Haiti Rewind

 I've been in the creating mood. (This mood could easily be mistaken as the 'I don't want to study for finals' mood, oops!) But I started packing last night (since I come back to Saint Louis for less than 12 hours and have to do all my packing here--since the airlines have that *lovely* new bag fee.) I've got all my skirts laid out and I've pulled out the Haiti shoes. (Or as my dad calls them, my 'amish girl' shoes...whichever you prefer) And its lead me to look at all my pictures. Yes, somehow I've gone through all 600.

I realize I will get to see my little buddy again on the first day of our trip! (Top left corner). She was big on teaching me my basic Haitian words (banana, plantain, house, chair, machette...you know, the everyday words.)

Here's a look at how different this trip will be...
(From Tim)

Here is what I'll be doing on the trip...

Haute-Limbe (6 days with 4 in clinic)

1. Interview prospective farmers for the reinvestment project (that's my baby!)

2. Inventory lab materials on pre-printed forms (This is where they use me as a test subject to draw blood)

3. Assist Christine with Directed Donation training

 

Gonaives (4 days - 2 working)

1. Interview prospective farmers for the reinvestment project

2. Work on Hurricane clean up team

 

Christianville (6 days with 3 in clinic)

1. Inventory lab materials on pre-printed forms

2. Assist Christine with QBC validation

(The travel time between locations is intense. Since there are no paved roads, its up to double (or more) the normal amount of time to get between places).

Heres a map of where we will be (Christianville is in Port, the capital).

12 days! (Since I can't seem to make that countdown ---> work) Happy Sunday!

So, I took a little leave of absence...

Wipe those brows, I've returned to blog-dom. In my attempts to cure "Senioritis", the blog got thrown to the wayside, but my attempts were unsuccessful and I have returned. Most importantly I am here to tell you about my Haiti project, it is FINALLY under way! I am about to send out my first support letter (I want to and will be sending it to everyone, because I want everyone to know about it not because I expect everyone to donate...is that necessary to say, I hope its implied...)

Heres a blurb about my project from the letter...

"The Agricultural Reinvestment Initiative is a program with two main goals; to boost the economy and provide food to the hungry. First, the project will boost the Haitian economy by investing money in local farmers in the areas of Gonaives, located in the center of Haiti, and in areas around Cap-Haitien on the northern shore. Our goals are to eventually make the farmers self-sustainable by providing start up support and a buyer for their product (us). Over time we will decrease our investment as we establish buyers for their product.  These “buyers” will eventually be new businesses. By putting an increasing number of people back to work, we will aid in bettering their lifestyle and it will increase their purchasing power to further stimulate the local economies. Second, the food grown by these farmers and purchased by us will be distributed free through churches and clinics to the malnourished population of Haiti within these communities."

 Do I sound formal, adult-like, and clear? I'm so excited. I am also in the first steps to applying for a grant from SLU, its called the "Big Ideas Grant"... I have to attend various 'idea-developing' workshops throughout the year and then at the end I apply against other students for one of the two $2000 grants...wouldn't that be amazing to get this off the ground!

The name is still in the works; the working title is more descriptive of the project rather than being catchy or creative. The letter explains it so much better, maybe I should just put that up here? Isn't it more fun getting snail mail though?  (Its always refreshing to open something that is NOT a bill, growing up you never expected those things to come so often! My dad is currently laughing at me and incredibly thankful I am not saying that about credit card bills)

So, that is where a lot of my time has been invested (I suppose school work could be in there, too). Oh...AND, our friend, Tommy, is on a bowling league and asked Rachel and I to go with him one night. Somehow I offered to score that night (its a bowling alley from 1929 that hasn't changed...so theres NO automatic scoring). And since I could reference my handy-dandy Magnificat education where we learned to score bowling in gym, I leaped for the job ( because my ACTUAL bowling skills are definitely sub-par).  So, I am now on the team as an official scorer...

We got shirts.

From New Album 9/20/08 6:11 PM

The girls of the team (Me, Rach, Mary, and Cat)

And (obviously) the scorer would win the raffel that night.

[I look almost frightened (or frightening) by my excitement...]

From New Album 9/20/08 6:11 PM

Have a great day!!!

Super delayed post...

As I am planning my next trip to Haiti (yes, I am hooked.), I realize that I didn't put up a post to the WHOLE group that made my time so memorable there (other than the Haitian population itself). To the people that taught me what the game Dutch Blitz and Hilarity-Picto-Pass was, the people I played hours upon hours of 'Speed Uno' with, and the people that became my instant family. 2 months ago I was just getting ready to head to country I knew so little about and now I find myself missing those people and that experience daily....

I can never thank you enough!

Our 'old-school' family portrait...taken in Laura's bedroom. 

Using the multi-photo shoot mode on my camera, we didn't realize how fast it went. In the end, we broke Laura's bed while taking these pictures. Oops! 

We tried again with just the 5 of us on the day we left, we ran out of poses on this one. 

And our welcome home to the group from the last mobile clinic, we thought we were pretty funny.

Okay, that is all...

love.

Favorites: Family, Traveling, Sunny weather, the beach, reading...

Please note that physics and airports are not on the above list. And I think their revelance to this situation is in the opposite order. I am blessed to be able to fly at a very cheap rate because my Step-Mom works for the airlines, BUT, flying STAND-BY can be more a curse than a blessing at times. In needing to leave family vacation early to get home for my second Physics exam, I got kicked off the last flight out of Myrtle Beach airport. So, I am sitting here writing this, back in our condo, preparing to accept at 0% as my second test grade. At least I have the beach?

I'm not going to let this whole situation run me down, it's not worth it. I mean, I am stuck in 90 degree whether with a pool at my door, right? How much can I really complain?

On the front page of MSNBC.com today was an article about Haiti; Haiti food aid lags, hunger deepens

 Can you imagine starvation being a top killer in our world? It blows my mind. 

*Women carrying baskets on their head, a skill I know I could NEVER master. Seriously, get out a basket, put all your groceries in it, and try to walk even 10 feet. Then imagine doing it everyday! Quite the feat, huh?

 

The continental United States has so much to offer!

Phew! Traveling takes a lot out of you... money, energy, patience with crying children. I'm sure you're all familiar. I came home yesterday from a weekend in DC visiting Lauren and Susan, (Steph and Mel were there, too). That city is really spectacular, so much history. It's overwhelming really. And its even more overwhelming to come home and have to study for your first PhysicsII test, ugh. It is very nice to be finally sitting still. One of my favorite parts of Haiti was the day we got to climb a mountain. I challenge you now to go to the tredmill and put it on the maximum incline...then, imagine that doubled. I felt like I was scaling the mountain, not walking up it. And don't think for a second that coming down was easier, your legs were exhausted and you had to use every amount of control you could to muster to keep yourself from not falling forward down the path. It was called the Citadel, at the bottom was the Fort of Christof, the self-proclaimed "King of the North" in the early 1800's. The one thing we learned was that he killed himself with a silver bullet, before the French had the chance. Above, that is the castle where he lived and we hiked up to the Fort he was attempting to build--he's buried somewhere in there, no one knows where. Kind of creepy, right? There were just mountains everywhere, they never ended. The view was breathtaking. The little make shift hut there jutted out of the mountain--imagine being the guard who stood watch there. Comfy accomidations! The unbelievable part is that all the bricks had to be carried up there, individually, and I'm pretty positive they didn't have the paved path back then. Hiking in a skirt was not my finest moment, either, but it felt so good to get to the top. The fort was massive, equipped with canons everywhere you looked! (We really freaked out our tour guide when we all opted to pick up canonballs. When was the last time you had a chance to pick up a canon ball from the 1800's...I thought so.) The details in everything were so intricate. Too bad they never got to use the fort, it wasn't even officially completed! Beth was our daredevil, walking to all the edges and looking down. Even our tour guide felt uneasy with how close she got, on the other hand, Anna and I stayed at least 15 feet away from any major edges. Please note in the picture below, that is as close as we could get to the edge of the fort. Check out the view behind us, and imagine the cliff down! I'm not a baby, I'm cautious. (yes, I am highly encouraging you to look at the view...not me, or my outfit in these pictures.) As you can tell, I am having a lot of trouble getting these pictures well organized on here. They pick where they want to go and I am apparently forced to type around them. There were so many pictures from up there, even though my camera died about 3/4ths of the way through. I felt like I was on top of the world, a world with an infinite amount of lessons to teach me. To think I've been home for two weeks already and its still so fresh on my mind! Maybe its the Malaria pills, but I hope the touch of Haiti doesn't wear off any time soon... Love from wherever in the US I happen to be this week...

The people that keep you going...

My Team!

Randolph World Ministries, Inc

June 2008 Team (from 6/17-7/01)

(There were others on the team that left before I arrived)

Above is our serious picture, but it doesn't really capture our personalities well. From left to right...well, that's me, of course. Tim, Anna, Emily, Christine, Beth, Carly, Mary, and Christina. (Christina is Tim's daughter and will be a freshmen at SLU in the fall and Beth is my only other current SLU peer on the team.)

This picture is MUCH more descriptive of us. I made a poor 'funny face' decision upon the camera taking the picture, but you get the idea. 

My girls of Haiti. Emily, Carly, Anna, me, Christina, Laura, and Beth. [Counter clockwise starting with Emily in the blue skirt]

We all became really close and it was definitely difficult for us all to separate. 

Oh, and we CAN'T forget about SunMin. 

We maximized our free time. 

If you are looking for more at the bottom of this post, I've posted  few times today so be sure to read the rest below! I realized I took 600 pictures so its going to be difficult to put the good ones up in a coherent fashion...and blogspot creates difficulty in arranging my photos. Hopefully this little complication is figured out soon!! Oh, and feel free to comment now that there's more to comment on!)

Plethora of Preparations...

First off, I truly want to thank everyone for the support as I leave for Haiti. I am blessed with such amazing people in my life. As I am finally sitting down and thinking about the trip to come, it is the most reassuring feeling in the world to hear the words of encouragement and concern from so many of you. I promise you, sincerely, I will be careful. And as my handbook rec commends, every time I walk somewhere, I will walk like I know EXACTLY where I am going (I've been practicing) and I'll never go out alone. We have a (need I say) lengthy list of safety guidelines that I do plan to take seriously. So, I've done a few little things beyond my research to get ready... This week I took Bikram Yoga. It is a yoga class that takes place for 90 minutes in a ~105degree Fahrenheit room. Beyond being a class I have wanted to take for a long time, I felt it could give my body a taste of the heat it must endure for my two weeks without the luxury of our near-artic air conditioning temperatures. The experience was...well, insane. Yoga-goers take their practice very seriously, so beyond the million yoga-ettique rules (none of which I knew), there are also rules for the heat! Once the class starts, you can't leave (unless you are physically showing medical issues) and you are NOT aloud to wipe off any sweat. Let's just say after ten minutes you looked like you stepped out of pool and my body was asked to stretch in ways bodies definitely are not made to go. As death dangled before my eyes towards the end, but now, I am hooked. But I do hope for heat less than 105 in Haiti, and I HOPE they let me wipe the sweat (more their misfortune if they don't). (The picture on the left was my favorite pose...not only do I not know what I'm doing in the class but they explain it so fast!! Arms are swinging everywhere and all the sudden people are wrapped up like a pretzel. One, my short legs do NOT wrap like that and the arm thing made me realize that all my limbs are pretty lacking in Stretch-Arm-Strong capabilities. Ugh.) I assumed packing would pose my biggest dilema of all. If anyone has ever taken a trip with me (whether a week, weekend, or just a night), you have most likely realized that I struggle to fit everything into one bag; a syndrome deemed as 'chronic over-packing'. I am dumb-founded to discover that my 2 WEEKS worth of clothing fits nicely into two compact piles on one side of my duffel bag. But, the packing is not done by a long shot. I will tell you now that I have never (willingly) touched a bug in my entire life, (you think I am exaggerating) but the one time I dared to catch firefly's, I put socks on my hands. (Currently wondering why I would actually tell people that). Keeping that fact in mind, I have now had multiple warnings about the size of bugs I am on the brink of encountering... (insert face of terror here). So my excess space is filled with a multitude of bug repellent products, I'm even considering a mouse trap hearing about the size of these things. So, whether I'm ready or not, looks like I'll be facing my fear head-on. While I will not be able to blog, email, etc, during the trip, Mel got me my (as she named it) "Haiti Journal" to write down anything and everything through my stay, along with the book Mountains Beyond Mountains; The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder--the book was reccommended to me (and to all) by not only Mel but a few teachers from my high school. A blurb (to strike your interest) from the back states:

"In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life's calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most...Profound and powerful, Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes people's minds through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity"."

So, when I get back I'll add some of the parts of my journal along with the pictures to the blog. Thank you all again for all the kind words and thoughts. I am so looking forward to taking part in this and I look forward to sharing it with you when I get back. Have a wonderful two weeks, enjoy the end of June, and I'll see you in July. Much much love. (oh, and I encourage you all to comment (look under this line) but I'll add that again when the posts are more 'worth-while'.)

Second Post Jitters?

As expected, I failed on a second post but now is a better time than ever to give it a second shot...(yes, note my frustration)

I'm pretty dissatisfied with my firs

t post; somewhere between trying too hard and not wanting anyone to know that, I think I sound pretty dull. Thus, I have spent last the past few days contemplating giving up on this all together, but I'll push through (a sigh of relief, right?).  AT LEAST I will continue until after Haiti because my main purpose is to share my trip and I couldn't think of a better way to do it. 

Monday morning I am off at 6:30am to West Palm Beach Int'l Airport where I will meet one other member of our mission team (she has been there before, which has been a MAJOR help to me...) Tuesday morning we fly out of Ft. Pierce (in a little non-commercial airplane) and head to Haiti (not without a little 'pitstop' in the Bahamas first--maybe I'll just have them get me there on the return leg of the trip?!?) 

So in my anxiety/excitement/pure nervousness, I really have been doing my Haiti-homework. To briefly catch you up to speed (if you aren't a Haitian-expert), in 1804 they gained their independence from France, and were the first country to abolish slavery (fun fact). The main languages of the country are French and Creole (neither of which do I speak--Mags did not offer Creole and my foreign language skills ended the moment my Spanish requirements were filled... something I am now regretting). Haiti is the most underdeveloped/poverty stricken country in the western hemisphere (ranking 3rd in the world). 80% of the population lives under the poverty line, living on less than $1 a day [In my time home, I found myself trying to discuss these conditions with my siblings, apparently 9 year olds don't have a long attention span for my comparisons. Who knew.] 

Anyways, what will I be doing in Haiti? Honestly, I won't really have a full grasp on the specifics until I get down there--*Flexibility* is key to a smooth mission trip--but in a blanket statement from RWM (my mission group), the majority of our efforts are "to provide medical and laboratory supplies, laboratory training, on-site and email consultation, and free mass screening of patients associated with Bethesda Medical Center, a Christian operated clinic located in Vaudreuil, Haiti just outside Cap-Haiten" (north coast on the map). I will spend my first week at the Bethesda Medical Center and my second week I am going to the travel clinic in Limbe (a little south of Cap Haiten). Travel to this clinic involves a 2-3 hour drive until the road ends where we then walk 2-3miles over a mountain with the supplies to reach our destination (travel assistance provided by donkeys <--cool!) 

The conditions in Haiti are a slightly different than anything we could ever be used to. Anytime I leave where we are staying, I must be in a knee length skirt and short sleeve blouse. Shorts are not acceptable at all, and 'slacks' are not acceptable for women. There is no electricity at night so I will be left to the power of my flashlight and battery operated fan (my overactive sweat glands are going to LOVE Haiti), I bet you are excited for the pictures now! Regardless, this is going to be the experience of a lifetime, something I have wanted to do for a while now and I hope it is the first of many trips along these lines. We truly are so privileged and its our responsibility to not take that for granted when we have the chance. Okay, I'll get off my soap-box now. 

See you on July 3rd. ;) 

I must be upfront and honest, I have a strong aversion to talking on the phone. With that said, you can guess I am terrible at keeping up with communication, even with the most important people in my life. Face-to-face communication is more my thing and as many of you have come to learn, emails and texts seem to be my forte... or my demise depending on your stand point. I attribute my phone-talking phobia to my generation of AIM and digital correspondence, but rather than pointing blame, I would rather just say I am joining the blogosphere. Moving on...

2 weeks ago I finished what *should* be my most difficult year of undergrad, you could literally hear the mush that once was my brain sloshing around in my head. I did really well (phew!) because this year is truly the deal-breaker for pursuing medical school. 

Now I am home in Cleveland for another week before I leave for my mission trip in Haiti. I am going with Randolph World Ministries, Inc (a group founded by a teacher in my college) for two weeks to Cap-Haitian (on the northern coast) to work in a mobile clinic. The experience should be eye-opening, to say the least. The work that this group does there is astounding, I cannot do this organization justice in my own words, so I'll just give you the link and please take a look when you have a chance. (click on the name above!) 

I feel like this post could really lose your attention quickly, so I'll cut myself short for now. (As many of you know, my writing can be rather 'long-winded'...I'll warn you now!) But, there will be more on Haiti to come...

(I'm off to entertain those two little ones I call my sisters. 92 degree day and no pool open in site...its going to be interesting! Hannah turned 5 this week, impossible to believe, right?)