Sorry for leaving the last post on such a bad note.. i've received many worried messages, thank you for those! But please, do not worry.. (it only makes me feel guilty for choosing to do this!) And I'm fine, or at least I will be. I have been wanting to do this for 4 years, I knew the risks, and was aware how difficult it would be..
For there to be life there has to be birth! And birth is a pretty nasty thing to go through.. I am being born into Haiti, and I'm feeling vulnerable and scared like a newborn.. But I will be ok, Mama Haiti will look after me, and I will love her. (It is possible this analogy sprang into my mind because I am currently staying beside the maternity wing of the hospital, and can frequently hear the screams of labour...)
From what I observe, life in Haiti is so entwined with Birth and Death.. Well, my experience of it is.. How many babies have been born next door since I arrived? Judging by the screaming coming from those women in labour it's quite a few.. Where are these newborns gonna end up? What kind of life will they have? How many will survive their first 5 years of life? The statistics don't look good..
I went back to the office last week for one night, to sleep in my bedroom. My mosquito net fell on top of me in the night. There was no water, and I got the beginning of a migraine that is still ongoing 5 days later. So I came back to stay in the hospital with a friend of Astrid's. The office, with my bedroom attached, is unfinished and I'm not comfortable there. (understatement) The mosquitos there are in their thousands, im not joking, and this is a zone of high risk of malaria.. it only takes one bite! There is no electricity most of the time, so no internet either.. There is no furniture, no kitchen, no cooker, nowhere to boil water for a little green tea, no fridge.. just a desk and a chair and my bed.. and total darkness at night.. strange noises around coming into the house through the windows with no glass..
The real problem is the isolation and loneliness. I am detached from everywhere else by a difficult and expensive motorbike ride..
Anyway, the point is, if I want to stay in Haiti, I cannot live there. I am looking for a room to rent.
A couple of days ago, one of the volunteers here took me on a tour of the hospital. There is an orphanage (or boarding house - some of the kids' parents are alive but dont have the means to care for them) a new wing for the treatment of cholera - that was a hard one, little skinny kids on drips with their mothers at their bedside..
Then there is A&E, maternity, and the pediatric hospital.. I visited kids in the cancer ward who all called me "Princess Fiona", and then the room where the abandoned babies are.. ones who will have just been left on the steps of the hospital, many of them handicapped in some way. My experiences in Thailand prepared me for stepping into a space where babies with hydrocephalus (water on the brain, where their heads are swollen to 2 or 3 times their normal size) are waiting to die, and others with severe deformities.. There were two babies in there with cholera, also waiting to die.. One was 3 months, the other was 4 months, but between them, they wouldnt have weighed as much as a healthy newborn. They were soooo tiny, arms like matchsticks.
I took a little 13month old, Lubin, out for a little walk.. as he waddled along, leaning on his walker, i thought about my parents, my brother, my cousins, my grandparents.. all those people that love me, that support me, encourage me, unconditionally! And how this little adorable creature has nobody in the world to love him. No one is going to hold him close when he is crying and say any real words of comfort. I thought about how that is going to become his reality as he grows older, stronger and totally independent - because he will have to in order to survive.
For there to be life there has to be birth! And birth is a pretty nasty thing to go through.. I am being born into Haiti, and I'm feeling vulnerable and scared like a newborn.. But I will be ok, Mama Haiti will look after me, and I will love her. (It is possible this analogy sprang into my mind because I am currently staying beside the maternity wing of the hospital, and can frequently hear the screams of labour...)
From what I observe, life in Haiti is so entwined with Birth and Death.. Well, my experience of it is.. How many babies have been born next door since I arrived? Judging by the screaming coming from those women in labour it's quite a few.. Where are these newborns gonna end up? What kind of life will they have? How many will survive their first 5 years of life? The statistics don't look good..
I went back to the office last week for one night, to sleep in my bedroom. My mosquito net fell on top of me in the night. There was no water, and I got the beginning of a migraine that is still ongoing 5 days later. So I came back to stay in the hospital with a friend of Astrid's. The office, with my bedroom attached, is unfinished and I'm not comfortable there. (understatement) The mosquitos there are in their thousands, im not joking, and this is a zone of high risk of malaria.. it only takes one bite! There is no electricity most of the time, so no internet either.. There is no furniture, no kitchen, no cooker, nowhere to boil water for a little green tea, no fridge.. just a desk and a chair and my bed.. and total darkness at night.. strange noises around coming into the house through the windows with no glass..
The real problem is the isolation and loneliness. I am detached from everywhere else by a difficult and expensive motorbike ride..
Anyway, the point is, if I want to stay in Haiti, I cannot live there. I am looking for a room to rent.
A couple of days ago, one of the volunteers here took me on a tour of the hospital. There is an orphanage (or boarding house - some of the kids' parents are alive but dont have the means to care for them) a new wing for the treatment of cholera - that was a hard one, little skinny kids on drips with their mothers at their bedside..
Then there is A&E, maternity, and the pediatric hospital.. I visited kids in the cancer ward who all called me "Princess Fiona", and then the room where the abandoned babies are.. ones who will have just been left on the steps of the hospital, many of them handicapped in some way. My experiences in Thailand prepared me for stepping into a space where babies with hydrocephalus (water on the brain, where their heads are swollen to 2 or 3 times their normal size) are waiting to die, and others with severe deformities.. There were two babies in there with cholera, also waiting to die.. One was 3 months, the other was 4 months, but between them, they wouldnt have weighed as much as a healthy newborn. They were soooo tiny, arms like matchsticks.
I took a little 13month old, Lubin, out for a little walk.. as he waddled along, leaning on his walker, i thought about my parents, my brother, my cousins, my grandparents.. all those people that love me, that support me, encourage me, unconditionally! And how this little adorable creature has nobody in the world to love him. No one is going to hold him close when he is crying and say any real words of comfort. I thought about how that is going to become his reality as he grows older, stronger and totally independent - because he will have to in order to survive.
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