I was planning on putting a whole bunch of photos of everybody up, but the internet is really really slow, so a quick update will have to do!
We leave Petit Trou tomorrow. The trip was a success, and everyone here seems very grateful. Lauri's art therapy session on Saturday morning was great, and the teachers say they'll do it every Friday with the kids. Today we got to take the day off and went swimming in the ocean, drank coconut juice out of a macheted coconut and ate mangos right from the tree.
Our drivers came up today and will spend the night here so we can leave early- it's about a 6 hour drive to Port-au-Prince from Petit Trou. To get back and forth, you have to drive over a river which can vary greatly in depth. It's the rainy season- although not a lot of rain since we've been in Petit Trou- but the river has been causing difficulties. When our friends from Mercy Corps left, the river was high enough that it flooded their truck. They sat on the side of the road for a few hours but luckily the truck did start up again. It's not great to be stuck there because there are bandits, one of the reasons the drivers drive so fast. We were pretty concerned that they were stuck on the side of the road in a shiny new SUV that didn't work; unfortunately it's several hours to get to the river so there wasn't much we could do. But it worked out and we know they are home. On the way up here, our drivers also had difficulty, so here's hoping tomorrow will go easily!
-Mike.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Petit Trou de Nippes
It's about 9:30 Haiti time on Thursday night and I'm in my tent. I decided to get to bed early tonight as we wake up around 5:30 with the sounds of roosters and children each morning. We have not had internet in the evenings (the generator here is turned off in the evening) and have been too busy to even check during the day (did check once yesterday but it was not working), hence no blog additions for a few days. I thought I'd write a simple text blog so that everyone knows we're OK, and then try to run up to the internet cable during lunch tomorrow and post it.
We are in Petit Trou; we got here on schedule (in Haiti, less than 2 hours late officially counts as "on schedule"), and have been doing well. Yesterday I taught some "women volunteers" and schoolteachers about expected reactions to trauma in adults. It was well received. "Twóma" is a new word in Haiti- my understanding is that the word has emerged since January 12- and yet even the women from the very rural areas of de Nippes had at least heard the new term and had some associations even if they did not have a fully formed definition. I think it's a really unique opportunity and important responsibility to help them form that definition. I used the analogy of poison- that a disaster is like a poison for the mind and that there are predictable and normal reactions to disaster, but like a poison must be expelled from the body, the trauma must be expelled from the mind through communication and expression or the predictable reactions can become long-term problems. I went over some basic neuroscience which the teachers especially seemed very eager to learn about. Afterwords, the teachers called me "Doktor Twóma" which was a term of respect but I couldn't help but think it was an awesome name for a James Bond movie villain. I also taught them some mindfulness meditation techniques (many studies have shown neuroendocrine and stress/fear circuitry changes in folks with PTSD after learning these simple techniques)- or rather I taught them to Muríelle, a psychologist from Port-au-Prince who works with Mercy Corps there- who then did a masterful job of communicating these strange and foreign actions and concepts in Creole and in a culturally appropriate way. Muríelle has a "License" degree in Haiti (4 year degree) and has been counseling in Port-au-Prince. The earthquake destroyed her office. Since then, she has been working pro-bono and has been extremely busy.
By the way, she's hoping to get a scholarship to study child psychology and English in the United States so she can be better trained to continue working with traumatized Haitian children. She bought a piece of land in the small village where she was born, in the hopes that she can raise money to build an orphanage there. Somebody give this girl a scholarship. Write to me for her contact information VANELZAK -at- Colorado -dot- EDU
After her office was destroyed, Muríelle took a job with Mercy Corps and came along with us from Port-au-Prince to help us, learn from us, and to see our group give the first Mercy Corps-based trauma training outside of Port-au-Prince. Maxéne is a young man from Mercy Corps Port-au-Prince who met us in Petit Trou for the same reasons. He is trained as a sociologist (and also studied English for 2 years at a prestigious Haitian language academy), but hopes to earn a Master's in counseling in the United States. He is also looking for a scholarship and is quite deserving. The fact that Mercy Corps is expanding its trauma work beyond Port-au-Prince is a very good thing. Driving through the massive slum of Cite Solei ('Sun City'- the largest slum in the world other than the favelas of Rio de Janeiro) on the way to Petit Trou from Port-au-Prince it was quite apparent that the damage- and the trauma- from the Haiti earthquake was not isolated to Port-au-Prince. Cite Solei was so jam packed with refugee camps that even the median of the one road in and out of the city was filled with tents, right up to the traffic's edge. Sanitation there seemed to be absolutely non-existent. We also drove right over the epicenter and needless to say, there were a lot of piles of rubble and UN tents and one can assume that traumatized human beings are in those tents.
What we're doing here is definitely based on Mercy Corps' work, but we've expanded it quite a bit. One expansion was to include specific "What you can do about it" ideas and strategies, which is what the people of Petit Trou specifically asked the Colorado Haiti project to help with. Not surprisingly, during our first day here they also asked us for "what to do during an earthquake" advice (on January 12 many, many terrified Haitians ran IN to their homes for safely) so it was lucky that I expected that question and did some research on the topic, which we'll go over Sunday after everyone gets out of church.
Today, Lauri went into the Mercy Corps program concepts and added her own "What you can do about it" section from her own area of expertise with some art therapy projects, basically some specific art therapy based program/curriculum ideas for the schoolteachers to give to their students. The women volunteers especially did the art therapy exercises earnestly and with an openness which said to me they took our words seriously and also knew intuitively that their grief needed to be expressed. Tomorrow Sara will talk about predictable reactions to trauma in children at different developmental stages and will also give the teachers some curriculum materials. Beverly and Pat have been busy setting up a women's clinic in 2 different areas of the village: every woman in the village has a painful vaginitis so there will be a microscope to figure out what is happening and medicine to make it better. I would assume that we'll also have to start thinking about how to treat the well water.
-Mike.
We are in Petit Trou; we got here on schedule (in Haiti, less than 2 hours late officially counts as "on schedule"), and have been doing well. Yesterday I taught some "women volunteers" and schoolteachers about expected reactions to trauma in adults. It was well received. "Twóma" is a new word in Haiti- my understanding is that the word has emerged since January 12- and yet even the women from the very rural areas of de Nippes had at least heard the new term and had some associations even if they did not have a fully formed definition. I think it's a really unique opportunity and important responsibility to help them form that definition. I used the analogy of poison- that a disaster is like a poison for the mind and that there are predictable and normal reactions to disaster, but like a poison must be expelled from the body, the trauma must be expelled from the mind through communication and expression or the predictable reactions can become long-term problems. I went over some basic neuroscience which the teachers especially seemed very eager to learn about. Afterwords, the teachers called me "Doktor Twóma" which was a term of respect but I couldn't help but think it was an awesome name for a James Bond movie villain. I also taught them some mindfulness meditation techniques (many studies have shown neuroendocrine and stress/fear circuitry changes in folks with PTSD after learning these simple techniques)- or rather I taught them to Muríelle, a psychologist from Port-au-Prince who works with Mercy Corps there- who then did a masterful job of communicating these strange and foreign actions and concepts in Creole and in a culturally appropriate way. Muríelle has a "License" degree in Haiti (4 year degree) and has been counseling in Port-au-Prince. The earthquake destroyed her office. Since then, she has been working pro-bono and has been extremely busy.
By the way, she's hoping to get a scholarship to study child psychology and English in the United States so she can be better trained to continue working with traumatized Haitian children. She bought a piece of land in the small village where she was born, in the hopes that she can raise money to build an orphanage there. Somebody give this girl a scholarship. Write to me for her contact information VANELZAK -at- Colorado -dot- EDU
After her office was destroyed, Muríelle took a job with Mercy Corps and came along with us from Port-au-Prince to help us, learn from us, and to see our group give the first Mercy Corps-based trauma training outside of Port-au-Prince. Maxéne is a young man from Mercy Corps Port-au-Prince who met us in Petit Trou for the same reasons. He is trained as a sociologist (and also studied English for 2 years at a prestigious Haitian language academy), but hopes to earn a Master's in counseling in the United States. He is also looking for a scholarship and is quite deserving. The fact that Mercy Corps is expanding its trauma work beyond Port-au-Prince is a very good thing. Driving through the massive slum of Cite Solei ('Sun City'- the largest slum in the world other than the favelas of Rio de Janeiro) on the way to Petit Trou from Port-au-Prince it was quite apparent that the damage- and the trauma- from the Haiti earthquake was not isolated to Port-au-Prince. Cite Solei was so jam packed with refugee camps that even the median of the one road in and out of the city was filled with tents, right up to the traffic's edge. Sanitation there seemed to be absolutely non-existent. We also drove right over the epicenter and needless to say, there were a lot of piles of rubble and UN tents and one can assume that traumatized human beings are in those tents.
What we're doing here is definitely based on Mercy Corps' work, but we've expanded it quite a bit. One expansion was to include specific "What you can do about it" ideas and strategies, which is what the people of Petit Trou specifically asked the Colorado Haiti project to help with. Not surprisingly, during our first day here they also asked us for "what to do during an earthquake" advice (on January 12 many, many terrified Haitians ran IN to their homes for safely) so it was lucky that I expected that question and did some research on the topic, which we'll go over Sunday after everyone gets out of church.
Today, Lauri went into the Mercy Corps program concepts and added her own "What you can do about it" section from her own area of expertise with some art therapy projects, basically some specific art therapy based program/curriculum ideas for the schoolteachers to give to their students. The women volunteers especially did the art therapy exercises earnestly and with an openness which said to me they took our words seriously and also knew intuitively that their grief needed to be expressed. Tomorrow Sara will talk about predictable reactions to trauma in children at different developmental stages and will also give the teachers some curriculum materials. Beverly and Pat have been busy setting up a women's clinic in 2 different areas of the village: every woman in the village has a painful vaginitis so there will be a microscope to figure out what is happening and medicine to make it better. I would assume that we'll also have to start thinking about how to treat the well water.
-Mike.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Trinity Cathedral
We visited the Trinity Cathedral Church in downtown Port-au-Prince.
I'm going to post "before" photos from the internet next to photos I took today. I took a picture of the church organ as well.
-Mike.
I'm going to post "before" photos from the internet next to photos I took today. I took a picture of the church organ as well.
-Mike.
x
The Good News
The good news is that for every group here to proselytize and do fluff work, there is a group here doing serious helpful activism with long-term goals and commitments. The best, of course, have a strong relationship with Haitian groups that will make sure the work is sustainable and effective. Today we met with the Mercy Corps group in Haiti to go over the trip to Petit Trou (2 of them will be going with us for the week to help translate, especially when we break the audience into small discussion groups). We met with Mercy Corps workers all afternoon today. They also took us to a really unique place: the Dominical Republic (traditionally there is tension between DR and Haiti) has donated a bunch of buses that are now essentially classrooms for all the children living in the nearby tent camps (which are everywhere). One bus is for pottery (many of the kids built houses with their clay), one bus is the library, a tent is for language lessons, another bus is for singing. THe kids sang us a welcome song that was really amazing! Furthermore, the kids are sent home everyday with a meal- not just for themselves, but for their whole family. There were kids waiting at the gates- at first we were concerned that there were not enough resources and those were kids who had been turned away, but it turned out that they were the afternoon kids who showed up early, eager for their session to begin. The first picture is of our new friends in Mercy Corps, the rest are of the unique school. (I'm pretty sure you can click on an image to enlarge it) -Mike.
The view from our hotel room
This is a photo I took from the back window of the room where Beverly, Pat and I are staying.
The Palmm Inn Hotel where we are staying for the first two nights:
http://www.palminnhotel.net/english
survived the earthquake remarkably well. Embarrassingly, maddeningly well. I suppose if I were a structural engineer I wouldn't think it was arbitrary, but driving through Port-au-Prince, it sure seems arbitrary. I think that it is a fair generalization to divide buildings here into fourths: 25% survived with none or just surface damage, 25% have cracks but are still livable, 25% have major damage like a wall or, more commonly, the roof missing, and 25% are completely decimated, a pile of bricks.
Some images of buildings and houses taken from the car:
I think these show that strange pattern of relatively intact houses next to piles of bricks.
The bricks.
Bricks and debris line the streets. Everywhere. Sometimes massive piles, and it seems to ALL have been removed by hand, Haitians using shovels or, literally, their hands. Will the piles be picked up? I could count the big construction vehicles I saw all day on one hand.
For traumatized people, one of the great tortures comes in the form of re-experiencing the trauma. Sometimes it's as distinct and punctate as a flashback, sometimes it's "just" intrusive memories - can't stop thinking about it, reliving the trauma in nightmares, etc. Imagine trying to psychically heal with massive piles of bricks everywhere.
-Mike.
The Palmm Inn Hotel where we are staying for the first two nights:
http://www.palminnhotel.net/english
survived the earthquake remarkably well. Embarrassingly, maddeningly well. I suppose if I were a structural engineer I wouldn't think it was arbitrary, but driving through Port-au-Prince, it sure seems arbitrary. I think that it is a fair generalization to divide buildings here into fourths: 25% survived with none or just surface damage, 25% have cracks but are still livable, 25% have major damage like a wall or, more commonly, the roof missing, and 25% are completely decimated, a pile of bricks.
Some images of buildings and houses taken from the car:
I think these show that strange pattern of relatively intact houses next to piles of bricks.
The bricks.
Bricks and debris line the streets. Everywhere. Sometimes massive piles, and it seems to ALL have been removed by hand, Haitians using shovels or, literally, their hands. Will the piles be picked up? I could count the big construction vehicles I saw all day on one hand.
For traumatized people, one of the great tortures comes in the form of re-experiencing the trauma. Sometimes it's as distinct and punctate as a flashback, sometimes it's "just" intrusive memories - can't stop thinking about it, reliving the trauma in nightmares, etc. Imagine trying to psychically heal with massive piles of bricks everywhere.
-Mike.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Welcome to Haiti
We arrived in Port-au-Prince a few hours late but intact. The plane was packed; filled with a disproportionate number of caucasian teenagers with matching t-shirts. I wonder somewhat cynically what they have to offer and marvel that, through the strange prism of American culture, an event such as the Haiti earthquake winds up adding Collectible Items to the Global Product Stream.
The plane itself was oddly indicitive of Haiti: nothing seems to work perfectly well, and you're better off if the oddities and quirks make you smile rather than curse. About halfway through the flight the overhead screens started sharing the following information with the passengers:
TIME TO PORT-AU-PRINCE: 8:16
ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL: 0:12
TEMPERATURE: -43c
"Doesn't exactly instill confidence in the engineering," quipped Beverly.
at the moment we touched down, the screen informed us:
TIME TO PORT-AU-PRINCE: 7:08
DISTANCE TO PORT-AU-PRINCE: 5058 Miles
Plenty of houses sans roof on the way in, though the skies were so hazy- almost smoggy- that it was hard to see much distance.
The cello made it intact. Right now, I'm writing from the table of the hotel restaurant, and the cello is locked safely in our room, unscathed. Pretty amazing, actually.
It rained. It did not drizzle. We waited and negotiated (much of Haiti seems to revolve around waiting and negotiating) for our 2 4-wheel drive vehicles- just as we were piling in to the trucks, the sky opened up. Within minutes the "roads" were running streams. I was amazed that people were talking about the "address" of the hotel. "Address" implies order and numbers. A lot of bricks and a lot of tents, but it was hard to tell what was the result of the earthquake and what was like that before. As we crept through the stream/roads we slowed down next to an old Toyota pickup with a tarp strung over the hood, lean-to style. I noticed a lone man standing erect, shoulders hunched, neck leaned forward perhaps in the least-rain-penetrable spot of his new post-earthquake home.
At the hotel, as we waited and negotiated for 2 rooms despite having a "reservation"for 3 rooms, a man walked up through the downpour toting a black and silver pistol grip pump shotgun. After a second, he pulled his black baseball hat out from under his jacket, it read "SECURITY."
-Mike.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
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