My Haitian Times

From Rags to Riches

2008-08-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

What weekend would be complete without a nice hike through heaps of trash? Well, to be honest,it wasn't as bad as you'd imagine. They were only small heaps of trash and we even had our own guide... for a small fee. This morning, Kristin, Laura, myself, and other Ex-Pats living at LeClos and working with a micro finance agency (Leah, Steve, Ian, and Cherise), set our sights on climbing the hill behind our complex. The "Micro finance folks" gave this same trail as shot the day previous and noted getting a bit lost and sightings of human feces along the way, so I was stoked.

We started off to a shaky start heading up the hill the wrong way but backtracking and heading up a relatively clear stone covered path, we found ourselves heading the right way. Within minutes broke through some trees and headed up and lost our tree cover (at this point, or rather before, I should have applied some sun-screen). So we walked, back and forth, snaking our way, the seven of us up this hill sparsely covered with trees. To our right was a view of Port-au-Prince, to our left along the ground... sights and smells of poo poo.

As we climb we pass by a few shacks on the hill where poor families live. I feel a bit uncomfortable crossing through their backyards littered with garbage with nothing to offer them but a kind "Bonjou." Though many of them are surprised to see seven white hikers heading up their hill, especially the children, they smile strongly and wave back to us. Soon though, we hit a dead end, where the trail leads off into an area littered again, with garbage. We backtracked to a small 10'x10' concrete house with a sheet for a door and a half finished roof to ask for directions. The family we found their was very polite though rightly surprised to see us up there. While some of the more experienced members asked for directions in Kreyol, I made note of a small Haitian girl of 3 or 4 years old who stood by herself wearing a cloth diaper and faded t-shirt that said "America's Sweetheart" and had a small heart in the middle colored red, white, and blue. To our delight, her father agreed to lead us through the village on our way to the top of the hill.

As we climbed up through the make-shift streets of this hill-side town, of house built close together and over-populated with poor but proud Haitian folks, I couldn't help but feel a bit out of place. Though I smiled politely to those I passed, I couldn't help but feel regret that I couldn't do more for them then acknowledge their existence. Within minutes, we were through the town and we were all reaching into our pockets looking for a small bill to give the man who help us to continue on our journey. Giving him 50 or 100 Gourd (1.50-3 dollars US), he bid us adieu and we continued hiking, passing a goat or two that stopped along the path to rest, looking even more exhausted than we were.

Throughout our climb, the view of the city became more and more extensive until we stood atop the hill we set to climb. By this time, many of the small buildings, as well as the big ones came into view. We were high above the city looking down on the roof of our apartment complex far below, across the sprawl of the city, and out onto Port-au-Prince Bay.

From this perspective, the city of Port-au-Prince is gray. This is for many reasons, the wealth of smog as well as cold hard concrete. The city is small and surrounded closely by mountains but contains close to 6 million people, mostly living on top of each other, clustered in half finished homes and shacks surrounding the bay and extending into the downtown areas where we are "not supposed to walk around" for fear of our safety. These are the streets we drive through everyday to work. However, these are not the worst areas of the city. Areas around the airport, a little to the left of the black smoke cloud that I can see rising from piles of garbage burning in the distance, is the area of Cite Soleil, a slum where drivers fear to enter, lest they be robbed of their vehicles or their lives as the area is controlled by gangs. We are forbidden to ever visit there, even with field worker escorts and rugged vehicles. Many of our patients come from these areas. I wonder how they survive and how many stories of courage and personal triumph happen there on a daily basis.

But the view is not so gloomy. The bay itself is quite picturesque and trees begin to populate the city as one moves his/her glace from the downtown to Canape Verte, higher up on the hill on which we stood. The air up here is fresh, and lacking a certain scent of diesel fumes mixed with body odor, that permeates the city down below. Behind us is a valley and another small village, with a steep treacherous path of crumbling concrete leading to paved road that we took down and around to return to LeCLos. After such a long journey, we laid by the pool, I got my hair buzzed down to 1/8 inch, and counted my first Haitian sunburn (on the back of my neck).

Later in the day, we met with our mentor from Dan from Cornell for meetings at "The Montana." A relatively posh hotel perched on a hill behind the hill we had climbed earlier in the day. The stark contrast of this place compared to where had been earlier in the day was startling. The hotel itself was the Haitian equivalent of a Hilton in the States, complete with large in-ground swimming pool, a multilevel deck overlooking the city (which at night is beautiful), a restaurant, multiple cafes, and an outside bar that we spent most of our time while waiting for our individual meetings with Dan. I spent some time exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, walking up and down the open air hallways in search of some interesting pictures and found a few geometric puzzles that caught my eye.

Our dinner that night around 8pm was at the Hotel Olfson, an interesting building that was once a Haitian presidential palace, played host to many movie stars over the years, and currently operates as a restaurant and the Thursday night home of the notorious Haitian band, RAM. Being the only ones dining here on a Sunday night, we were privy to a tour of the place. It was like a Haitian museum off yesteryear, filled with Haitian art, dated furnishings, and creaky floor-boards. Just like one can tell the age of a tree by counting the rings on its stump, you can date the age of this building by counting the layers of white paint that cover its walls. Back on the patio, as one big happy research-oriented family, we indulged in two Haitian delicacies, Caribbean Lobster (a.k.a Spiny Lobster), and Haitian Rum. After a few hours of laughs and stories about the good-old-days of infectious disease (the 1980s) from our mentor, we headed home to get ready for work on Monday.

Lost in the Supermarket and Treading at the Party

2008-08-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

I woke up to a knock and the sound of Kristin's voice, "Our driver will be here between nine and nine-thirty. We're going to the Caribbean." No I wasn't still dreaming... I mean I'm already in the Caribbean. Rather, I got excited for another reason... it was Saturday and that means food shopping, at the "Caribbean" one of the only big supermarkets in Port-au-Prince, located in the ritzy Petionville area. I mean we were getting low on everything, and I was running low on soap. I wouldn't want to smell the day I run out of soap, and neither would my roommates.

Getting up, not really hungover from the night before, I was tired from my normal level of dehydration complicated by a late night, the night previous. I had just enough time to slam some frozen bread in the toaster oven and set that baby on 5 minutes.. aka. long enough to turn the "heating" light on, but I've never really timed it. BEEP! The driver arrived 10 minutes later and I was asked to hop in the back of the SUV... you know where there are no seats and we keep the empty bottles of water to fill up at the supermarket. I'm not complaining though, I kind of like the ride. It reminds me of times in the back of the truck going through the Amazon rain forest and, more domestically, coming home from playing sports. This was before it was made illegal for anyone except "undocumented workers" and the like. But I digress... in fact, it turned out that we had enough room up front and I hopped in the backseat with the ladies. The driver also asked not to be so dangerous and move up there.

The Caribbean was moving. Cars were rolling in and out as we made out way with the 4 empty water cooler bottles to the front door and dropped them off. Receiving our little blue ticket, for 4 ("kat") bottles, we headed in. Inside, it's similar to supermarkets in the states, though not at all like Whole Foods, except that the veggies are usually organic by default. To give you a mental image, think ACME from 1987, with less overhead lighting. I mean, who needs all that lighting anyway? I must be real though, the deli area is considerable with MANY types of cheese. (The affection for cheese being a remnant of French colonization.) Shop, shop, shop. Picked up some shaving cream, no more scraping a disposable razor across my face covered with a thin film of bar soap. Picked up some mozzarella, ricotta cheese, angel hair pasta, etc, going to make some Kunafa (Thanks for the recipe Meriam, you know I'm a Kunafa fiend). Picked up some pudding for Patrice, she didn't come with us and figured that she'd like some. Picked up some, uh, other standard things for the house... bread, milk, bla, bla, bla.

Arriving home, I bid farewell to the ladies as they went on a quest for Artwork and lunch in Petionville. HA! I had the whole house to myself for the first time in two weeks. And what did I do? Sat on the couch, ate beans, and watched Olympic Cycling and Women's Beach Volleyball... you know, "Man Stuff." I'm sure I burped and scratched myself a few times in the process.

Later that night, after such a grueling day, the house headed to a pool party at Matt's house, a friend of the house. What was the occasion? Eh, I don't think it matters much. While we will throw parties for folks leaving Haiti, the ex-pat community will throw a party, just to throw a party. This was quite a party though, done up very well. The house, or rather a nicely-decorated apartment higher up on the hill than Le Clos (where we live) in the Paco neighborhood, overlooks an in-ground pool that is shared by the three apartments that are part of the complex. Leaving my freshly made Lebne with olive oil and a new ingredient (scallions), I descended the dim candle-lit stairs to the sounds of Haitian musicians who were playing Kompa poolside.

What did I notice first? Oh yeah, the food table. Like a fat kid at a birthday party, I was drawn to it and sat next to it... basically all night, except for a few minutes when I took a dip in the pool and danced with the musicians who tried to teach me how to play their version of "maracas" and unknowingly sung some incredibly dirty words in my attempt to sing along with them. The table itself was about 6 feet long and covered with everything from chips to dips, Middle-Eastern kibbeh to Haitian lychee, and for drinks we had Prestige (the Haitian National beer), rum (the Haitian equivalent of Kentucky bourbon), and mojitos (a welcome oddity). Luckily though, everyone who comes to a party stops by the food table to drop things off or pick things up... and put them in their mouths, (Wow, that sounds sexual. I think that the flirtatiousness of Haiti is rubbing off on me) so I got a chance to meet a good piece of the ex-pat and Haitian communities.

We chatted it up always starting with usual questions, "What is your name?", "What are you doing in Haiti?", "How long have you been here?", "How long are you staying?","Do you speak Kreyol?, etc. Really, the questions are very dry but the responses are usually pretty interesting, since I guess on paper were are considered by many to be "interesting people." From Belgium to the USA, we were out in force but "interestingly" a dime a dozen. Seriously though, who decides at the age of 21 (or younger) to peace out from the United States and live in Haiti for years? Who just "gets bored" and spends six months volunteering in Haiti, to work on a clean-water project? Who applies to a high-powered medical research institution in the US to spend 10 months in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? Oh yeah... that was me (and Patrice).

So that's how half this party rolled, but the other half was undeniably Haitian and mingled at several points, in the pool, near the musicians, and of course near the food table. For me, the highlights included meeting an interesting guy (whose name escapes me) who I spoke with for a while, invited Laura and I to his home in the poor area of Carrefour, and called me, a "positive" (guy). I later found out that he was a well-known Haitian artist and voodoo priest, and apparently being considered "positive" was quite a good remark from such an individual. Meeting another Haitian man whose name sounded very much like "Jennifer" (which I thought amusing), he had me thinking that I could speak/understand Kreyol, if I just "believed" that I could do so. Now THAT is some positive forward thinking. If only I could learn to swim just as easily...

Clowning Around

2008-08-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning looking forward to a change from the usual vaginal swabbing. I was ready to get back to my laboratory/basic science roots. While the STI clinic and working with the Dr. Bien-Amie has been very educational, as much as you could imagine a sexually transmitted infectious disease clinic could be, I gave up the opportunity to prepare samples of abnormal secretions from down below to analyzing what was in them.

Arriving as usual at GHESKIO, via a SUV full of several young researchers and drivers, I bypassed groups of Haitians waiting outside the STI clinic for an appointment and

/or to receive bags of rice and other indispensable food items, to walk towards the STI lab. All I knew though was, from the directions that I gave my patients from the STI clinic, that it was "behind the office, and to the right." When I used my own directions, however, I got lost and walked into the wrong area. As usual, I was greeted with a "Bonjou" from several Haitians, accompanied by confused looks why this "blan" (white person), was standing in their midst. In my best Kreyol, I explained who I was and was led to the right place by a very pleasant woman.

Entering the lab, I felt at home, looking at the microscopes, refrigerator/freezers, and computers, I was greeted by Joseway, the leader of the laboratory. Over the next minutes he got me acquainted with the inner workings of the lab and showed me how to do Gram stains on the swab samples that came in to the lab. Now, this I could handle. In fact, after relearning how to process the specimens, I set adrift on memory bliss... just for a few moments. I thought back to the microbiology labs that we had during my second year of medical school and all the crazy fun we had at our table doing the very same procedure that I was now performing in a clinic in Haiti. The personalities and background of the persons around our table at Vanderbilt contrasted drastically with those whom I was working at that moment, however the reagents were the same. Amazing how standardized science can be, luckily people are not the same way.

Around Noon after some serious work (processing samples and giving results of HIV/RPR tests to patients through the metal bars that cover the window between the lab and the corridor) and not-so-serious work (clowning around with the other lab folks), I heard some rhythmic whistles and clapping from outside the lab. I asked Joseway (in Kreyol, of course) what was going on. Taking a break, we headed to the courtyard outside the lab. To my surprise, there was a group of 5 clowns and an audience of 50-60 adults and children gathered

on the grass to watch the quarterly performance of "Clowns Without Borders," an amazing silly counterpart to "Doctors Without Borders (MSF)." Their ability to entertain the diverse crowd of researchers, patients young and old, and GHESKIO support staff was amazing. Some clowns played instruments (keyboard, tuba, and soprano saxophone!) while the other clowns performed. They all played to the crowd, often involving the audience... and even a certain medical student.... of course. I swear I'm a target :)

Standing on the sideline and clapping

along, I saw one of the performers look my way prior to the grand finale. During the final skit, the classic "tuck-a-handkerchief-in-my-hand-and-it-disappears-only-to-reappear-in-your-hand" trick, he came over and took me from the audience. Placing me centerstage, they stood around me looking in the pockets of my white med student coat for the handkerchief that they recently made disappear. Then, they tucked a big blue handkerchief down my pants (hot I know.) After counting un.... de....twa... they pulled the cloth from my pants. Attached between the two blue handkerchiefs was a big pair of striped briefs.... "mine." It was SO funny, and the crowd loved it. Then... I went to lunch.

At night, we were going dancing (but not Laura, she has been feeling ill with a head "virus"). In fact, I wasn't really feeling to too much, because it was going to be a busy weekend with art shopping and a pool party on Saturday and pool party/research meetings/dinner with our mentors from Cornell on Sunday. But, as my friends know, I'm a push-over when it comes to dancing and I got dressed to go.

Danny, one of our Haitian friends who is notorious for wanting to go out dancing, etc. came to pick us up and we headed to Presse Kafe, the same venue we went to earlier in the week to see ASAKIVLE perform. Tonight, it was live Kompa, not like TVICE... more classy. Someone remarked that Fridays at Presse was a place their parents would hang out, but we seemed to fit in quite nicely... I guess because we be so classy like dat. With Rebecca's help, I learned to Kompa and even got the gumption to ask a cutie by the bar to dance (in Kreyol). Well, to be more precise I asked the whole family. See, she was on vacation with her family and I didn't notice her oh, mother, father, sister, uncle, etc. standing right next to her. They told me in Spanish, that if I wanted to dance with her, that I would have to ask them first (I know that Hispanic families are close, but this was ridiculous) Well, I asked and we danced.

Erin expressed her interest in "booty-shaking" and so we were off...the next stop was a place I've never been before, so I'm not sure the name, but it'll be a place I go again. It had a cabana-like atmosphere, not like Cabana in Nashville, like a real cabana with real palm trees in an open air setting, a big thatched hut for dancing, and a big long bar. What started off as Salsa music turned to TOP40 and "booty-shaking" music with Sean Paul and the like. (Nizar, I borrowed your dance, just for a bit). For more pics, visit here. At 230am, we peaced out of the bar/club, headed to our cars and as usual when walking to/from the car, were harassed by locals trying to open our car doors for us and asking for money.