Further Thoughts/Observations on America

-People LOVE to talk about the weather and look it up constantly. I remember making this observation when I came back from Guinea, when it seemed particularly strange given I had only had to worry about a wet season and a dry season for two years. I think what's more impressive to me now is knowing that it is possible to actually get an accurate weather forecast in this country. I'm not sure why people bother looking at the weather in Britain, because 50% of the time it's wrong. I think the BBC weather people just have a wheel somewhere with every single possible forecast on it, they spin it every day, and report it as fact. Either that or they just guess.
-It's true, Americans are loud. But they're also really friendly.
-I love love love customer service. And I think the US might have the best in the world (except the USPS. See earlier post from today).
-New York and London are very different cities. 
-I'm sorry New York, but I don't think you've got anything on London. Certainly not your subway system, that's for sure. Although your buses seem to come more frequently, so that's nice. But they're not double deckers and red. So, a tie, I think.
-There is lots of stuff to buy in the US and lots of choice. Which, this time around, I'm mostly just happy about, rather than scared and disgusted about (post Guinea). There is nothing you can't find in this country! Au Bon Pain and Starbucks, keep up the good work with your little snack thingies. They're just what I was craving!

India Update

I'm still out here. Things have been pretty hectic since I've been back, which always seems to be the case no matter how long I'm home for. I'm currently in NYC attempting to get a visa for India. Because yes, I'm going to India the day after Christmas for a month. I only found out recently, however, that one's passport must be valid for 6 months from the date of entry into India, and since mine expired on May 22nd, 2011, that wasn't going to work. So I had to do a last minute expedited passport renewal, which still didn't leave me with enough time to do my visa application by mail, meaning I would have to do it in person at the consulate in NY. I already had plans to be in NYC (for the second time in two weeks) with my parents, so I decided I would redirect my passport to be delivered to a friend's house and just stay down longer and do it in person. No dice. The first time I called to redirect the passport I was too early, and the second time I called I was too late. Annoying. So my mom sent me my new passport yesterday to arrive today before noon. Well at noon I was down in the lobby of the friend's apartment where I was staying and there was no passport. After a minor freakout on the phone to the USPS, I was walking out of the building at 12:35 on my way to meet a friend for lunch, only to meet the postman in the lobby with my passport. He said to me, "Oh yeah, I had that earlier and forgot to drop it off!" and chuckled as though that was funny. I told him, "You're killing me! I've been waiting for this all morning!" to which he said, "Oh, really? Sorry." I don't think it had occurred to him that people pay extra money for things to be GUARANTEED before noon because they actually want it before noon. And before noon I mean, like, 9am is when I would have liked it.

I ran back upstairs to fill out the Indian visa application on-line and to make an appointment to go in and drop it off. Imagine my surprise when I saw there wasn't an appointment available until Friday afternoon. And you can't drop it off without an appointment. Rather than crying I pretended the problem didn't exist and went out to lunch with a friend from college who I hadn't seen since, I think, we graduated. Good times. When I got back to the apartment I looked again and was able to reschedule my appointment to a time that had opened up on Thursday. Better than Friday, but still not tomorrow like I'd planned on.

Soon after I checked my email and saw I had received an automated one telling me that my package had been delivered today at 11:56am. Which we all now know is not what happened. And meant that I wouldn't be able to get my money back because in their system it says delivered before noon. So that meant I got to freak out some more to random people on the phone who did not care and eventually was given the privilege of leaving a message on some random person's voicemail. I was still steaming about the whole situation when the guy from the voicemail actually called me back and actually seemed to be as concerned as I was about the whole situation. He said he'll investigate and call me tomorrow, and for some reason I believe him. We'll see how that turns out.

So that's the play by play of today's drama. I can't wait to see what else is coming. Taking care of the logistics of going to India has been a lot more stressful and time consuming than I'd ever imagined! I know, I know - it's good practice for India. I was just hoping that the Indian frustrations could wait until India. Oh well.

I'll be in Mumbai for about a week and will then travel up north to the Western Himalayas with a friend from London for another week-ish. Once he leaves I'll have about two weeks on my own with no plans! I'm a bit freaked out about that part, but feel confident that I'll meet fellow travelers and/or will figure something out. I fly back to the US on January 25th and then need to sort my life out. I have no idea what that will end up meaning and am hoping that I somehow get a better idea of where I'd like to be next and what I'd like to be doing. The US, Haiti, somewhere totally random? I have no idea. Cast your votes along with your amazing job opportunities for me.

Notes On Being Home

I made it back to Boston on Wednesday night. My flights went incredibly smoothly as did pretty much all aspects of the trip. All of my stuff made it home, I didn't have to pay any extra baggage fees (despite all of my bags being overweight) and I got all of my souvenirs back, despite some of them being large and awkwardly shaped (I did get to put all of my stuff through the metal detector on the way out of customs because of that). And during my four hour layover I even ran into a friend from PaP and a RPCV from Guinea, so we grabbed some dinner together which was nice in helping to kill a little time. Here, in no particular order, are some of my thoughts/observations on being back in the US:

-It is very, very cold here. I came inside two hours ago and still haven't taken off my down coat.
-Being able to drink the water that comes out of the tap makes brushing your teeth a much less daunting task.
-Having reliable and nearly unlimited hot water makes showering amazing.
-The air here is DRY!!! My skin started freaking out more and more the closer we got to Boston even on the plane. It remains very, very dry.
-After not having been sick in a long time I have already caught and gotten over a cold. In about 48 hours.
-Being able to effortlessly communicate with strangers is great.
-People like to make cholera jokes.
-People assume my experience in Haiti was awful and horrendous.
-I don't crave American food post-Haiti like I did every time I visited from London. I ate like a king in Haiti whereas in London....well, it was a bit more difficult.
-Fast internet is great.
-Being able to walk around freely is great.
-Having to worry about what would happen if I got hit by a bus tomorrow because I don't have health insurance in the US is not great and is not something I think anyone should ever have to worry about. Score one for the NHS. Get it together, USA.
-Seeing friends and family again and knowing I have more than 2 weeks to cram all of my visits in with people is really nice.
-Watching the Patriots games at home is awesome!!!
-I have a very, very supportive fan base at home. And I feel very lucky for that.

I'll add onto the list as things come to me. But for my first 48 hours at home I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm hoping to finalize some tickets to India in the next few days, so wish me luck. I'm very excited at the prospect of this trip.

If you're in the home area, get in touch! I have the same old phone number as usual.

The Lodge

Last weekend some friends and I went about an hour up the mountain from our house to a place called "The Lodge." In its hey-day (probably the 70s?) I think it was the place to hang out if you were an upper-class Haitian. Today I doubt that it has changed much since then (certainly the decor hasn't), but it seems to be mostly an expat hangout now. Although it's only an hour away (closer than the beach!), it does feel as though you're entering another world. It was cold and foggy and there are pine trees. More Maine or New Hampshire than Haiti.

A round church we passed on our walk

Heather with a bit of a view

The next day some of Heather's friends came up to join us and we took a HIKE to a waterfall. We were tricked by our Haitian guides (who were children) who said it was 10 minutes away. We never actually made it to any waterfall, after much more than 10 minutes, and eventually gave up and just drank wine on the side of the mountain. It was very pretty.

Our "guides"

Hiking

This weekend we had plane tickets to go to Cap Haitien for a long weekend/vacation. And then people decided to riot and they closed the airport and we couldn't go. Sucks. So now we're in PaP. Where I'm very, very bored. I'm looking forward to going back to the US where there is more to do than just drink and eat in expensive restaurants.

Photos from Today

With my departure date two weeks from today (YAY!) I'm beginning to realize just how few pictures I've taken since I've been here. Justine and I were out in the field today in Carrefour, so I tried to be purposeful in taking some pictures. Here is a random selection.

This picture did not capture the crowd of kids I had hanging off of me the whole time in this camp very well (they're all the way at the end there), but it gives you an idea of how close together the tents are, so I left it in.

A random restaurant in Petionville I noticed today for the first time.

Rubble porn, I like to call it.

A mode of transport, and Justine's niece's name (Daphne)

Trash and rubble. These piles do occasionally get cleared.

 

A drive-by shot from the car of a camp.

 Until recently this structure had plants growing out of those containers on the left hand side of the second floor balcony.

U

Heading up a big hill to a camp. The contrast in the kids' reactions to us between this camp and the one on the main road (the first picture above) was pretty funny. Obviously not a lot of white people make it up this hill, because we had a lot of kids running, screaming, and crying when they saw us.

But not these kids who gladly posed for me while carrying pieces of cement on their heads.

 The view on the way back down the big hill.

End of Campaign Pictures

On the last day of Justine's spraying campaign I bought some party hats and noise makers to give to the staff so we could surprise her and the drivers (who had been working like crazy for three weeks straight) when they got in. It was hilarious. Below are some of the pictures and videos. Enjoy.

Justine and Henri pulling into the driveway.

Djerry got really into decorating

Jonas and Djerry, two of the too cool for school drivers in their party hats.

Some of the team at the front entrance to the office/house

Pictures from the balcony as it got dark

Justine with the hideous plaque one of her teams gave her. And a much needed bottle of wine.

Notice the pump on the plaque and the real pumps in the background.

Nope, the picture isn't fuzzy, that's the actual writing on the plaque.

Futurama

So Tomas turned out to be pretty uneventful for us, here in our house. We saw more and heavier rain once Tomas had actually left than during the hurricane itself. Overall the capital was spared from the high winds predicted, but there was major flooding in some of the areas already hit hardest by the earthquake. Leogane, where my mother and her nursing friends are going in January to treat patients, saw heavy flooding (see a map here). There is a photo from the BBC's website here. More concerning is that cholera has been confirmed in PaP. This is definitely not good news, but it's also not as though this hadn't been predicted. The good news is that it might be easier to get to people with enough time to treat them and to have the supplies more readily available to treat them in the capital than up country. The bad news is that there are more people living in crowded, unhygienic conditions than up country. If you're wondering what, exactly, all this cholera stuff is about, check out the CDC's very useful and easy to understand website.

My organisation has no plans to do anything cholera related. That's not "what we do" and we don't have any supplies or money to be of any help anyway. This is when it is a shame to be such a focused organisation (malaria and dengue fever prevention in humanitarian crises) because it leaves you feeling a bit helpless and silly being so focused when there is clearly a much bigger, more urgent need right in front of your face.

As horrible as it is to say, though, I'm feeling a bit checked out of it all. I reached my boiling point of frustration long ago with this organisation and have now passed the point of no return when it comes to re-finding my motivation, I think. The fact that we never received a single email about cholera or the hurricane (even to ask if we had done any preparation or if we were ok after the fact) has led me to believe that they've forgotten they even have a program in Haiti. We could set ourselves on fire to get their attention and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't notice. My contract is up with them on the 24th. I fly in to Boston around 10pm the night before Thanksgiving (if all goes according to plan, which I'm sure it won't) and as of now have not even been asked if I want to stay with them. In fact, none of the three of us has. That's probably because they forgot we're still here.

Anyway. Unless they beg me (and pay me really well) I don't anticipate coming back to Haiti with them. At most it would be about 2 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas to hand over to someone else, but since there's no way they'll have someone hired by then, I don't think that's happening. It will be sad to leave our national staff. They LOVE each other, are such a great team, and have worked hard together. Even when us expats have been at each others' throats, the national staff continue to have the best time together and to come to work every day with smiles on their faces. Some of our drivers, I'm pretty sure, would take a bullet for us. So that will be difficult and if I do return to Haiti with another organisation I already know I will most likely be disappointed with a new national staff. I will not, however, miss this job even a little bit.

My plan in my head right now is this: go home to Boston and be there until Christmas. Maybe work a short temp job for some money, maybe just hang out. The day after Christmas hopefully fly out to India where a friend from London is getting married. I've never been to India and, really, how many times in my life will I have the opportunity to attend an Indian wedding in India? I'm going with one. I have another good friend in Bangladesh, so between India and Bangladesh and maybe some other countries on that continent I am hoping to be gone and travel around for 4 - 5 weeks. THEN, depending on how I'm feeling, I might look into coming back to Haiti with a different organisation, hopefully more sexual and reproductive health focused.

But that's the plan in my head. We'll see what actually transpires. If anyone has some amazing opportunities out there for me, do tell! I like Haiti a lot, although PaP is starting to get a bit dull, now that I've visited pretty much all of the restaurants multiple times. There's no movie theatre or bowling alley or anything, so you basically end up eating a lot, drinking a lot, getting fat, and spending a lot of money. Having the opportunity to travel more outside of PaP for work could be a solution for me, but I'm not sure how feasible that is. So I will put out some feelers before I go, but also want to see how I feel about returning after some time away (and no paycheck).

Speaking of travelling more outside of PaP...for the two weekends we have left in Haiti we've made plans to get out of PaP. Dieu merci. I've only left ONCE in four months, so it's definitely time. I don't want to have been here for four months and only have seen Jacmel, the touristy beach town. Hopefully it all works out, and if so I'll post pictures.

Hope to see many of you over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and maybe in between as well.

Tomas Update

Well, I don't want to jinx it, but so far this hurricane has mostly just been boring. I haven't seen so much as a gust of wind and it has mostly just been light but somewhat steady rain since early last night. I didn't sleep very well, though, so I know that it didn't even rain throughout the entire night. I don't know how the Western side of the island is fairing since they'll probably bear the brunt of it, but at least they weren't really affected by the earthquake or the cholera. Internet was patchy last night, but today has been ok. There was even hot water for a shower last night. So I can't really complain. Geraldine and I attempted to play the game we bought in the grocery store for 130 gourdes (less than $5) last night, Topple, but she didn't really believe my explaining of the rules and thought I was cheating, so we mostly just drank pina coladas that I made in the blender.

So we're fine, but will wait until all is said and done to hear about how people in the camps faired. I'm selfishly hoping this rain clears up in time for some sun this weekend.

Rock Me Like a Hurricane

Actually, please don't.

Two postings in one day, I know! But I've been getting questions and comments about the hurricane heading our way, so I thought I would write. Yes, as of now Tomas is headed straight for us and is due to hit Friday, from what I understand. Although it has been downgraded to a tropical storm, last I heard it was likely that it could strengthen into hurricane status again by the time it reaches Haiti.

I'm not sure that I can appropriately convey just how much Haiti doesn't need this right now. I, personally, will be fine. I went to the posh expat grocery store today and stocked up on my canned foods, alcohol, and lighters. I might die of boredom if the electricity goes off for a while, but I'll be fine. I wish I could say the same for the people in the camps. Where are they supposed to go? Yes, there are some hurricane shelters that some people will be evacuated to which will help to keep them physically safe, but then what? These people already lost everything in the quake, and now what little they've managed to find for themselves over the last ten months could very possibly all be swept away again in this hurricane. Even if it's not a full blown hurricane, all it would take is some flooding and high winds to destroy most of what people in the camps have: their cobbled together shelters (usually consisting of some combination of actual tents, tarps, pieces of wood, and metal sheeting), buckets for bathing and washing clothes/dishes, some clothes, blankets, maybe some donated items like mosquito nets or mattresses, and the random refrigerator, freezer, or tv (often used to generate income). Keep in mind that many of these materials used to build makeshift shelters become deadly projectiles in high winds. I just don't know how much more the Haitian population can be asked to take. I think they've already shouldered more than their fair share of hardship this year alone.

And to add insult to injury, any amount of flooding will most definitely make the cholera situation worse. This BBC article does a good job describing the potential consequences. If the NGO community and the Haitian MOH did a good job preventing the cholera from spreading to the camps in PaP, Tomas could quite easily undo all of that in less than a day. It's really a huge concern and I am just bracing for impact.

So please, whatever you do (pray, cross your fingers, anti-hurricane dances), please do it a lot for Haiti in the next 36 hours. Haiti could really use a break right about now. And please continue to donate to the charity of your choice, as after the potential damage from Tomas, most will probably be able to use it.

Thanks for reading.

SGMD

Last Wednesday night I was over at a friend's house who happens to have satellite television. The idea of watching live television coming straight from America is very exciting to us, let me tell you. While flipping through the many channels we came across CNN and Anderson Cooper told us that a report on the cholera situation in Haiti by Dr. Sanjay Gupta was coming up. Apparently I've been out of the US for too long, because I had no idea who this dude was, but Justine and Brian were excited. Brian said he had heard earlier in the day that Dr. Sanjay was going to fly in to do a report.

Watching the report, frankly, just pissed me off. I started to wonder if Dr. Sanjay had ever stepped foot in a developing country before, never mind one with a cholera outbreak. I know I had not, until now, and I can't imagine I would have ever be so presumptuous as to be as judgmental of efforts to curb the epidemic as he sounded. And I thought it was pretty rich that after having flown in THAT AFTERNOON (and probably flying back out that night) that he comes in and talks about how preventable this outbreak was and how warehouses are still stocked with supplies that could be used, etc. I thought he was completely condescending and was doing the typical American media fear mongering thing. And then Anderson Cooper jumped in! Anderson! Shame on you. I expect better from you.

At one point SGMD (Yup, that's what his segment on CNN is called. How lame.) interviewed a guy in a blue shirt who had actually spoken earlier in the day at a health cluster meeting I attended. I believe he works for PAHO. At the meeting he was very impressive and looked very tired (along with all of his colleagues) who no doubt have been working beyond overtime and losing countless hours of sleep in their efforts to stop this epidemic and to stop it from spreading to PaP. Dr. Sanjay made this poor guy look like an idiot, unfairly, I thought, especially since this guy's first language is definitely not English. Dr. Sanjay clearly already had his angle on this story (no actual journalism was going on) and was stating things as though they were fact (like that this was preventable) and daring this guy to contradict him, but in 30 seconds or less to make sure it fit into his 3 minute segment. It actually really, really pissed me off to know that people rely on a source like CNN to have some sort of decent reporting standards (unlike a Fox News or equivalent) and to know that they were going to believe this report and buy into CNN's whole "angle" on this story, which was basically that the government and NGOs had failed to prevent this outbreak.

I realize I might sound like I'm taking this personally, but I don't even work on cholera! I am offended on behalf of the many agencies and individuals I know who have been busting their butts to mobilize everything they've got that could possibly help with this outbreak of cholera as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what Mr. SGMD thinks the mentality of most of the relief workers is over here, but I can assure you that for 85% of people it is not, "Gee, Haiti sounds like a posh place to take a job where I can really just sit back and do nothing for a few months/years." Granted, in any organisation in any part of the world there are always the lazy, incompetent, frustrating, why-are-you-here-if-you-don't-want-to-work people, but I can honestly say that I have met few of them here and that most people work insane hours and are amazingly dedicated to doing things in Haiti to help and to doing things the "right" way, and not just for the sake of doing them.

I think what Dr. Sanjay and many other critics fail to realise is just how many factors are out of NGO's hands when it comes to situations like this. When trying to rebuild a country after a catastrophe like the one Haiti has been through, capacity building is key. So although the Haitian Ministry of Health is completely incompetent for the most part, that doesn't give the NGO community the right to just take over the country's health care system (as hard as that is for me to admit, because many times I would just like to). NGOs have to continue to work with the MOH to try and empower them and to try and capacity build as much as possible, especially in emergency situations like this that they will inevitably be faced with in the future. And when a situation like this comes on this quickly, the actual logistics of mobilizing human and material resources isn't as straightforward as it would be in, say, the US. Finding trucks available to transport your materials from PaP to a different region, on terrible roads which may or may not be passable due to recent rains, for instance, are things one usually does not have to worry about in the developed world.

What I have seen so far regarding the cholera outbreak has been, in my opinion, pretty impressive. The MOH declared pretty quickly (in my opinion) that there was indeed an epidemic. My fear was that, even as hundreds of people were dying, they would deny that it was an actual epidemic and therefore prevent lifesaving supplies from getting to the population, just to save face as a MOH/country. The speed with which NGOs then responded in so many different ways has also fascinated me (I say this as an outsider who's NGO has done nothing related to cholera response or prevention and has absolutely no plans to help if it does come to PaP. Not even an email from HQ asking about how we're doing or about contingency plans for ourselves, by the way.). Text messages, radio messages, and posters on how to prevent and treat cholera were all designed in Creole and approved by the MOH for almost immediate distribution. I still get text messages on my cell phone almost daily telling me how to prevent and treat cholera. Community health agents were trained in prevention methods and messages, hundreds of thousands of supplies were mobilized from warehouses in PaP and taken up country, hundreds of thousands of more supplies were flown in to Haiti, trained medical professionals were actively recruited by many different NGOs, emergency meetings and press conferences were held every day and information was widely disseminated to the expat community in English, French, and Creole.

Was the outbreak preventable? Absolutely. Just like the common cold is preventable. Just like pretty much anything, depending on how you look at it, is preventable. Just because it is possible to prevent it doesn't mean someone screwed up and needs to be blamed by not having prevented it. Believe it or not, people are a bit concerned in this country trying to put out whatever fire is in front of them on that particular day. It's triage on an almost daily basis for many organisations, and many don't have the luxury of trying to predict what might become a problem because they're too busy trying to solve what already is a problem. What I think is impressive is that so far the cholera outbreak has been contained in the northern regions and had not made it to PaP. Because, believe me, it will be a whole new level of disastrous if that happens. But NGOs are already on that, too! Contingency plans are in place, community health agents are already trained, cholera treatment centers have been set up, etc, all in case it does come to PaP. I don't know that we (the PaP NGO community) could ever be perfectly prepared for something like that, but it's not like people aren't sitting around thinking about it, which is what SGMD would have you believe.

What I think upsets me most about Dr. Sanjay, is that his reporting style leads me to believe he almost hopes the cholera does spread to PaP, because that would be more proof of the NGO community failing at something and would make good, dramatic TV. Then he could point more fingers and say he told us so. Basically the more death and destruction, the better.

I'm not saying that the cholera outbreak response has been perfect, and I'm not pretending to know the ins and outs of it all. Hell, I've never even visited that region. But as I said earlier, what I find offensive is the implication that the response has been incompetent and inefficient, as though people are idly sitting around twiddling their thumbs because they can't be bothered to help in the response. I think that, given the circumstances of working in a country like Haiti, with the lack of infrastructure, the time of year (just after the peak of the rainy season), and the massive amount of coordination that needed/needs to happen, people are doing the best they can. It's easy to fly in for an afternoon and judge, but it's much harder when you're dealing with the realities on the ground.

I'm already dreading January 12th, the one year anniversary of the earthquake, where every report from The New York Times to the New Yorker (not a broad spectrum, I know) reports on just how little has been achieved in Haiti in the past year. Again, lots of finger pointing will be done by people who have no idea. No idea how hard people are working and how dedicated they are.

And that's my rant on that for today.

(I can't find the link on CNN to the exact video I mention above, but here is a link to a more recent one for anyone who is interested.

The Princess of America and...Cholera?

I went to Florida for about 4.5 days. It was glorious, glorious, glorious. It was the first time in my life that I took a vacation and spoiled myself to death. Something I adapted to with surprising ease, although my bank account probably feels differently. It was also the first vacation I've taken in the States that wasn't home to Boston in...years. I don't even know the last time.

On Saturday I flew to Miami. Everyone wants to know how long the flight is for some reason, so I'll tell you: 1.5 hours. I flew an airline I've never heard of before, Insel Air. My organisation pays for one flight every three months to either Miami or the DR because with the visa you get upon arrival in Haiti, you have to leave every three months and come back to get it renewed. Insel Air was the cheapest flight, so Insel Air it was. That airline couldn't really seem to make its mind, cause on the flight to Miami there were no Creole or French speaking airline staff and everything was done in English, which was clearly not the first language of most of the staff either. On the way back I had some of the same cabin crew, but this time they did announcements in French. I couldn't really figure out where they were all from. The good news is that my flight to Miami was about half full and the flight back was practically empty.

The bad news was that on the way to Miami, as I was ready to collapse on the plane and sleep for the 1.5 hours, the guy behind me started asking me questions about the immigration forms. He spoke about 5 words of English and there was no way he would have ever figured out the forms on his own. So I told him to give me his passport and I was just going to fill them out for him, but apparently he took that to mean, "Come sit next to me and talk my ear off with your five words of English for the rest of the flight." Ugh. So Bruno is from Brazil, is 29 and single, had never been to the US, wanted to study English while he was there, and was very, very nervous. He was also very grateful for my help, couldn't believe the coincidence that we were both 29 and single, and kept kissing my hand in thanks and calling me The Princess of America. And he had terrible breath. It was....awkward, to say the least. He was supposed to be flying back on Thursday, which is the same day I was flying back, so I was worried about having to sit next to him again and hear all about his trip (I realise I'm a terrible person). But then I felt really bad when, on Thursday, he was not on the flight. I wonder if he didn't make it through customs or something. Oh well, I did my part.

Anyway. I got to Miami and then hopped a flight to Key West. I met up with my cousin who has lived in the Keys for 11 years and just bought a house down there. I hadn't visited in almost 10 years, we realised, and I forgot what a great little place Key West is. We bar hopped with some of her friends until 3:30am and even managed to take in a live concert and the last bit of a drag show. Oh, and I ate my weight in ice cream and waffle cones covered with chocolate and rainbow sprinkles. Good times.

My time in the Keys was mostly spent eating a lot of food, sleeping, relaxing, catching up with my cousin, and spending lots of money. It was great. We got massages and pedicures, watched football, ate smores and key lime pie next to the fire in her backyard, shopped, and drank a lot. The freedom of just being able to walk around on the streets was so liberating! And not spending hours in traffic everytime we got in the car was pretty awesome as well. Oh, and being able to drink the water right out of the tap. Totally underrated. Don't take these things for granted, people!

On Tuesday evening I flew back up to Miami and stayed with a friend from grad school for two nights. I think I was there for about 36 hours total, spent about 15 of them sleeping, and the rest shopping. My friend is in med school and so was nice enough to loan me her car (and GPS!) while she was in class and studying so I could go around and do all of my errands. That was very interesting in a city I am not at ALL familiar with! Oh, and did I mention I've never used an iTouch or a GPS before? Which were the two tools I had to work with that day to get around? I feel old, but also amazing cause I figured them all out like the genius I am. And I even managed to buy myself a new ipod nano which is all touch-screeny too. I'm not quite as much of a genius at that yet, but I'm sure I'll get there. I spent most of the day trying to fill the order the Cuban doctors had given me before I left. They're so sweet, so it's hard to say no, but I also just can't fit 4 playstation 2s and a laptop in my luggage, I'm sorry. I ended up getting them 3 playstation 2s and had to buy an extra suitcase just to fit those in! I was worried about somehow getting into trouble in customs because of some buying-electronics-for-Cubans law I didn't know about, but everything went very, very smoothly on the way back too.

Overall it was a perfect trip, just not long enough. It was very relaxing to actually be on vacation and to have felt like I earned it. It was so great to spend some time catching up with my cousin and meeting her friends and just seeing her life down there. My friend from grad school had had to leave London somewhat abruptly, so it was also really good to see her again and catch up on the year plus that has passed since we finished school. They were both incredibly gracious hostesses and I can't wait to take advantage of their hospitality again. :-)

So yeah, now I'm back. My contract was extended until November 24th, so I'll be here until then. We still haven't heard about whether or not we're getting our cost extension, which would allow my organisation to be here for another 6 months. If we don't get it then we also get to close the entire operation down here before the 24th. That should be easy. Not. I'm not particularly interested in staying with this job into the new year as the organisation is just much too disorganised and unsupportive, etc. I'm hoping to make it to a friend's wedding in India at the end of December, maybe hang out there for a month or so, and then maybe look for another job here in Haiti. I dunno, on va voir.

But in other news (which people have been asking about): there's a cholera outbreak here. The first one in about 50 years or a century, depending on who you listen to. It is currently in a region north of Port au Prince and so far has not spread. But as the Brits say, it's early days and it could quite possibly spread. The fear is that if it spreads down to PaP and makes it into the camps we could be in big trouble. I'm hoping that if it does spread we at least have had some warning and can/will be a bit better prepared than we were for the outbreak up north. I don't know much more than what you all do since my organisation isn't involved in this type of work, but if it spreads down here it will be interesting to see how it is dealt with. The precautions we take on an everyday basis (drinking treated water, being very conscious of hand washing, eating in very posh restaurants (ok, jk on the last one, but only sort of...)) are basically the same you would take to avoid cholera anyway, so don't worry. Hopefully they will contain it in that region, figure out/treat the source, and we'll be out of the woods. Hopefully. I'll keep you updated if things change.

Meanwhile, anyone have any questions for me? Not sure what you anonymous blog readers are interested in hearing about. Suggestions welcome.

That's all here for now! November 1st and 2nd are a national holiday here, so I'm looking for plans. Suggestions?

Crazytown

Well I made it. My larviciding campaign officially ended on Friday and, after 12 hours of sleep on Friday night, I can say I'm still alive. Pretty much every wrench that could have been thrown in the works (and then some) was at some point or another, and I think one day I cried three seperate times, so it will take me a while to report it all. I will start with the much requested story of this past Tuesday, even though it technically relates more to Justine's project of indoor-residual spraying (IRS) than mine.

As you know, my counterpart for this project at the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been the 70 year old, toothless, pack a day smoking, impossible to understand and work with man, whom we'll call Dr. L. Dr. L and two of his colleagues were the ones who did the trainings for my larviciding campaign. And as much as I don't like them, I must admit that they did a pretty good job (from what I could understand of the Creole) doing the trainings (thank god). Dr. L also put the three of their names down on the list of 25 team supervisors for the larviciding campaign. I thought that was kind of strange since I didn't imagine they'd want to be tromping around on the ground everyday for 13 days supervising a team of 10 volunteers, but I thought that maybe they just really cared about the project and wanted to be there to oversee some of it. On the first day of the actual activity Dr. L called me while I was out in the field with one of the teams. He definitely did not sound like he was outside and proceeded to ask me if I was available for a meeting at his office the next day. I was confused and said, "You're not going to be in Fontamara with your team?" and he said, "Oh no. I told you that I wear three hats, and my first responsibility is to the Ministry." This immediately set off per diem bells in my head because in our budget we only planned for 25 team supervisors, and now he was telling me he had replaced himself with someone else, but I also know there was no way he would accept not getting a per diem anymore. Soon after our conversation I found out that another one of the trainers, let's call him Mr. S, was pulling the same story as Dr. L, and wanted to be paid to "generally" supervise the whole project, ie not being on the ground with a team everyday, as planned, meaning he would also need to be replaced.

I went to the meeting the next day with Dr. L and, after he listed all of the things that my organisation had done wrong so far, he actually brought up the budget himself. In a fairly nice, somewhat humble way, he asked if there was any way we could find more money for himself and Mr. S in the budget for this project. He wasn't at all pushy about it and said that he would continue to work on the project no matter what, but if there was any way we could find more money that would be great, too. My colleague was won over by his speech and said she would look for more money. Since she's in charge of the budget, I didn't really care and left it to her.

On Friday, October 1st, I received a phone call from Mr. S. In my past dealings with him he had always been very polite and soft-spoken, but his attitude on the phone was quite different. He was clearly unhappy about something, and from what I could gather he had learned about Justine's IRS project at some internal meeting and seemed very unhappy that he hadn't known about it in advance. I was confused as to why he was so upset, because the project had nothing to do with him and Justine had already been talking to other members of the MOH about her project. He wouldn't listen to me, though, and insisted on having a meeting "face to face" with us. Minutes later Dr. L called Geraldine and essentially it was the same story with him. After much back and forth over the course of a few days, a meeting was arranged for this past Tuesday at 10am.

Justine and I brought two of her national staff members with us to the meeting on Tuesday because they know the IRS project very well and have worked with the MOH before. We prepped them in the car and they were the first ones to tip us off to the fact that actually, these two probably just wanted to try and get more money out of us. Duh. Not sure why we didn't pick up on that earlier. I had their overly generous per diems for my project (that they weren't even earning, really) with me in my purse to give to them, and to then think that they wanted to implicate themselves in Justine's project for even more money made me angry. Our organisation is not like a lot of NGOs where we just have unlimited money. We are at the end of our grant and have to count every gourde. We still went into the meeting with an open mind, but also confident that we had covered all of our bases and that they would not get another per diem out of us.

We arrived at the office of Dr. L, who clearly had no idea what we were doing there. When we explained that Mr. S had told us the meeting was at 10:00, he made a phone call to Mr. S. Dr. L kept yelling into the phone, "They're here! They're here!" It was clear Mr. S had not informed Dr. L about the meeting and that Mr. S had not even left his office yet. So we waited over 20 minutes for Mr. S to arrive, and as soon as he did both he and Dr. L immediately stepped outside with no explanation to us. I can only assume they were planning their strategy.

When they came back inside Dr. L asked me how many people were here for the meeting. I said four and he said, "No, how many name of my organisation employees are here?" Confused, both Justine and I said, again, "Four." Mr. S started shaking his head and his hand and all of a sudden one of our national staff members, W, went straight over to the two of them and said, "Mr. S, Dr. L, what's the problem? Is there a problem?" in a very confrontational manner. Things got heated fast between the three of them, and meanwhile our other national staff member, M, was giving the play by play to some friend on the phone. It was clear the two MOH employees had a history with our two employees and that it was not a good one. Dr. L and Mr. S were in the middle of trying to refuse to meet with our two staff members when another MOH employee came over and chastised Dr. L and Mr. S for making such a big scene. She laid the smack down and told them that she could not have this kind of chaos in the office and that if they were going to have meetings with more than three people they were going to have to use one of the conferences rooms reserved for this purpose. S'IL VOUS PLAIT! This actually got us out of a direct confrontation about whether or not our two employees were going to be allowed into the meeting with us and we all walked over to the conference room together.

Once in the conference room there was a lot of awkwardness and face-saving as Dr. L proceeded to excuse himself to take a 10 minute phone call and Mr. S spent those 10 minutes looking through his briefcase for a pen. The four of us just sat there calmly as, again, it was the MOH who had called this meeting. Once Dr. L got back from his phone call and we just continued to sit there and not say anything, he attempted to start the meeting. It was clear he didn't really know where he was going with the meeting as, once again, he started with the laundry list of all of the things my organisation had done wrong so far with the larviciding campaign, but did not allow me to argue back at all by saying after each point, "But it's ok, it's not a big deal, we can move forward." He loves the sound of his own voice, so trying to argue back is a waste of breath anyway.

After about 15 minutes of insulting our organisation in relation to the larviciding project and of being as condescending as possible, he finally found his feet and managed to make his way to Justine's project. Again, in as rude and insulting of a manner as possible, he proceeded to all but yell at us about how we did not have the approval of the MOH to do this project, that they had not seen any of the planning, that we had not sat down and talked about the potential environmental hazards, etc, etc. Justine tried to respond to his accusations every once and a while, but Dr. L continued to talk over her and wouldn't allow her to get a word in edge wise. Finally I just told her, in English while Dr. L was still yelling, that she was just going to have to talk over him because he would never stop unless she stopped him. I am quite familiar with his routine. When the both of us together finally managed to get him to stop talking, Justine very calmly explained that, actually, she has been talking with their boss, Dr. P, and that Dr. P had been informed of everything. Justine had barely gotten the words out of her mouth before there was more shouting about how, well, they had not been informed. Whenever our national staff tried to jump in and help, Dr. L and Mr. S would put their hands up in their general direction, without actually looking at them, essentially telling them to "talk to the hand," and would signal them to be quiet. Our staff member, W, understandly eventually got quite upset and offended by how rude and disrespectful Dr. L and Mr. S were being. He stood up to ask if there was a problem and things escalated quickly with a lot of passionate shouting on both sides and lots of talking in Creole that left me and Justine somewhat out of control of the situation since we no longer knew who was insulting who. And that's when all of a sudden Dr. L threatened to call security on W. My first thought was, "This place has security!?!?" My second thought was, "I can't believe this is actually happening." My third thought was, "This is going to be great material for my blog." W, of course, was having none of that and yelled, "You're going to show ME the door?!?! Oh, no! I'll show MYSELF the door!" and proceeded to storm out of the meeting in a very dramatic fashion, never to return.

Well, it's hard to know how to recover a meeting after an incident like that, let me tell you. Justine, bless her, didn't miss a beat and continued to, very calmly, repeat that all of this information they were claiming to never have seen had already been given to their boss. Coincidentally their boss was away in NY for a number of days, so Dr. L kept conveniently reminding us that in her absence he was the one who gets to make decisions. We went around in circles for appoximately a (very painful) hour with them saying they hadn't received any information and us saying we had already given it to their boss. At one point I finally said, "There's clearly a lack of communication between you and your boss, and that's your problem, not our organisation's problem," to which they said, "Voila!" as though that somehow proved a point of theirs. ??!?!? During all of this time they refused to let M, our female staff member, say a word. Whenever she tried to speak they would do the palm thing and actually said, "Attention, Madame, attention." Which is more or less a threatening way of telling her to be quiet.

So basically we held our ground and just said that maybe when their boss returns we should all sit down together and we can show them all of the planning we've already done for this activity. They clearly wanted to take advantage of their boss being gone and force us into some sort of agreement at the meeting itself, but there was no way that was happening. Eventually we basically just had to get up and leave while they were still trying to bully us into getting their way, saying we had other meetings we had to go to.

In the car on the way back home there was definitely a bit of a dazed feeling and a what-the-heck-just-happened-there sentiment. Justine and I finally managed to get the history between our two staff members and the MOH staff members. Apparently after the earthquake the MOH called our two staff members (this was before they worked for us) to be volunteers for some project. Even as a volunteer in this country, though, you usually get a little bit of money. Apparently Mr. S was in charge of the project and kept all of per diem money that was meant to go to the volunteers. A pretty impressively evil thing to do immediately post earthquake. Knowing this made the whole incident back at the MOH make a little more sense. Of course Dr. L and Mr. S didn't want to deal with our two staff members who were going to call them out on their intentions of just trying to get more money from us. Once they were somewhat forced to meet with all four of us anyway their only choice was to do everything in their power to try and keep our staff members from actually talking.

Afterwards Justine wrote an email to their boss, Dr. P, explaining what had happened and saying that, while we're very happy to work with the MOH, we expect it to be done in a professional and respectful way. We haven't heard back from her because we're not even sure anyone at the MOH knows how to use those fancy new computers some foreign government provided them post-earthquake, never mind how to check their email. So it's all a bit up in the air right now. Needless to say I walked out of that meeting with their per diems still in my purse as I just couldn't stomach the idea of giving them money after that meeting. What's most interesting to me is that none of us have heard a peep from them ever since. I know they're eager to get their money, so I'm just waiting to see which one of them will have the guts to call me and ask for it. And since my campaign is finished now, I could quite feasibly never have to see them again, meaning that for all they know we might be keeping their money. If I never see them again it will be too soon, but I know I will. I dread going to that place like a trip to the dentist. After that meeting I said that I honestly think getting a cavity filled would have been less painful, because at least at the dentist they give you novocaine.

MEANWHILE....(yup, it's not over yet)

While Justine and I were almost getting escorted out of the MOH by security, poor Geraldine was having her own adventure. Remember the assistant I told you about, who we had to fire after 10 days? And remember how I said she wouldn't take the money we owed her because she thought she should be paid for her entire contract of 1.5 months? And how she was on the phone with her lawyer? Well, it turns out she took us to court. But we didn't know we were being taken to court. We received a letter summoning us to something, but Geraldine (who is French and studied law) thought it was a meeting with a work inspector who was going to advise us on what the next steps in the process would be. When she turned up for the meeting it turned out that, nope, it was the actual court date. Our former assistant was half an hour late and when she saw Geraldine she tried to be like, "Hi!!! How's it going?!" and Geraldine was like, "No. First of all you took us to court. Second of all you're half an hour late. Let's get this show on the road." Well, that's my paraphrased version of what I imagine the French was like. The former assistant's lawyer hadn't arrived yet, though, so she called him and he advised her to start without him. Yup, that's right, to start without him. Great lawyer. So basically, according to Geraldine, two Haitian lawyers acted as judges and heard both sides of the story. She said they were very cool and very fair. Geraldine had brought the contract the former assistant had signed along with the email she wrote refusing to do the task that is written in her contract. After about two hours the lawyers ruled in our favor and we won! Geraldine's victory came right as we were getting out of our meeting, so that was some welcome news as I was still trying to stop shaking from anger. Apparently the former assistant was genuinely shocked that she lost, which is further proof of her craziness. And now not only does she not have her money from her whole contract, but she also has to pay her lawyer who advised her to start without him. Ooooh karma. Thank you.

Ok, longest entry ever, but that's just a taste of some of the incidents from the last 3 weeks or so. Some great material if I ever do write a book. You cannot make this stuff up. Hopefully I'll be able to fill in some more sooner rather than later.

Lighthearted Notes

There are a few things I forgot that I wanted to mention about the sensibilisations and life in general that are a bit more lighthearted than my previous entry.

1.) My contact at the Ministry of Health (MOH), the 70 year old with no teeth? I observed his training on Tuesday from the beginning. Before he started he said something to me, but because I can't understand him and he didn't seem angry, I did my classic smile and nod. The next thing I knew he was making all of the volunteers stand up and sing a few different songs before he started the training (I imagine one was the national anthem, but I don't actually know). Then he asked someone to lead a prayer and some girl just spontaneously started leading one. Apparently this is somewhat normal, because I observed a different training today with a different trainer and he did the same thing. And, almost as though they planned it ahead of time, one girl immediately started saying a prayer (for the training) almost immediately after he asked someone to do it. Reminds me of the game where you have a group of people try and count as high as they can go with only one person saying a number at a time and without looking at each other, but with no predefined order to anything.

2.) My organisation employs about 8 or so different local chauffeurs. A few of them are these young guys who are just too cool for school. All they listen to is hip hop, rap, and r&b, despite not really knowing what any of the songs mean. They wear their chains and sunglasses and are basically the epitome of cool. In their minds. And that means I'm usually subjected to their music, too. Today I was in the car alone with one of the chauffeurs who thinks he's the coolest of the bunch. In the CD player he had his own mix he created. On it were such classics as "Lady in Red," by Chris DeBurgh, "Unbreak My Heart," by Toni Braxton, "Because You Loved Me," by Celine Dion, and "I'll Make Love to You" by Boyz II Men. The one that really made my heart ache and think of my college roommates, though, was "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" by the Backstreet Boys. I mean, basically whenever I hear anything by the Backstreet Boys it makes me think my college roommates. I should probably be embarrassed about that. So now you have to picture me and the too cool for school chauffeur belting out, together, Backstreet Boys lyrics in the middle of Port au Prince. It was awesome. On the 4th round of that CD it stopped being so awesome, and I now can't get the words out of my head despite, before today, not having even thought about that song for years.

3.) On Monday I somehow managed to catch a glimpse of all three trainings that were happening at the same time in different places. The last one I went to wasn't a disaster, per se, but it was incredibly chaotic and my staff member had zero control of the room. It was very hectic and stressful for my control-freak self, so when we finally finished cleaning the room and packing up the car I was really relieved and psyched to see that it was only 4:15. I knew that meant that at the latest I should be back home around 6 and that I didn't have much work to do that night so I could maybe even relax. So imagine how excited I was when we hadn't even left town yet before we were sitting in standstill traffic. Oh, also keep in mind that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast at 6:30am. The traffic continued, so once we finally made it to a grocery store type place I bought a bag of doritos, a packet of m&ms, and a can of sprite. Dinner of champions. Once we were back in the car we were still in traffic. At some point we started off-roading and I thought we were taking a short cut. And then the driver turns to me and says he's not feeling well and that we have to pass by his house first. He was very apologetic, but it was quite clear to me he needed to use the bathroom, um, urgently. It was 6:00 by the time we arrived at his house, and he does not live close to the office. Inside I was not happy about it, but on the outside I was sympathetic since I'm not completely heartless. When we got to his house he asked me if I wanted to come in and meet his wife, who is 6 months pregnant. I couldn't say no, so I got out of the car and went inside with him. Well, it turns out she was absolutely lovely and we got on really well. They wanted to show me their wedding video, so all of a sudden I was roped into a half hour, slow-mo version of the highlights of their wedding, cheesy music and all. While watching the video they asked me if I wanted some "rice," and I said sure, not really knowing what I was getting myself into. His wife brought me some delicious fresh juice with ice in it (Haitians are very particular about drinking cold beverages) and we continued to watch their wedding video through to the end. They were clearly really happy that I had watched their video and wanted to know what I thought of their wedding, etc. Despite being exhausted, filthy, and hungry when we showed up and me being in a big rush to get home, I actually really enjoyed meeting his wife and knowing that it was important to him that I did. Two nights later she met him here at the office after work and he made sure to tell me she was outside and wanted to know if I wanted to go say hi to her. I said of course, so I went outside and we chatted for a bit while she waited for him to finish his paperwork. She's really, really great. Now me and the driver have totally bonded and he really likes me, which is an improvement from before when I was pretty sure he didn't like me. And, oddly enough, the next day another driver who I wasn't sure liked me either decided to have a big D&M (that's deep and meaningful, for those of you who don't speak Australian) with me in the car. We talked about American music (of course), but also about his parents being political refugees (is that how you say it in English?) in Canada because of their involvement with the last government, who should be the next Haitian president, etc. It was really, really interesting. Bonding with two drivers in one week! Awesome!

Activity Update

The ball is now rolling and I'm trying to keep up. Our trainings started this week. Three days in a row with three different trainings in three different places with three different trainers all at the same time. Terrible idea and I will never do it again. Turns out I can't be in three places at once. Who knew? There was some serious regulating that had to go on in almost every zone. Not easy with terrible cell phone reception, crappy French, lots of rain, and a generator running right next to you. Of course the ministry of health didn't do their job properly and somehow my organisation, once again, got blamed for it by the MOH. Beyond annoying. But I'm starting to realise that my crappy French might be a blessing in disguise, because if I had the French abilities to really tell the MOH what I think of them, I probably would. Instead I'm forced to keep quiet, which is probably better. Always a silver lining...

One of the trainings that was supposed to start yesterday had 4 of the 29 volunteers show up. Yikes. Turns out no one informed them as to when the training was actually happening. And despite that very clearly being the responsibility of the MOH, my organsation was blamed. So I had to scramble around (on the phone, next to the generator in the pouring rain) to try and fix this situation an hour away. We ended up pushing back the trainings for that particular zone one day, meaning they get one day less of sensibilisations than the other zones, but oh well. Better than having that zone on a different schedule than the 5 others for the rest of the campaign.

I already know about a million things I would differently if I had to do this all over again. And the actual activity itself hasn't even started yet. Talk about hindsight being 20/20. Yikes. I almost want a chance to do a redo, and yet the thought of doing this all over again makes me want to throw up. I've determined that it is not sustainable for me to get up at 5:45 every morning, no matter how early I go to bed. It's sad that my current 13 - 15 hour days make me long for me 10 - 11 hour days. Booo.

Anyway. The first day of sensibilisations starts tomorrow. Now that I've just finished regulating the problems of the trainings I'm sure I will have a whole new load of problems for the sensibilisations. And then on Monday (after only having one day off over the weekend. When did I decide working on Sat was a good idea?) I will have a whole new batch of problems with the actual larviciding. Good times, good times. I'm already trying to plan a vacation for as immediately after the campaign as possible, because I am definitely going to need it.

Ok, sorry this post is a bit negative, but I'm very tired and need to get up at 5:45 tomorrow, so need to go to bed now! Just wanted to write a quick update while I had a moment. Write me some comments to look forward to (Jo, I already know I can count on you :-))!

This Would Be Funny If It Wasn't My Life

Once again I find myself in a developing country in a situation that, if it were fictional, would be quite comical because of its ridiculousness. Two weeks ago I gained a team of six Haitian staff members. The hiring process was really painful; I think we did over 15 interviews and in the end didn't even have much choice in who we picked because the people we liked best were way out of our price range. So many of my six new staff members have never had a real job before, never mind managed teams of volunteers and senior members of the Haitian ministry of health. Which is exactly what they're going to have to do during this campaign. So literally on day two of their employment I assigned them to one of the six zones where we're doing the larviciding campaign, and on day three I sent them all to their zones to begin mapping and planning.

At the same time, we are supposed to be working "hand in hand" with the Ministry of Health on this project. Our contact there is a doctor who is approximately 70 years old, has very few teeth left, smokes probably a pack a day, and is next to impossible to understand (because, I suspect, of his lack of teeth). I've even watched a Haitian on the phone with him trying to understand him and failing. That made me feel a bit better. So I literally have to bring someone with me to meetings with him so they can attempt to translate for me. He, of course, thinks I'm a complete idiot because I need to someone to translate his French into French. He therefore talks to me like I'm five years old, which I resent, and then resent even more because I still can't understand him. He, in turns, yells at me for not doing things I never understood in the first place, but never admits to making any mistakes himself. Meanwhile there is information I've been asking from him for 3 weeks now that he promises "the next day" after every meeting and is never actually ready the next day.

None of this is surprising, but since this is not Peace Corps I actually have deadlines, and that's where the problem comes in. I've pushed this campaign back as many times as possible and now literally cannot push it back anymore. That means that as of Monday we're starting our trainings, then we have three days of "sensibilisations" in the communities, and then we have ten days of the actual activity. And then it's all over. AAAHHHH!!! So much needs to come together before all of this that probably won't. My team was in the office today and I had individual meetings with them each to see how things were progressing in their zones. It was utterly frightening the lack of work in some of them. Maybe it's a good thing that this job is in French because, as my family knows from observation, I can be a lot meaner in French. There was one guy in particular to whom I basically had to read the riot act. It's difficult, though, because I really can't afford to fire anyone, so I just have to put the fear of god in them and hope it works.

So anyway, the whole thing is quite frustrating because I HAVE to move ahead with this based on deadlines that were determined before I even arrived in the country. And everything definitely will not be at the level of readiness that I would prefer if I had all the time in the world. I told Justine today that three of the zones look pretty good, one looks ok, and two look horrible. How's a 50% success rate?

And on top of all of this, the trainings are being led by members of the Ministry of Health. And even if my life depended on it I don't think I could get them to all sit down together and actually plan a training. So instead they're all just winging it. Since we have three different trainings on the same day for three days in a row with three different trainers, god only knows which volunteers are going to get what information! I certainly won't! And that's not scary at all given that we're just teaching them how to put insecticide in people's water. O. M. G.

And if you could only hear me attempting to build morale and a sense of teamwork in my crappy French-with-only-three-tenses, nevermind trying to communicate over crappy mobile phone networks with my three tenses, you would understand just how funny/sad it is. Justine and I laugh a LOT, but mostly to keep ourselves from crying.

Also (it gets better). Justine and I hired an assistant who started the day before my new team. We were so excited about her and really fought for more money so we could hire her, etc, etc. She showed up the first day with her two cell phones (we gave her a third work phone) and proceeded to take personal phone calls about every 5 minutes. Whenever I saw her computer she was either chatting on yahoo messenger or facebooking. We would ask her to do simple tasks and she would leave (before the end of the work day) without having finished them or even having talked to us about them. We had a talk with her this past Monday night about our expectations and hoped things would improve (although we doubted it). Meanwhile I had told her last week that during the actual larviciding campaign she was going to have to cover for one of my staff members who was going to have to miss three days to take her nursing exams that only happen once a year. She said nothing at the time, but I could tell she wasn't happy. During the meeting I had today with her and that staff member she told me, in front of the staff member, how she could not cover for her while she was gone. I told her we would talk about it later and when we did, after much questioning and beating around the bush, she told me that it wasn't her job. When I asked her what she thought her job was she said "supervising the team." And I said yes and that this, too, was supervising. During lunch she wrote an email to Justine and copied me (why to Justine I don't know) telling us point blank that the job was beneath her position and that she can't cover for this staff member and that we'll have to find someone else to do it. I told her we would talk about this with Justine when Justine got back. Well, Justine got back after the assistant had to leave for a meeting I sent her to, so we were all waiting (HR included) for her to get back from the meeting so we could get her in line with how unacceptable all of this is. We waited, and waited, and waited and assumed there was loads of traffic (as there always is in PaP). Finally at 7:00 the driver came back - you guessed it - without the assistant. She had asked him to drop her off at her house (which isn't allowed before 8:30) and hadn't communicated anything to us about not coming.

*** Update *** I wrote all of the above yesterday. Today, after showing her that in her contact it says she has to cover for staff members in their absence and her still refusing to do it, we fired her. After ten days of work. That in and of itself was an experience. She made sure to insult me as much as possible during her firing, despite the fact that I wasn't the one telling her she was fired, and then proceeded to not accept the money for the days she had worked because she wanted to be paid for her entire contract. She wouldn't even take the letter that said her contract had been terminated and eventually just left to talk to her lawyer. She called this evening and is coming by tomorrow afternoon to get her letter. We're not sure if this also means she is accepting her money for the ten days she worked. This should be interesting! ***

The silver lining to this ridiculous project is that I've had the chance now to go out in the field with each new staff member and to see their zones a little bit. Yesterday I spent a few hours in one of the biggest camps that is right in front of the destroyed Palace of Justice. That was intense, but made me realise how much I miss being out and interacting with the population. I got to high five a lot of kids, a lot of people called me white and I didn't even get mad, and I got to see a little of life in the camps. So it was all good. Granted I almost had heat stroke by the end and don't remember the last time I sweat that much, but it was good all the same.

So tomorrow is my last chance to get all of the details in place for our trainings that start on Monday. And boy oh boy is that a scary thought! There is so much that needs to be done and so much I am relying on my staff members for, and that is also pretty scary. Please cross all of your fingers and toes for me because this project needs all of the help and luck I can get here. My life as I know it is basically over until the end of the first week of October, so I apologise if I'm totally MIA, which I probably will be. If I live to tell the tale I will eventually update, but probably not before I take a well deserved break.

Go go Gadget Larviciding!

Diff'rent Strokes

Did you know that the TV show "Diff'rent Strokes" also aired in France? And that the translation of "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" was "Qu'est-ce tu me raconte, là?" Maybe only French nerds like me will appreciate just how funny that is. Or maybe I'm the only who thinks that's really funny.

Gym

Hell has officially frozen over. I have joined a gym. Yes, Haiti has gyms and yes, I have joined one. What next?

OMG!

Ok, so it looks like I can load about one small picture every 20 minutes. Here are some pictures of rubble:






And here is a picture of how pretty Haiti is:

Week 3

This week was yet another very long one. By the time Friday rolls around, we're usually too tired to actually go out and do anything. Last night Justine, Geraldine and I made dinner, drank some wine, and watched Sex and the City 2. Good god was that a horrible movie and borderline offensive. Anyway. Every three months us expats need to leave the country in order to get a new three month visa upon re-entry, so Ali left for the DR yesterday and comes back Sunday. I'm pretty jealous! I hope to get over there at some point. I would also love to get over to Cuba while I'm here, but that's obviously a bit more tricky as an American.

Things are really ramping up, work-wise. During the month of September and through the beginning of October my organisation is doing two huge campaigns. Justine is in charge of the indoor residual spraying campaign. Over the course of four weeks we will (in theory) have 100 volunteers spray the inside of 18,000 tents, shelters, and houses with insecticide that kills mosquitoes and lasts about 6 months. The logistics of this operation are absolutely nuts since each person spraying needs about 20 litres of water a day. And we're an organisation of 5 expats with a total of four cars to our name. Then, at the same time, we're also doing a massive larviciding campaign, which is what I'm in charge of. Over the course of ten days we will have 250 volunteers putting a powdered insecticide in containers used for water storage in over 70,000 tents, shelters, and houses in 6 different areas of Port au Prince. The chemical kills the larvae of the mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever. The logistics of this project will also be nuts due to the sheer number of households we're looking to cover, the fact that we're covering 6 different areas of PaP (unlike the IRS campaign where we're doing one area), and the fact that it's going on at the same time as the IRS campaign. We're also working "hand in hand" with the department of health for both of these campaigns, so the realities of just trying to get meetings with them that they remember we're having usually results in a lot of time being wasted. Also, for my larviciding campaign, we're hiring 6 new national staff members. On Thursday and Friday we finally started interviewing people. It's pretty hit or miss, and right now I think we have two people we would hire. We only have 4 or 5 more interviews left on Monday, so basically they all have to be awesome and they all have to say yes in order for our schedule to work out the way we've planned. Stress!!

A lot of this past week was spent driving around with our department of health contact and Geraldine trying to visit the different mayors of the areas we'll be conducting the campaign to a) inform them, b) ask them to find us a training room and a storage space for free, and c) ask them to find the number of volunteers we need from each area and make sure it's 50% men and 50% women and make sure they can all read and write. Times that by 6 and the logistics of just trying to get this off the ground seem almost impossible. It's pretty overwhelming, so I've just had to put my head down and think it through one step at a time to feel like I'm making any progress. If we had more time it would be fine, but we're on a very tight schedule as our project is only funded until the end of November, but everyone's contracts are ending before that, which means that by the beginning of October, as of now, it will just be me and Justine left. Not really sure how we'll pull these two projects off without at least a logistics person. Stress!!

So that's sort of the long and short of my major work here. We have some other smaller projects as well, like mosquito net distribution, but those are either winding down or are just much, much smaller. For some reason our internet connection does not like letting me load pictures onto the blog, so for a link to some photos I've posted on facebook, click here. Again, feel free to let me know what you're interested in hearing more about. You lose perspectives on these things quickly.

Overall things are going pretty ok. I'm feeling a bit more on top of the work in terms of understanding what needs to be done, although that doesn't necessarily make me on top of the work itself. It's the type of job where there just literally aren't enough hours in the day and where your to do list is always twice as long as what you have time for which makes you feel like you're constantly doing triage rather than having some organised system to your work. In a really backwards way, though, it's a challenge I like having and one I hope to someday feel like I've conquered. Another huge challenge is just staff management. Right now Justine and I have a team of 5 national staff members. While they're great in many ways, they are not at all independent. So whenever they're in the office it's basically like babysitting. You can't just give them a task to do and come back at the end of the day and expect it to be a) done and b) in the way you wanted. So the amount of planning and hand holding that goes into staff management takes a LOT of time and effort. And to think that we're going to be more than doubling our team in the next week is a very frightening thought sometimes. But we do need them and they are invaluable to our work, so I think I just need to get better at managing them.

This weekend we've got a random night out at some Argentinians (?) on the cards and maybe a day at Heather's pool tomorrow. Exciting stuff. I hope everyone is enjoying their ability to go where they want when they want and to walk freely in the streets. The things I'll never take for granted again....

The Past Week

(Written last night)

Last week seemed very long, especially since we didn’t have an entire day off at any point last weekend. This weekend was much better. On Friday night Justine’s friend Brian came over and we young folks (all but the CD) just hung out. We made some punch using the fresh juice our cook/cleaner had made that day and had a nice time just sitting around and talking. On Saturday Brian picked us up in the morning and we headed to the beach. We went to a “secret” beach that he knew of right near Obama Beach. It was really nice. There was hardly any one there and we were the only foreigners for most of the time. Well, besides the UN guys from Pakistan who came over to take a picture with Justine in her bathing suit. The water, again, was like bathwater, so we spent a lot of time swimming and hanging out in the ocean. We ordered grilled lobster for lunch which was delicious and brought plenty of snacks and drinks to keep us going for the afternoon.

Saturday evening we were sort of hosting a party at a local bar/club type place. The playlist Ali worked so hard on ended up being a bit of a disaster based on a lack of communication with the DJ, I think, but it was still a really fun time. The place itself was quite cool. The bar/eating area was covered, but looked out on a dance area that was open to the outside. We had a fair number of people come and had a really fun time dancing. My friend Jesse came who I know from my Peace Corps days. He just arrived in Haiti on Tuesday, so I was very impressed with his ability to rally some friends to come to our shindig. It was great seeing him and catching up a bit. We ended up having a very late night and didn’t go to bed until around 4. Today was a very lazy day involving napping and surfing the internet (very slowly) most of the day. Justine and I did some planning for next week, but in terms of work that was about it, which was nice.

Rewinding to last week: like I said, it was long. The good news is that I’m starting to feel like I have a better handle on what’s going on and am actually starting to feel a bit useful. A nice change. We’re working with the Cuban Medical Brigade on one of our very big projects, so on Wednesday Justine and I spent all day with two of them going around to their different bases to try and make plans. We left the house at 6:30am, picked them up at their house 45 minutes later, and then drove three hours to their base in Petit Goave. We met the guy in charge there, Frank, who is probably one of the funniest people I’ve interacted with in a long time. The Cubans don’t speak a word of French, but they do speak Creole. Since we don’t speak Creole, most of the day was conducted in Spanish (which Justine understands and speaks a little of) and one woman, Maria’s English that she learned during her four years in The Gambia and used to translate the Spanish for us. We went to three different bases of theirs that day, spent about 7 or 8 hours in the car, and didn’t get home until 9:30 at night. Luckily the Cubans were so lovely and I got to see so much that it was worth it. I loved that at each base nothing could begin until everyone had kissed everyone on the cheek, coffee had been served (even at 6:30 at night), and pleasantries had been exchanged. Everyone was so nice and seemed really open to our crazy project and totally willing to help us. They’re very laid back, which I know will sometimes be frustrating, but they also really know their communities, so I think they’ll be a great partner for us. We ended the day by treating ourselves to some Domino’s Pizza. Yes, they have a real Domino’s Pizza in Port au Prince. Who would have thunk it? It cost us approximately one million dollars, but it was worth it.

It was really good for me to get to drive through some of the areas we work in, even if it was just barely scratching the surface of each area. Now I have a visual when we talk about these areas for planning purposes, have some idea of how far apart they are, and have first hand experience with the legendary traffic. I’m going to spend Tuesday and Thursday of this week going to different areas, so I’m hoping to get more and more comfortable with the lay of the land and be able to plan and make decisions more effectively because of it.

I realize that someday I’m going to have to sit down and write a more detailed post about what the heck it is I actually do, but this post is long enough as it is and I’m tired! That’s for another day. Goodnight for now!