Archive for May, 2010
Return home to Hawaii from Haiti with TCMCH
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Standing at an internet kiosk in the LA airport at 4 in the morning, on my way home from Haiti.
It was a good feeling to have accomp0lished what we went for: providing treatments and a training. The reality is, of course, that this was just a drop in the bucket of what’s needed: infrastructure, healthcare, education . . .
The fact that we were able to go without much more than experience, materials, and intention, and then hit the ground running was largely due to a little organization called Grass Roots United. We’d heard about them from a couple of other ngo’s working locally. GRU connected us with other people and organizations who were able to help get our ball rolling, and did so with a competence and good cheer that was almost disorienting in a place where even basic tasks can seem insurmountable.
Our NADA training finished on Thursday, and in the end we certified 24 people; among them were doctors, nurses, medical students, and some very dynamic community organizers. We have a memorandum 0f understanding with a local foundation that is to act as our local umbrella, and we’ll see where it all goes from there.
Saturday we finally managed to catch up with Acupuncturists Without Borders in Leogane, where AWB has a treatment site at Mon Petit Village. Leogane is about 18 miles out of Port-au-Prince, or 2 hours through creepy-crawly traffic and over rough and tumble roads. Leogane was near the earthquake’s epicenter, and consequently had a lot of damage, so the drive out was both horrifying and beautiful. Horrifying for the crumbled and flattened buildings lining the seaside road, and beautiful for the long stretches of farmland, palms and mango trees stretching into rolling green hills.
It was great to see the AWB team in action, and absolutely wonderful to receive treatments from the team. Sally, Helen, Dina and Joseph had come for from all over the US to provide treatments through AWB, so it was nice to hear how their various paths led them to Haiti, and to have some acupuncture shop talk.
Afterward we stopped off at a private beach, which means pay-to-enter through a gate marked “interdit aux armes a feu” or “no guns allowed” which – as we had cause to know – was a good and relevant rule. There were scads of Haitians playing soccer, having picnics, and enjoying the water. It was enormously refreshing to take a boat ride on the azure waves, and feel some ocean breezes after all the diesal fumes and smoky particulates we’d been inhaling over the past few weeks. We relaxed to the slap of the waves on the hull, watching a lightning show over the distant hills, and eating shellfish cooked on the beach and soaked in hot pepper and lime juice.
On our way home we drove through downtown Port-au-Prince. I’d seen TV coverage of the post Jan 12th city, but the devastation is still jaw-dropping. Whole blocks are little more than rubble, with bits of car poking out from under great slabs of cement. Vast tent cities stretch across all available land, squeeze between buildings and down the middle of major roads, and the governmental buildings like the National Palace looked like fallen wedding cakes, all white tilts and crumbles.
Haiti was and is a challenge. Beth and I are circumspect about creating new treatment and training sites, as it implies a commitment to ongoing support for each new project. I’m hoping, and will work to assure that we can sustain the project we’ve begun here, and that the seeds of these past two weeks will grow into something useful for the Haitian people, who are graceful, resilient, and surely deserve better than what recent and distant history have delivered them.
I’ve already begun receiving e-mails of thanks from some of those we trained and treated on this trip, and through them see that the seeds are sprouting.
2nd day of NADA training in Haiti
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010Just a quick note this Wednesday morning – I’m thrilled to have actually posted successfully, as the constant comedy and tragedy of errors here have prevented me from doing much on line so far.
Beth and I are on our 2nd day of NADA training. We’ve had a stellar turnout, with 26 people gathering from various agencies & organizations to learn the technique. Most are medical students from a couple of Port-au-Prince medical schools, nurses and doctors, but there’s also an actress/singer, a journalist, and the head of a local ngo.
We started yesterday, and Monday we joined Dr. Decker at yet another tent city; this one perched on a hillside in seeming defiance of gravity. Beth and I were thrilled to have a tin shack church to work in, with rickety wooden school desks and 2X4s stretched across seat-less chairs, and plastic roof stretched over raw timber - by far the most ideal treatment space we’ve had so far. In five hours we were able to treat over 230 people, and as usual it amazes me how easily people “get” this protocol. Midway through the day we felt a small earthquake, and before it had even registered in my mind, most of our patients were on their feet and on their way out the door. The after effects of the January 12th earthquake run deep and strong in these people.
Haiti relief
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010The Naturopath International team left this morning, except for Decker, who just arrived yesterday. He was already out in the field today (Sunday) and treated around 100 people by himself.
We’ve spent the last few days working at a small-ish camp here in Belvil, continuing to treat in all our various modalities. There is a woman who heads up a local ngo overseeing this and other camps, and she has taken us under her wing, helping us to network, transport, and arrange. Through her we have finalized our training plans for this week. It sounds as if we will have doctors, nurses, and community “animators” participating, and possibly over 20 trainees. It’s curious to work with so many unknowns, as we have to stay very flexible and follow all possibilities until things lock in.
To this end, Beth and I took a motorcycle taxi across town on Friday to attend a meeting of the animators at Haiti Response Coalition. In retrospect, this was probably the most foolhardy thing we’ve done so far, as moto taxis are notoriously dangerous. My inner adolescent was thrilled at the many near death experiences, however, and the exhilaration and the views were amazing. I think my ribs may still be bruised from where Beth was holding on to me, and we both thought this form of transportation would put the thigh-master exercise tool out of business.
On our return from that meeting our driver took an alternate route to avoid afternoon traffic and we ended up rising into the hills and riding along the rims of the hills around Port-au-Prince for views that were both beautiful and horrifying. We saw a lot more destruction of homes in all kinds of areas, from tenements to fancy skyline neighborhoods, but there were also incredible views of green hillsides staggering away into the distance.
Last night our new patroness picked up our little team in a convoy of Hummers and SUVs, and drove us out to a fancy hotel for a buffet meal, to thank us for the work we’ve been doing in her foundation’s camps. Haiti continues to impress me with its dichotomous nature and unpredictability.
I was able to reach the Acupuncturists Without Borders team this afternoon (they arrived in Haiti yesterday), though we were talking on cell phones through a thunderstorm and it sounded like Sally, my contact, was standing in traffic, so it was still challenging to actually communicate. We’re hoping to meet up with them on Friday or Saturday, as it would be nice to tag team with some other acupuncturists.
I’m hoping to post these last two entries tomorrow morning, but I’ve been forestalled in my efforts to post from Haiti so far. Today we walked up to a restaurant to wait for the cyber café to open (it being Sunday it opens late), had grilled chicken, rice & beans, fried plantains, and what Beth calls ‘hot slaw’ which is very like cole slaw but has super spicy peppers in it. While we ate we watched the Latin dance lessons being given in the little restaurant, and when we finally got back to the – now open – cyber café, they had sent someone to get gas for the generator and didn’t know when they’d actually have computers or connections available. So we came home and watched lightning streak across the sky, putting buckets under the eaves to catch the rain.
Haiti for 36 hrs now
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010We’ve been in Haiti now for almost 36 hrs, although it surely feels longer than that. I met up with Beth and the Naturopaths International team in Florida and we took a 2 hr flight over the blue Atlantic & what seemed an ocean full of islands to this one. Haiti is hot and humid, but not yet rainy. The airport felt like many other tropical little airports, but as soon as we stepped out of the front gates (personned by Haitian police, UN peacekeepers and others), there is quite literally a crush of humanity, vehicles, diesel fumes, rubble and lots of color. There’s a lot here to remind me of francophone West Africa, from the market women carrying wares on their heads to the French road signs to the kamikaze traffic flow. There is also a distinctly Haitian flavor, however. Although the music I’ve heard so far incorporates the rhythms I was used to in Togo, there is an undeniably Caribbean influence also. We are very fortunate to be staying with the family of Firlande, one of the Naturopaths on the team, whose mother preceded us here and is overseeing the cooking for our large group, and keeping us in towels and toilet paper.
Although it’s quite a nice neighborhood, there still hasn’t been more than five hours of electricity a day, and the lack of infrastructure in Port au Prince can be felt even here. Nonetheless, it’s been a terrific bastion for us to come home from long days to hearty meals and friendly folks. Our first few days have been spent at a tent camp behind Matthew 25, run by a Catholic Sister. There are (I think) over a thousand people in the camp, and it’s really pretty nice – very clean, a water filtering station, lots of ngo’s coming in to provide services. It’s still a tent camp though, with back to back tents (some of those provided through the efforts of Sean Penn, I hear) and lots of people in every public space.
Acupuncturists Without Borders gave me the introduction here, and –as in all places we have visited that they have preceded us – people smile to remember their acupuncture treatments. Beth and I have done over 150 treatments in the last two days, and the NI team is doing homeopathy, hydro, acupuncture, minor surgery, and have some supplements for use w/ all the infections we were seeing. We haven’t seen a lot of recent trauma, but there are certainly a lot of people with amputations, and it is still a bit shocking to see a 13 year old who – up until 3 months ago – was playing soccer and chasing her siblings now getting used to crutches. We haven’t been a lot of places, but I haven’t seen any prosthetics yet.
Today we’re touring other camps, and Beth and I are still looking for the venue where we can do a training. We are getting lots of help in this direction from Grass Roots United, who operates as a hub for ngos to network and apply themselves. They’ve just moved down next to the airport where they will build some model housing using appropriate technology, and one of our team, who is a US contractors, is consulting with them on building methods.