Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Trip to Haiti

I went to Haiti last month to accompany my coordinator: we visited several different CHE villages and also held a refresher course for CHE trainers from 35 different communities. If you've ever been to Haiti, you know that traveling there is a challenge. We noticed a flat tire on our arrival to Terre Blanche, a village that has started using CHE. Our driver put on the spare while we met with the trainers. Shortly after leaving the village, we got another flat! The driver hailed a passing motorcyclist and took the two tires to "nearby" Gonaives.

We waited by a river in the shade: below you see Madame Grimard (facilitator with Medical Ambassadors Haiti), me, and Bibiana (my coordinator) as I served Argentine mates to the three of us.


Some of the kids who'd been playing in the river came to see us. Renee, a Canadian from Partners International who'd come with us, took some great pictures which they loved to look at. Later (we were there for hours), Madame Grimard played games with the kids.

Two days later we stopped at the town of Ennery on our way to a training in Gonaives. After visiting several CHE homes (where Madame Grimard verified that all latrines had covers in place!) we met with the CHE trainers and several CHE workers. Walking back to the vehicle we met the husband of a CHE worker who had significant pain. Bibiana mentioned that I am an osteopathic physician, so I got to do some hands-on work!

We spent the next few days in Gonaives with 45 trainers from 35 different villages. Below is a photo taken during the morning's study on Philippians.

I facilitated two lessons: the first one taught a game that they can use to identify skills in the community, the second about growth monitoring of children (lots of kids are malnourished).

In the picture above you can see both the "problem tree" and the "solution tree" that we teach the trainers to teach their committees. The problem dealt with above is the lack of immunized children in the communities.


A bus drove many of us back to Cap Haitian, and there was a lot of hymn-singing along the way, which was lovely. However, since the "road" is mountainous, with lots of twists and turns, there was also some vomiting (not so great)! Again, traveling there may not always be smooth, but appears to never be boring!