Travel to La Gonave

Lucson and Eriguer, two of my fellow training facilitators, enjoy yucca as our ferry is about to leave the port.

Steps to get to a training on La Gonave Island:

02:30 am Wake up since a truck has stopped outside with loudly-miked religious music (voudou). It stays there for about 20 minutes.

3:30 am I lift the heavy iron bar off from the outside gate of my lodgings (more Jane Austen) to let my co-facilitators in to pick up our training supplies.

3:40 am Wake up porter to lock the gate behind me. Leave hotel via pre-arranged taxi to the center of Cap Haitien.

3:45 am Taxi stops to pick up another few people along the way, so we are seven adults and one child in the car.

3:46 am The child sees me (it's dark) and says, "Blan!" (foreigner) I greet her with, "Bon jou." She doesn't respond, and her mother says, "She said 'Bon jou,' how to you respond? Come on, she said 'Bon jou.'" The girl looks at her mother and inquires, "In English?"

4:00 am Find our beautifully decorated (formerly yellow) school bus that is en route to Port-au-Prince. Using the light of our cell phones we find our assigned seats (three to a seat). While waiting, we can buy plantain chips, cell phone credit, water, etc.

5:00 am The bus roars out of town. At the top of a mountain someone calls for a bathroom break, so a bunch of people get off the bus (and go to the side of the bus). Um, this is why women tend to still travel in skirts even though in the past few years pants have become more acceptable. Since we're at a market, it's also a great opportunity to buy bananas, yucca, and peanuts from the vendors who come up to the windows.

10:30 am We yell at the driver to stop as we approach our destination, a port town. We yell again, until he finally stops. We get off and walk back to the port.

Enoch (the other facilitator) and me as we leave the "mainland."

11:00 am The ferry leaves. A man in a suit takes out a (miked!) megaphone and starts yelling at us that we need to accept Jesus today or we will die. He then gets into highly controversial doctrinal issues, all at a really high volume. People respond, argue back, etc. What I like best about all this is that the evangelist really resembles Chris Rock.


12:30 pm Arrive at La Gonave island. We can't reach our contacts by phone so we eventually decide to pay someone to take us in the back of his pickup truck to town.

3:00 pm Start the training for 16 participants who represent about eight different organizations!

Bayeux Clinic

A few days ago I went to the Bayeux Clinic. This formerly self-sufficient clinic sustained damage in the January earthquake, as well as other damage from initially poor construction. They have received donations for reconstruction, including from my sending church, Epic Christian. Above you can see that they are already moving ahead. A contractor from a church in the neighboring Dominican Republic has made several trips to the site to advise them and work with the construction workers.

Here is a picture of what will be the new storage facility for the pharmacy, on top of the laboratory. The old storage facility was too damaged to be saved.

I hope to go out here every week or two to assist the (very capable!) nurse auxiliaries. My medical knowledge is sure to come back rapidly with the wide variety of cases they have there. On our way back to Cap Haitien we took a woman with severe pre-eclampsia to the "big city" hospital.

Above is the Cap Haitien office of Medical Ambassadors Haiti in action: Evelyn, Anias, Enoch, and Lucson. I'm here when I'm not traveling -- it's on the same site as my lodgings, which is awfully handy!

Next week I'll be at a Training of Trainers 1 we're facilitating for an organization on the island of La Gonave. If you look at this map you'll see both Cap Haitien and La Gonave -- it's the big island in between the two "arms" of Haiti. If you zoom in you can even see Bayeux, on the north coast (written "Bayeau, " it's on the coast west of Cap Haitien). This should be a great opportunity for more language learning!

Leaving

My sister (seen here on Skype on my computer) has been a huge help in preparing electronically for my move.

I arrived in Arizona today for a couple of days to meet with my pastor and be prayed over by my church before leaving for Haiti. My host so kindly said, “Welcome home – well, I don’t know if you consider this home, but we think of it as your home.” Buenos Aires feels like home. Lots of cities in the US feel like home. But today, unsure if I’m returning to Argentina, that’s where my heart turns.

I was listening to “I Can Only Imagine” when I started writing this note (and started crying). That song, seen in a Hebrews 11:16 light, is sort of about homecoming. Now “Be Thou My Vision” is on as I unpack, so many of my things reminding me of my friends in different places. But the prayer of this song is that God would give us true vision. It reminds me of church last Sunday, when we sang (in Spanish, of course), “Precious Jesus, my redeemer, beloved Lord, you are everything to me, I will worship you every day of my life.” I was crying then, too, since I was declaring those truths with my words. Declaring that God is faithful, and worthy of being followed, even though that means leaving people that I really love, yet again. Leaving a city and a country where I feel at home, where I have loved ones, where I know how to get around and where to get what I need, and am able (most of the time, anyway!) to get potable water out of the sink.

Nicole and Tim, my fabulous hosts in Arizona! Here they are on "make your own pizza" night, yum!

On the positive side, over the past few years I have realized that my heart is capable of more love than I ever thought possible. Six dear friends came to see me off at the airport. I miss them already.

My three buddies in Arizona. I was honored to get to borrow the Superman cape during my stay!

Peru -- food!

This post is about FOOD! There is lots to say about Peruvian food, from 2500 varieties of potatoes to omnipresent Chinese restaurants. Here are a few pictures:

This is a really large amount of food!!!! Audra (in pink) and I shared -- with lots of leftovers --the pachamanca you see in front of her, but it really is for one person. In addition to three kinds of meat (no guinea pig, although it was served there) there were several kinds of potatoes, fava beans, and a sweet corn mush inside the corn husk wrappings. The drink you see is "purple chincha," and there was also a "fermented yellow chincha" at the other end of the table.


A Peruvian potato dish: served at a local restaurant with a Veggie Tales tablecloth!

Ceviche: raw fish "cured" with lemon/lime juice.

This is a rough and tough tri-vehicle (tee-hee!) seen on the streets of Huancayo on our way to a restaurant.

I don't remember the name of this fruit, but it's really strange-looking inside! It tasted yummy, though -- one eats the gray seeds and the gelatinous goo surrounding them.

Peru -- training!

Marco (a Peruvian colleague) and I facilitated a Training of Trainers 1 (TOT1) in Huancayo, Peru, for two different mission organizations.

We split up into small groups frequently. Above one mission organization is discussing future plans.
Here's another way of working with small groups: the group above is trying to put in chronological order the steps to implementing Community Health Evangelism (CHE).

Above is a skit: we frequently do a river-crossing drama to illustrate the differences between relief, betterment, and development. In this part of the skit Paul has "hurt" his back carrying Rocio to the island in the middle of the river (relief), so he has no choice but to teach Karen how to cross (betterment going towards development). Then he leaves, and Karen teaches Rocio how to finish crossing the river (multiplication).

And here is a view of the mountains we crossed going from Lima (Pacific coast) to the high valley where Huancayo is located. I've read different estimates, but it appears we got up to nearly 16,000 feet (5000 m). Huancayo is just under 11,000 feet (3300 m).

Future Plans

I've spent the past few weeks preparing for two big events:

1) Training of Trainers 1 in Huancayo, Peru! Two mission organizations have requested Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training there. A Peruvian missionary, who is already using CHE in another part of the country, will facilitate this five-day training with me at the end of August.

2) Move to my temporary assignment in Haiti! In mid-September I will arrive in Cap Haitian, the second-largest city in Haiti. This northern city is also the headquarters for Medical Ambassadors Haiti, and the four Haitian facilitators who are the core of this team have invited me to work alongside them for six months. I'll spend the first few months learning the language and accompanying the team to trainings and site visits, while I also take advantage of my English skills and work on project proposals and continuing relationships they've begun with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Some of the people with whom I'll be working. The woman in the yellow t-shirt is Mme. Grimard, one of the four facilitators with Medical Ambassadors Haiti.

I'm to travel to Port-au-Prince monthly. There were two CHE programs there before the earthquake which are still trying to recover. There are also lots of pastors and NGOs who are looking for ways to move from relief to development and we want to be available to work with anyone who is interested in using the CHE tools.

Since so many of the Haiti CHE programs are involved with local clinics, one way that I will be able to help is with my medical skills, both in consulting and working alongside the nurse auxiliaries. Please pray for me about this: I haven't practiced medicine for three years and although I saw a few malaria cases in the States I have mostly only read about tropical medicine -- 13 years ago in the first year of medical school!

This is a great hand-washing system that we teach: there is a stick this man is stepping on which tips the bottle so that a small stream of water comes out. Soap is hanging next to the bottle, protected from rain by a plastic cup. This particular "tipitap" is right next to the latrine at the Bayeux clinic.

On the road again

We had meetings in Baradero on Friday and Saturday and I asked them to sing the national anthem since their national holiday was celebrated that week!

And above is a fun picture of everyone getting supper ready.


I had all day yesterday in the Dominican Republic and got to accompany Bibiana, my supervisor. We left Santiago at 6:15 am and went to Santo Domingo to say "hi" to the Compassion International staff. Following that we had a meeting with a Dominican pastor whose denomination wants to help in Haiti. Above you see part of our afternoon meeting with the CHE committee in Cambitas, Dominican Republic, along with a group of Canadian youth.

Yay! I met Flor in 2008 at the Nicaraguan internship, and Paula last March. What a joy to see these beautiful women again! They both work with CHE here in the Dominican Republic.