Thankful for Spring

I wrote a few weeks ago about a rather unpleasant biking experience, so I thought I'd give a post about a day that was as ideal as one could hope for.

Today, I rode my bicycle to work, still trying to finish up paperwork from our week in Haiti. Fortunately, I'm moving past the debilitating shock of being back in the US (and feeling unable to do anything). Now I feel focused and directed - trying to do the best possible work reporting, assessing, and recommending next steps. There are quite a few NGOs still in the Port au Prince area who may be able to help with some of the needs we're pointing out.

Outside, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, and we're sitting right around 72 degrees Fahrenheit (~22 C). I rode home today through spring trees beginning to open their leaves, some in full blooms of whites and pinks. Even traffic seemed more friendly - a traffic cop at the entrance to the University let me turn left without even having to put my feet down to stop. The somewhat tiring uphill on the route home passed without my notice because I was so caught up in looking at the houses on the hill with wild ivies, tulips, daffodils, and lots of flowering trees. There's a particular yellow house on the corner of Duke University Rd and Swift Ave that has a particularly wild, joyful garden. The plants bloom wildly and every which way - just the way they seem happiest. I've seen someone out digging and moving things, so I know they work on the yard. What fun to see something not in neat lines or constrained by borders! It's these kind of gardeners who were probably the children who colored outside the lines in kindergarten.

And to top it all off, I came home to find J sitting outside in the sunshine on our back porch. We spent time talking, planning, and thinking about what to do with our shady, very wild, unable to grow a lawn, yard. I was particularly excited when she suggested putting up the hammocks, getting a compost bin, and getting a rain barrel (that is either already painted or a blank canvas to paint!). All three of these are things I've hoped for in my yard. I think I'll renew my lease.


(Photo from Chicago Art Museum garden during trip with Magali and Jeannette. But I promise I have some of these exact flowers around my mailbox right now)

Justin's Post

Check out our group post on DoSomething.org from the last few days. This may be a little out of order since we lost internet for a day somewhere along the way.

http://www.dosomething.org/news/ground-haiti-2-months-later

Pictures of Life after an Earthquake

Besides all the physical damage around us, the psychological damage to the people of Haiti is astronomical. I’ve heard it referred to as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on many occasions, and with my very casual knowledge of psychology, I won’t deny the presence of PTSD here. Today I learned a little bit more about what it means to live in the wake of a devastating earthquake.

• We arrived at L’Hopital Communaute Hatienne today and were led into the main waiting area by our Haitian driver. He seems confident enough, but as soon as we entered the space, he walked into the center area that is open to the sky and some tarps rigged across the opening. Standing under a roof is still a frightening prospect.

• While sitting amidst a pile of suction machines in the hallway at the hospital, we were joined by a curious 16 year old boy. Demitri turned out to be a great help with removing and replacing screws, practicing his English as we did some troubleshooting together on a somewhat hopeless piece of equipment. We learned how to salvage tubing off an abandoned suction unit and learned how to use a continuity tester to verify the integrity of a power cord. While sitting together on the floor at the end of a productive few hours, he started to tell me about the earthquake. Demitri had been at home at the time – changing the channel on the TV. Though his house remained standing, he faced a near death experience in one of the aftershocks while respecting his mother’s request to stay home. Fortunately the eager student is still around to hope his school continues soon. I’d like to think that someday he’ll be working in an engineering or technical field making a difference for someone else. (Perhaps I should just be considering teaching??)

• On the way home, from the hospital, we dropped off another Haitian driver for the night. As we drove along his street, he pointed out his house, his grandfather sitting on the steps, and his tent. Despite the fact that his home survived the earthquake, he remains sleeping in a tent. I’m hoping the massive down pour tonight didn’t wash out everyone’s tents.

• Our team member, Jean, got a call from his sister this week, saying that she was back in Haiti. After watching her house fall down in front of her just as she came home from work, Jean’s sister went to stay with family in Miami. Finally, they’ve returned to the country they love, living with family here whose home survived the earthquake. Like Justin mentioned earlier, the quake is no respecter of persons.

On a more personal note, as we near the end of the week I’m getting more and more tired. My perspective is also changing, to one that doesn’t really understand how the western world works all the time. I’m acclimatizing to the heat and humidity, falling in love with the people on the street, and wanting to be in the midst of everything again. Emails and news from the US seems trivial and sometimes ridiculously frustrating. I find myself challenged to extend grace, understanding, and patience to those both near and far. Fortunately, those around me extend grace in so many little ways. I guess if I had it all figured out life wouldn’t be worth living.

Oh the humanity. ... in jars and vials, that is...

Internet has been out for a bit all over the city, so I've got a short note and will hopefully do more of an update tomorrow:

I may have spoken too soon about repairing equipment following the earthquake. Yesterday was our grand adventure to the main state-owned teaching hospital in Port-au-Prince. The drive to the hospital passed by the Palais National, which although still spectacular, is spectacularly at least a full level lower than its original height. The surrounding parks are full of tents and make shift homes built primarily out of scrap wood, corrugated metal, and tarps sometimes labeled with the names of different aid organizations. Passing by countless piles of rubble, leaning walls held up by one or two bars of rebar, and mangled nests of iron I understand the general fear of sleeping under roofs. It’s still difficult to imagine the scene of watching buildings rapidly become piles of rubble not only in the first earthquake but in multiple aftershocks.

The hospital itself was quite damaged, though most of the buildings are still standing, as far as I could tell. Large operations have been set up in tents under the trees, while the large concrete buildings stand empty. The entire clinical lab is being run in a tent, where I discovered a rather innovative use for babyfood jars - holding urine samples!

The operating theater is actually in a building, fortunately... though it is also a temporary setup. The contrast is striking between the folding tables, piles of boxes containing drugs, and makeshift hand-washing stations and the eerily empty hallways leading into the well built operating theaters with designated prep rooms. We had a rather satisfying quick fix on an x-ray view box in these empty operating theaters, but one wonders how long it will be before hospital operations return to the building. I've been told that this particular building has been approved for safety by a team of engineers, but people are still hesitant to return to working indoors.

Another building that stands abandoned is perhaps even more disturbing. The clinical laboratory building is still standing, but there are broken windows and open cabinets among the rooms. Chairs and tables have been removed to set up the tents. We were shown empty rooms where microscopes once lined the counters. Now there's a box in the corner with the expensive pieces piled on top of each other. Incubators and refrigerators have been strewn open and vials with blood are broken all over the floor, some mounded high in the sink. Everything in the building is covered in dust and remains to be tested. Our later trips may involve a trip back to this hospital just to plug machines in and find out whether or not they work.


I suppose it's not really my place to try and make light of things, but with such a beautiful tree as your waiting room, things could be worse.

Earthquake up close

Since I’m not often not home long enough to properly care for a dog, my pets of choice have become plants. Having forgotten to ask my roommate to water them, I’m anticipating that my ‘pets’ will be somewhat wilted when I return from Haiti. But I also know that they are all succulent plants, built to withstand periods without water, and that after even a single watering they will markedly perkier and hold themselves up straighter. That dramatic resurrection exactly describes how I felt in the process of sitting down for dinner tonight. At the beginning of the meal, unable to do more than smile in response to conversation; gradually gaining strength as I worked through Tasso (Haitian beef in a wonderful sauce), green beans, rice with beans, and fried plantains; to significantly much more energy and so much happier at the end of the meal. Today was a long, productive, and wonderful day.

Perhaps the biggest misconception about our work here is that we are fixing everything that was damaged in the earthquake. Yes, we were brought here as part of the relief effort. But I hate to break your bubble: Most of this equipment was in very bad shape before the Richter scale read 7-plus. Only one of the pieces of equipment had problems from the earthquake, as far as we could tell. Justin spent a large part of the day tracing the circuitry on this autoclave, resealing the door, and adding a grounding wire to the casing so it wouldn’t shock the person who was trying to sterilize the equipment. Come the end of the day, we were testing the equipment with some of the nurses… and lo and behold… found another problem. It’s exactly like the Tom and Jerry type cartoon where Tom is trying to stop a leak with is finger when another breaks out and before you know it he’s covered in water. The door of the autoclave no longer leaked, but of course now water was leaking out the corroded back of the machine.

Overall, we managed to fix 7 pieces of equipment in a half day at one hospital. We recorded touching 15 pieces of equipment, some of which could easily be fixed with the correct parts – like a halogen bulb. The pieces that were fixed were addressed largely because of some knowledge beforehand that allowed us to bring the appropriate tools and replacement parts. Unfortunately, the hospital we visited today does not have a trained biomedical staff to do regular equipment maintenance. The designated technician wasn’t around quite enough for us to train him all that effectively. Fortunately, the nurses were well versed in their equipment and very attentive to details. It’s exciting to see someone bring you something that is an easy fix, repair it, and in the process show them how to prevent or solve that problem in the future.

The trip home from our hospital seemed surreal. We had spent the night in the Dominican Republic the night before, so it was a rush from hotel to airport to hotel to first hospital this morning. When I finally got a chance to take in the scene on the way home, it was as if the news reels were running outside my window. Except they were life-size, complete with the smells and humidity, and the reporter’s narration was satisfyingly absent.

Our third team member, a biomedical technician in the US, grew up in southern Haiti. We stopped on a rubble filled street in front of a two-story house with collapsing balcony and crumbled foundation strewn about. This was his mother’s house, his home during high school and college. Now it was not even remotely liveable, all his belongings having been looted. As he mourned the loss of his personal library, we asked if he would tell his mother about the scene or show her the pictures we’d taken. “No, no… she doesn’t need to know this.”

Since I did a bad job blogging last time I went...

Tickets were purchased yesterday for a departure the day after tomorrow. And no, it's not for a funeral...

I'm going back to Haiti for a week as part of a team of Biomedical Engineers/Technicians to assess the equipment situation at 4+ hospitals and do as many fixes as we can sight-unseen. Well, sight-mostly-unseen except for some photos. It's incredibly exciting, intimidating, thrilling, and overwhelming. My approach at this point is to be as prepared as possible without sacrificing rest beforehand, do the most thorough job possible while we're there, and write a kick-butt report when we return. Hopefully it will be an impactful project, and not just some disaster-tourists out for a joyride.

In the past I've tried not to drop names of organizations in my blog, but I was told to on this trip... and it makes sense. The more publicity and awareness there is of our cause and related ones, the more we'll be able to affect change. So here it goes:

I'm traveling with Engineering World Health (EWH), based out of Durham, North Carolina. This is the same organization I traveled with in Tanzania. But no, this is not a 2 month stint involving swahili lessons. And since an English-Haitian Kreyol dictionary is not possible to find last minute (as I learned this afternoon), I'll be relying on my French and incredible non-verbal communication skills. Fortunately or unfortunately, my stomach usually lets people know when I'm hungry. I'm hoping that will work in the positive next week.

EWH is not initiating this project all alone. AmeriCares has asked us to partner in this (potentially) multi-phase project to improve the state of medical equipment in and around Port-au-Prince. They may be addressing other needs too, but I don't know about them. Do your own research.

Since this trip has been pieced together so last minute, you'll learn more details as we go. I'm really enjoying the challenge of getting to think through the whole process to make our work effective. This is in contrast to being a student with a set packing list, scheduled itinerary, and pre-established connections. Next week in Port-au-Prince all the preparation will have been things that our team has thought of, designed, and intentioned. It's exciting to use the knowledge I've been learning over the past year while compiling guidelines of how to donate medical equipment effectively. Now it's time for the practical exam.

To give you an idea of the preparations -

• Spent this morning distributing travel insurance cards I bought yesterday
• We compiled and refined a list of pertinent questions to ask the hospitals. For instance, we can get their wish list, which might include an ultrasound. But we've got to ask if they have a doctor trained to use it AND if there's even electricity to make the ultrasound turn on.
• Found a connection with a Clinical Engineer from the University of Arkansas who has been given donations by Siemens, Drager, and others... talked about how we could help him identify appropriate recipients.
• Looked for the non-existent English-Haitian Kreyol phrasebook (and the even more impossible medical phrase book)
• Bought silicone sealant to fix a leaky autoclave. Picked up WD-40 and superglue as impulse buys. I'm guessing they'll be useful.

But what am I talking about? I've got all day tomorrow and even Sunday morning to prepare! Ha... oh dear. Keep praying!



Photo: From my first visit to Haiti. This is the sign we put on a half-fixed autoclave. The next day I found it on my bag. "Dange: Pa touche wap mouri." "Danger, don't touch. You'll die."




Oh, and before I forget, the views expressed in this blog are solely the personal views of the author. Unless of course I'm quoting or misquoting someone else.

How to Feel Small

As I begin to write this, I can't decide if I continue writing somewhat negative posts because of the name of the blog (see the first post, May/June 2009) or because writing makes it better. Bear with me... hopefully there will be much more interesting and uplifting stories soon!

But for now, I'd like to divulge my secret to feeling very small and insignificant:

Take 1 bicycle and add 1 not too serious (but carrying lots of serious stuff!) rider. Add a once-sunny day turned gray and overcast. Then set the time to just before evening rush hour. Ride the little bicycle right down main street and start praying that no one hits it...

This wouldn't be such a big deal, if it weren't for the five-points intersection in the middle of downtown. And the intersection wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for the man in his massive sedan taking his time through the intersection. And the car wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't signaling a left turn - which is exactly what I was doing while approaching from the other direction.




















The problem lies in the fact that this man had no intention of turning left and was rather upset when I started to turn in front of him. Wake up drivers! When a bicyclist is signaling a turn, it usually means we're going to take it. Leaving your arm hanging out without knowing it is a little bit more difficult than leaving your turn signal on accidentally.

So no, I didn't get hit. And no, there were no horns or screeching tires. But I was definitely frustrated, angry, and not just a little shaken. Perhaps a good spring present would be an air-horn for my bike...

And that is how to feel very, very small. Sometimes I enjoy the reminder of my insignificance in this world. Today was not one of those moments. I think I'm going to make some cookies.