Shockingly home

The universe worked in some mysterious ways in the last 2 days...

Firstly, by slipping me a NASTY stomach bug. I didn't even eat any street ice-cream. I was sick for 2 days amidst 2 births, and when the other midwives tried to start an IV on me, I nearly fainted in my chair and ended up laying on a mattress in the dining room for a couple of hours getting IV fluids and not at all enjoying my blood pressure of 76/48. Thank goodness for Ciprofloxin. Once I had healed enough to feel able to be more than 10 minutes from a washroom at any given time, Nathanael loaded me on the back of his scooter for one last trip to the beach. We drove farther this time, apparently until we were only 1 hour from the Dominican Republic by boat, and layed in the sun on the pebbly beach. It was my last swim in the insanely warm ocean :-( The sunset on the drive back was INCREDIBLE. And I can remember that it used to scare me to ride on the back of the scooter with no helmet, but on this ride, I couldn't get enough of the warm wind cooling my wet hair, and blowing dust into my eyes. I couldn't get enough of the palm trees, and corn fields, and the women carrying insanely heavy loads on their heads, and the little kids yelling 'blanc!' (aka 'white') at me. I wanted to take the whole scene and put it in an empty Prestige beer bottle and take it home.

The morning that I was to leave Jacmel at noon, I woke up, had a coffee with our new volunteers Pamela, Katherine (who is actually one of the board members for Bumi Sehat) and her sidekick Kate (a lovely and exceptionally talented 17-year old who came to Jacmel to photograph/blog about her experience). I was thinking about packing, and then Nadege, our birthing dome cleaner and washer of all birth-related laundry, came down to tell us that there was a woman in labour at the dome. We joked about whether or not I would have time to catch one more baby before leaving. We quickly gathered our things and headed up to the dome.

As we got closer to the dome, I could hear the woman pushing, and so broke out into a birth-induced sprint. Sure enough, I had enough time to put gloves on and barely catch the little baby girl that was born! Unfortunately the woman then began to bleed too much, so my last few hours in Jacmel were spent managing a PPH... but it made loading my things into the van for the road to Port-au-Prince even more surreal because of the extra dose of adrenaline I had on board!

We drove through the windy mountain roads to Port-au-Prince in the orphanage van (with air conditioning!) and I realized that I had no recollection of the trip out to Jacmel on that first day. Now Haiti had become so familiar to me. The earthquake damage in Leogane and Port-au-Prince was still shocking, and I tried my best to photograph it all while Emmanuel weaved through the traffic. It seemed like there was not much improvement in the clearing of the debris by the gigantic UN trucks since I first got in. I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, just in time for torrential rains to start and for my flight to be delayed by an hour and a half.

I got to Miami and my plans to rent a hotel room and have a good night's sleep in a giant bed were somewhat thwarted by the fact that by the time my plane got in, it was already midnight with all of the delays. I got to have a hot shower (which by the way, feels like heaven when you haven't had one in awhile) and sleep for 3 hours before having the head back to the airport. The culture shock started there... or maybe it started a little bit on the plane when I realized that most of the people who could afford to leave Haiti were either Europeans, or very upper class Haitian people. I looked at the tv like it was some kind of foreign useless object in the hotel room, and turned off the air conditioning in favour of overheating myself while I slept. I was so incredibly thankful for the woman next to me on the flight from Miami to Chicago, who wanted to know every detail of my trip. And when she asked me 'how did you actually cope with everything that you saw there??', I had to think long and hard, and got a bit teary, and my only answer was that I didn't know quite yet... Then Kelly's speech when Miss U.S.A. was visiting popped into my head - that it really wasn't about me anyway, because I didn't have to continue living in the conditions that the Haitian people are living in.

When I arrived in Canada, I went to Earl's in Yaletown for some food because my fridge decided to break while I was away. I also found that slightly entertaining since I've been basically living without a fridge for a month anyway! But what made me laugh was the conversations that I was hearing while I ate dinner - about one guy's inability to do bench presses, and another person's anger at the fact that their friend didn't call them back. I think it's in hearing those kinds of things that the culture shock really sets in.

And then there was the birth shock...

Because I am crazy, I went on call last night at 6pm after just getting back. And at 6pm I headed to the hospital to be at the birth of a friend (and client). They were so incredibly sweet, asking me how I was managing! Anyhow, I had so wanted to be there for their birth, and the universe basically handed me the honour of being there. And their little girl was born at around 9:30pm. Congratulations guys :-)

Now I am sitting in my apartment looking at my 'Haitian pink' toenail polish, trying to wrap my head around all of the ways in which my life and my practice as a midwife, and the person I am, have been changed by being in Haiti. And I can't wait to get all of the photos posted for you to see.

In case anyone still wants to donate to my cause in Haiti, the organization I worked with is in need of financial help to apply for a funding grant. So I will still be accepting donations and sending them on so that the amazing birth dome can continue offering what it does to the families of Jacmel.

Thank you for following my journey...