And the winner is...

Michel Martelly! Haiti has a new president....and I learned about it hours before the rest of Jacmel on the NY Times website, haha. People were freaking out this morning because apparently US Marine planes were flying all around Port-au-Prince and everyone thought that for whatever reason, the US would try to instate the other candidate, because Michel Martelly wants to do things like kick out the UN and drastically change importing/exporting.

He won with a 66% majority. Most of the people I know refused to vote because they thought that one candidate was unqualified and basically an idiot (see cocaine doing, cross-dressing, rock-star/gangster shenanigans), and the other was just like the rest of the fancily-educated, very rich people who had always run Haiti and done it no good. It reminded me a lot of the Bush vs. Kerry election. And it had the same result. In the end, the guy who won was the guy that people thought they could have a beer with. When word hit Jacmel that he won, motos honked and sped down the street and excited citizens paraded. People are really happy that someone "like them" without a college education and who came out of nothing could win a presidential election, and they have hope that maybe he can do something for their country, since no one else has. I can't say that I blame them for trying something new.

48hrs in Haiti

I was planning to write about a crazy 24hr time period here, as it seemed to be wrapping up...and then I got swept up in more madness, so now to tell the tale of 48hrs here in Haiti (a week after the fact, as I am just now recovering):

• I awoke minutes before Ninotte called me to the dome because a baby had a slow heart beat and they were worried they might need help when the baby was born. The baby was born just fine however, with a cord around it's neck
• I stayed up at the dome as another girl was in labor
• Swafet (grounds-man) cracked his head open. He wouldn't let me stitch it, so I steri-stripped it...
• Another girl came in labor...and then another
• Meanwhile the water ran out up at the dome and I had to go down to fetch water in buckets so that we could wash our hands and flush the toilet
• That night I slept up at the dome with the 3 labor patients all egging each other on with labor pains. In truth, only one of them was in active labor and the other were just getting infected with the energy... One of the patient's parents started to sing a prayer... another patient's mom started to chant very loudly and frantically (I assumed it was vudou-related by how it sounded, but the apprentice told me that's just how some people pray to Jesus) ...the dome's energy was out of control. We kept trying to ask people to keep it down so as not to provoke the other patients further/let everyone sleep, but it just keep slipping out of control. Somewhere around 3am, I think I fell asleep for an hour. I was up and down a million times though: massaging, consoling, doling out homeopathics, and trying to get them to just sleep!
• In the morning, I helped apprentice, Marianne, clean the clinic, and then we went down to shower and eat. Then the post-natals visits till noon, but not before a fight broke out in the tent camp, which is squats on our land....
• At post-natals I was so tired, I felt like I was in another world. I got to amputate the little hanging extra pinkie of a baby born a few days prior (no bone attached it to the hand). The baby had actually had another extra hanging pinkie on the other hand, but it fell off in transit from the shower where babe had been born (see earlier entry) to her room in the dome...may those pinkies find each other to rest in peace... Another woman brought her baby for a visit, who we'd seen the week before and referred to the doctor, because he was making a very odd noise in his throat. She told us that she did not go to the doctor, but her husband went to the vudou priest and did a ceremony, and the baby has been cured since... On a similar note, we've had fewer births recently and apparently the women aren't coming, especially if they go into labor at night, because our neighborhood specifically has a lot of "bad spirits"...
• We transfered the patient who had been actively laboring for 3 days to the hospital and sent the other two home to eat/walk/bathe/etc since they weren't really active in labor.
• Later that day we heard that a guy in the tent camp has been sick with a fever for 22 days and won't go to the doctor because a vudou priest told him that someone had put 5 zombies on his head and that he needed to keep coming to him (and paying him) to fix it...in reality he probably has malaria, which is a fairly quick and inexpensive fix...
• Every Sunday in Lent there are Catholic-Vudou parades, which are loud and crazy, and just happened to take place during this 48hrs
• We got the 2 laboring patients back later that day, plus another who delivered quickly.
• I went to bed, thinking, great! A good night's sleep after an action-packed day and night (Melinda and Ninotte were up at the dome). Just before I was about to crash however, I got a call because both women were about to deliver at the same time-ish and so I may as well be there. I caught the first baby, who scared me a little with his tight-fitting shoulders... 4 MINUTES later, the other baby was born and needed resuscitation... I had to leave my mom and babe to the care of an apprentice to help. Thankfully the baby did fine, but just about then, my mom started to hemorrhage (big baby, long labor, probably not great nutrition). We all had to hop back to my patient's room (thankfully they're only actually divided by a sheet), and throw in an IV, give her shots of pitocin, catheterize her bladder, squeeze her uterus....it was like being back in the hospital...Crazy!! Thankfully we were all up there!
• ....and then another mom came in labor! Much to our delight, she wasn't really in labor and we told her to just sleep... The moms and babies all ended up doing great, and we headed to bed around 4:30am...
• The following day was a class day for apprentices, so we just called it off. I slept till 10, and then we discharged the 3 moms and sent home the not very active labor, and cleaned the clinic. I was still running on adrenaline that day and continued going (without having anything to really do, but feeling too strung out to sleep) until the evening
• The following few days I felt like a total zombie (but not of the vudou variety who harm people)... Only today would I say that I finally recovered (several days past)

ewww

I used to abhor the use of cleaning chemicals and bleach (for reasons of personal health and environmental health)... I've always just used vinegar, grapefruit seed extract, or some kind of naturally prepared product. I don't even like to swim in pools... So when I got here I'd wear gloves to touch almost anything in the clinic including the bottle of bleach water that we clean things with, as I didn't want to even touch it..... Now I find myself with a different way of going about things, as I'm often in the situation of touching filthy things without gloves. Thus I find myself spraying my entire body with the bleach solution--legs, arms, hands, etc after inevitably coming into contact with bodily fluids, questionable looking skin (fungally/bacterially infected or scabies filled or otherwise...) stepping into puddles of things, etc. Since there's often no running water up at the clinic and hand sanitizer gets gross after a couple applications (not to mention it's limited in quantity), it seems to be the easiest thing. Recently I have just been trying to clean myself after coming in contact with things, as contact is inevitable (see catching babies in flip flops...), and having to believe "I do not believe in bacteria/viruses/fungus/nor the danger of cleaning chemicals ETC!" (repeat, repeat, repeat) (in addition to my prior mantra of "i do not believe in scabies")

Anyway, we wash our dishes in bleach water too and I feel like the chlorox is starting to seep out of my pores, so maybe it will protect me....eep! (yes, this is a delusion I realize) I just hope all this bleach doesn't damage my fertility or something.... I know that people who drink chlorinated water are at much greater risk of developing cancers (especially bladder cancer, presumably because it's sitting in there until you pee it out?). For now though, I am choosing the risks of chlorine exposure over persistent fungal infections (I keep getting them on my arms and neck!) and whatever other many kinds of parasitic, viral, and bacterial (etc) things are creeping around the clinic.... Ew. Only one more month...

respire

I was awoken this morning by the cook running into my room yelling: Acouchmant; Melinda! (birth! and the name of the other midwife!) I took that to mean that Melinda needed me, so I ran out of bed in my short pirate shorts and tank top...never expecting that it would by my costume for the rest of the day.

I arrived to the dome and no one was there....very odd... I heard noises from the outside cement shower stall (where there's not an actual shower installed yet, but women take buckets there to bathe with). Just as I got there, a baby splashed into the world, into apprentice: Ninotte's hands, with Melinda at her side. They had just gotten there themselves. Melinda said she was on the toilet when she heard word of the imminent birth and didn't have a chance to flush, haha. Thankfully the baby and mom did very well.

I went down for breakfast, thinking I'd shower and get ready for the day next. I was called up to the dome again shortly after, however. There was another girl who'd come in labor who I needed to keep a close eye on (with her water broken for a day and a half), and then a post-partum visit, and then I did the newborn exam on the new baby and eventually sent them home (they usually stay about 4 hours)...then the other baby was born, and we had a girl come in pre-term labor with a urinary infection...and I'm meanwhile semi-freaking out about how the guy who is "cleaning the well" is dumping what looks like sewage onto the freshly planted garden and the "neighbor" (a guy that is actually just squatting on our land) is burning a massive pile of trash with a huge cloud of disgusting smoke floating towards the dome.... By the time I got back it was about 7pm and I was exhausted...thankfully someone had brought me lunch at least. I was still without a shower, smelling of birth, bra-less and in pirate pajama shorts...

I felt really strung out, and though the shower and food helped, I was still feeling a little crazy... Then it started to pour rain. Ahhhhhhhhh. I went outside and pulled the laundry off the line, laughing, and stashed it in a safe spot. Then I kicked back on the deck and listened to it come down. The rain was exactly what I needed. I hadn't even imagined such a possibility. My mind was so clouded and strung out, and then burst! The skies brought rain down upon Jacmel and I felt total peace again. It was perfect. I sat with my eyes closed and let everything move through me... I was reminded that everything is perfect and when I let go of my grip I can see that the universe is working it's own magic and I needn't try to control a single thing...