Making Connections

Tuesday, December 15, 2008

Home tonight after a long, but gratifying day. I met with a physician from the States who has been working in Haiti for the last 5 years. She works two big health-care organizations in Haiti: PIH and GHESKIO. Today’s visit was to get to know the people and services of GHESKIO, a facility that specializes in TB and HIV diagnosis and treatment. They also offer sex education and the diagnosis and treatment of STD’s One of our partners in the States helped make this connection, and I am extremely grateful for it. Networking makes up such a huge part of our work here, and any help in the process only expediates the connections made.

During the day I attended a seminar on multidrug-resistant TB, met with staff and leaders of the organization, learned about their commitment and resources for the community. They asked about CONASPEH and recognized the huge potential for public health education with such a large network of churches. I was glad for their enthusiasm. They also may be a resource for auxiliary training for our nurses, potential training for a lab tech, and certainly a great resource for our patients. It was a good day for CONASPEH, for networking and for my own sense of connecting to a medical community outside of our little school walls.

The adventures of the day came in the form, once again, of trying to find where we were going. Patrick and I needed to find the hotel where the conference was taking place. On the website, "location" was only defined as “Petionville” which sort of points us to a general, broad area. In all honesty, street names wouldn’t have enlightened us further since there aren’t signs on many corners clueing you into the identity of the street. Street sense comes from try and fail for foreigners or relying on the innate familiarity by the locals. We rely on the locals to get anywhere, to do anything, to find any place. We’ve learned that just following one street or another only wastes gas, and never helps us find the location. Even large stores hide unmarked behind walls, so for the unfamiliar driver, they are certain to miss. But the beauty of Haiti is that the locals are more than willing to help. Today, we drove to the main square of Petionville and asked a local artesian where the hotel was. Oh yes he knew, and he would show us. So he hopped in our car, and instructed us along a maze of turns and curves until, sure-enough, we arrived at the hotel entrance. Patrick drove the man back, tried to thank him with a tip, but it was refused. Instead, the man asked Patrick to look at his art. So Patrick obliged and found a souvenir necklace from Napolean, our new guide and friend.

Patrick had a similar challenge at finding me at the day’s end. We were supposed to meet at a different location to share dinner with a couple of people from GHESKIO. I had been with the physician’s group all day, and therefore could only tell Patrick the name and general location of the fancy hotel where we were to meet. I worried. The sun had set, it was Aristide’s birthday and demonstrators were hitting the streets. It wasn’t a time for Patrick to get lost. Being separated from him always leaves me a little uneasy. Although growing more comfortable with our community and our ability to get around in it, I still have a healthy fear of the unpredictable, the unsafe that is a reality of this country. Patrick made it to the hotel eventually, but not without adventure and a lot of help from people on every corner.

So often in travels we find we are taken care of by random strangers, good people reaching out to us in friendship and care without any reason to do so outside of simple kindness. Our experience speaks that Haiti is full of such people; daily interactions, directions, and help arise out of the Haitian hospitality. The poor share their doorstep, the man on the corner shows us the way, organizations offer collaboration, street children help fix our car, a woman in a tap-tap orients us to our surroundings, a child takes our hand. These kinds of encounters make us feel a safe and encouraged in a new community, connected through our humanity. They renew the belief in the good in people, and how beautiful our world can be when we work together, fear aside, for a nicer place for all to live.