This picture is me right now. I feel a bit more haggard than I did about a week ago, and I think this picture proves it. (Just so you know, the World Book definition of 'haggard' is: 'looking worn from pain, fatigue, worry, or hunger; worn by care; gaunt'. It can also mean 'wild and untamed', but I don't think I've gotten there yet.)
Dumel, Tom, Maggie (the nurse), Charlene (an undergraduate intern from St. Louis), and I returned not too long ago from a moblie clinic about 45 minutes away. MFK has a few mobile clinics running at all times; this is one way they distribute the Medika Mamba (the awesome fortified peanut butter that helps malnourished kids get well quickly) around the Nord Department of Haiti. We are also in the process of setting up a new mobile clinic about an hour away where I'll likely begin my research project. This is a place of about 18,000 people and no health services locally available. So, Dumel arranged with a pastor and a fellow who owns a megaphone to spread information about the mobile clinic so that people will bring their sick children next week when it all starts.
The interpreter I have hired starts on Monday morning and I anxiously await all the new adventures her services and finesse will bring. Such adventures include not only the commencement of data collection before too long, but also regular trips to procure food, and the capacity to bargain for transportation.
Today was my birthday. A group of us went out for dinner at a nice place in Cap Haitien. Tom has an outing planned for next weekend, when things have settled down a bit around here. I am hoping that it involves air conditioning (if only briefly).
Thank you for all the comments-- they help keep me going.
Friday, June 29, 2007
26 and counting
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7 comments:
Have BD Sweetie! Wish we could celebrate WITH you but we definitely plan on a long weekend this Fall to pick up Linds' stuff @ A & B's SO we'll have a catch-up session with The Gang then. Take care-you're doing AMAZING things!
Love to Tom............R
That would be "happy". Obviously, I had NOT consumed enough caffeine!
Of course you hadn't enough caffeine-- it was only 6:20am!
Thanks for the b-day wishes, Renee.
grace
Happy birthday! one day late. i'm sorry. and you don't look haggard. beautiful as always. those straws that take a while to get there, they're crazy.
Luke!
You are the best. I can only find sane straws here, but dang are they long. Love you!
you DO look beautiful! xoxo
Hi, Grace, this is Odile. Happy birthday! I am intrigued by the new restaurant your interpreter took you too. Wish I had known about it . I remember being hungry all the time. (How does Pat do it?) Your experience so far matches mine to a T. You are doing great, believe me! I found I got used to an awful lot of stuff after a while, heat, bugs, no electricity in evenings and nights, mounds of smelly garbage to climb over as you walk in town, jumping over sewage, and mostly the misery that surrounds us. Surviving there is definitely not for sissies. Just try to keep your weight up. How far are you from Cap Haïtien? There was good yogurt (made in Haïti) at La Boutique, at the gas station on the main road. And a French bakery, but that was iffy bec. nothing was refrigerated and it was 100 degrees in the shop. We tried to go early in the day before the food spoiled. Your experience at Justinien reminded me of the one-year old I saw who was not even 9 lbs, about the weight of my children when they were born. You are doing great work under very difficult circumstances!
Say hi to Bernard, Dumel, and Eddy.
Je t'embrasse, Odile
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