to the clinic first. But since the cab was full, Maeve and I sat in the truck bed, thus collecting massive amounts of dust/soot/smog. It all stuck incredibly well to my greasy hair, which made it look clean. And that’s enough information about my hair. Moving on…

Eventually Mark brought me back to the new house, which we are renting from another organization who sends teams down probably four times a year. We were told that when there isn’t a team here (so pretty much all the time) we can have the whole house. But I think the staff just end up sleeping inside when that happens. It’s confusing and I haven’t made much of an effort to figure it out. I know the lady who brings the food; the rest I’m still working on. Anyways, this new house…it’s nice. And big. Like, to the point where I’m embarrassed that I live here. I know it was a move DIRT needed to make, but personally I don’t like it. To be fair, I don’t like change (you’re all shocked, I know), and I hate leaving my memories in the old house. But the night I got back, one of my friends came over to visit and she looked around and said, “Well…just try to think of it as a blessing…” And this was after one of the volunteers said that the house seemed a bit inappropriate. There’s just no pleasing everyone I guess. We’ve either got a resident rat or a house that’s so fancy that I have yet to be bitten by a mosquito. So for my own peace of mind, can I just remind people that for eight months in Haiti I took bucket baths with water I drew out of cisterns? And I cooked outside on the ground with a propane stove and/or a single burner kerosene stove that only had half its wicks. And I electrocuted myself switching on the generator when the city power went out. I feel better now thinking of those things…as I lay here on a real bed, under a fan, looking at a dresser. And there’s a fountain outside my bedroom door. Ai yi yi. I miss my balcony. Anyways.

Yet another change we’re anticipating in a few weeks is a new country director. Mark is heading out, and Jon, who was with us for a little bit during January, is going to be taking over.

But even amidst all this change, there’s still those typical Haiti days. Thursday I went to the clinic to help out for a little bit. It was the maternity clinic day, and someone was coming to do ultrasounds. We hurried to get there in the morning (women were waddling in from every which way), only to find that we couldn’t turn the generator on because the plug had caught on fire. So a security guard ran around for an hour or so looking for a place to buy a new plug they could attach. I spent a good portion of the morning with the doctor and one of the volunteers, attempting to measure bellies and listening to heartbeats.

Mark picked me up partway through the day so we could go grocery shopping. He’s trying to teach me all the roads so we’re not completely lost when he leaves. We get out to the main road and he says, “Alright Magellan, take us to Megamart.” I told him, “Okay, just get me to Delmas.” Pause. Sigh. “Sarah…we’re on Delmas.”

We’d been home from our shopping trip for about five minutes when Mark’s phone rang. It was Les from MTI asking us to call ahead to St. Luc’s hospital to let them know he was bringing in a patient. The patient was in an ambulance and Les was following, but the ambulance had no medical people in it, or even equipment like a backboard or a cervical collar. Apparently it was a 25-year old male who’d been hit by a Minustah (some sort of UN thing) vehicle. Then a UN tank came by and they’re actually the ones who called the police…who called the ambulance. So, a hit and run by the UN…

A little bit later, Mark came into the house telling me we needed to go. Les called from the hospital and wanted our help. For some reason, I was surprised by this. After all, the guy was already in the hospital, so why did they need another nurse and EMT? Mark’s response to my question: “This is Haiti, so subtract all logic…”

This hospital is literally a mile down the road, and it took us 25 minutes to get there. Traffic is usually horrendous, but that day was especially bad because there was a book fair. At the sugar cane factory. (You can’t make this stuff up.) We got to St. Luc’s and eventually found the room with the CT scanner where the patient was. Within 30 seconds of entering the room, it became apparent why we were there. There was a crowd of staff around the patient, and the only people doing anything were the doctor (who was still giving orders) and Les. I was putting lead on and asking for gloves (in both languages about 6 times), when the doctor asked for someone to check a pulse. The patient had been responsive when they brought him in; they’d actually given him a mild sedative. But Les and I were both checking for femoral pulses when the doctor said, “I’m waiting for someone to tell me they have a pulse.” I told him that no one was going to tell him that because the patient didn’t have one. So we started CPR. After many unsuccessful attempts in both English and Creole (complete with hand motions) to get an AED, Les threw his lead on the floor and went to find one. He was successful, but when we turned it on, we discovered that it was in Spanish. We continued CPR for another 20 minutes, but never got a shockable rhythm. Time of death: 1724.

Yesterday morning we were sitting in the clinic waiting for the Haitian nurses to finish their education session and send the patients inside. I was sitting in a wheelchair, but my feet were on the floor. For a second, I thought I felt the floor shake. But no one else commented on it. Then it started again, and I knew I wasn’t imaging it. Maeve and I looked at each other, both thinking, “Is that…?” and “What should we do?” And then it stopped. Finally, one of the volunteers said, “Did you feel that?” Then the doctor ran into the room and goes, “Did you feel the earthquake?!” We found out later last night that it was a 3.5 with the epicenter in Leogane, and it lasted 45 seconds. So only a 3.5 – that’s only mildly disconcerting.