creature comforts

The group I came out with have now left, after a successful community engagement project to educate around the identification and treatment of pre-eclampsia.  It is without argument a killer, particularly in a low resource country where traditional medicines, and alternate treatments and beliefs to scientific medicine, are rife.  A really important issue.

It was a great week for them and a great week for me as it gave me time to acclimatise and learn about the culture of Haiti without the pressure of trying to help facilitate change.  It also gave me time to continue to pwactice (they don’t pronounce “R” here) my Creole.  In fact I find myself way out of my comfort zone by simply going up to complete strangers in the hospital and speaking to them.  Heh, it could be worse than being described as the unintelligible crazy ‘blanc’ (not a racist term, but the traditional Haiti term for a foreigner, no matter the colour of their skin), right?

Their return to England gave me the chance refresh my furniture, specifically to swap out my bunkbeds (yes really) for a (wobbly) double bed.  Selfish?  OK it does reduce the capacity of the Village to receive visitors (when Covid-19 finally allows travel), but (a) I am here for a year, and (b) I am 52.

As it was Saturday, and a belated birthday for one of the team, we had steak.  Beef for the record.  It was sourced from an American expat who provides incredible meat, at incredible value.  We defrosted 3, but then cut one into 4 (and saved the rest for the week) but were still full… clearly the portions were sized for Americans.   After dinner we climbed the water tower to take in the night sky, though before that I opted to do the washing up.  A great tactical decision as by the time I got up there (with the Laphroig) the fire pit was well settled…

The work finally begins on Monday; the holiday phase is over.  Can’t wait.