Resettlement

I'm sitting alone in my living room enjoying the gift of a peaceful moment. The only noise to be heard is a load of laundry spinning around the dryer and the occasional squawk of bluejays battling for a bit of seed. The air is thickly fragrent of warm pine. Sunlight filters in through evergreen and aspen, drenching our living room in light. Patrick has the munchkins out on a walk, throwing pinecones and scrambling over rocks. Our cabin feels more like a vacation get away than a home this early after moving in. And after 1 1/2 years living in a country of constant noise and people, 6 months of living in other peoples' spaces, the silence I find myself in now takes a little getting used to. The kids love exploring the vast outdoors, morning walks are becoming routine, a lady fox comes visiting daily hoping the kids will leave some treats in their path, birds swarm the trees when Patrick fills the feeders, humming birds flit around our window, and we hear the call of momma elk scolding their babies across the hills. Could our lives change any more in 6 months???

I'm currently back on the interview track, scoping out community health centers in the area, putting on slacks and heals and trying to look the part of professional again. I can't help but smile to think what Gouka and Valena in the CONASPEH office would say if they saw me all gussied up. My usual attire for the Haitian clinic was some sort of thin pant and light shirt, sweaty hair pulled back, face too shiny for make-up. I can almost hear them cheering, "ou bel! ou bel" like they did every time I managed a skirt instead of pants, somehow the skirt alone transforming me into a beauty although the rest of the sweatiness was as before. It feels weird and premature to be back in this position earlier than planned, pondering where I want to work, what place of employment would be the best fit. I feel a little strange to be touring many of the same clinic sites that I did 3 years ago, though at the time I was such a different applicant. Over confident, certain. Independent. I was a proud product of a strong residency program and a country who prides itself on independence, achievement and a bootstraps sort of work-ethic.

One of the hardest adjustments for me to make when we moved to Haiti was giving up a bit of my Independent Woman identity. Patrick and I went to work together everyday; I was driven most places. I gave up running for a while or doing anything solo until we figured out what was safe and appropriate to do. In those first 3 months we relied heavily on everyone around us to simply navigate life in a country we didn't yet understand and a language that made no sense to our straining ears. Now, back in the country of my formative years, I realize that I am more eager to celebrate my Dependent Self, and how that makes me stronger, how that makes my community stronger. I thank Haiti for that.

Of course the interview time brings up a lot of questions about our life and work in Haiti. Strange to be summing up such a life changing time in a couple of sentences. The exercise leaves me feeling a bit melancholy. Describing the clinic work, what we were able to accomplish, what we had plans of developing, what was lost, what was taught leaves me reeling in the unfinished nature of what had to leave behind. Truncated. Unfinished. Tragic.

How have my experiences prepared me to be a valuable asset to your clinic? Hmmm. Do you have Creole speaking patients? No? Hmmmm. Malaria? Typhoid? Dengue? Intestinal round worm? I can do all my own cleaning, stocking, vital signs, drug distribution and lab evaluations in addition to my physical exam! I'm good at large assumptions on diagnosis based on a physical exam. I have mastered the talent of focusing on a single conversation while 15 sets of eyes watch my every move, yelling "Dokte! Hey You! Blan" in competition for my attention. Oh, and I've also discovered the magical power of vitamins.

Yesterday I interviewed with the place I nearly signed on with some years ago before the opportunity to go to Haiti arose. I feel like a different candidate in a lot of ways, though, this time around. The clinics I'm investigating will force me to re-learn Spanish, and will hone my skills in all things medicine and obstetric, skills that have gotten a little rusty practicing in a bare-bones clinic. Strange to consider working in large clinical systems, with so much competent back up and help. What? someone will do my faxing? What? there is a fax?

Despite enjoying my inverviews and the people I've been meeting, I've recently been hit with another wallop of sadness about not returning to Haiti. Students and Haitian coworkers populate my dreams. I keep flashing to what my job looked like in Haiti: seeing patients while children yanked at my shirt begging for attention, a school kid sneaking his way in between my patient line-up for a bandaid on a skinned knee or to show me their well-healed cut, marching up rickety concrete steps to see an elderly woman and check her blood pressure, shooing chickens out of my way as I made my way to her bed. Of course I look at it all through rose colored glasses now. It is easy to forget the frustrations of living there, the heartbreak of not being able to do more. I like that life does that. That the best of an experience comes shining through in the pages of memories.

So I'm feeling melancholy today. On upbeat days I am certain that we'll figure out a way to make Haiti or some other developing country home awhile again someday, that our international adventures are anything but over. The thought comforts me though makes me wonder about another major upheaval in the future. I'm grateful we found this amazing cabin with 20 acres to explore to help us re-immigrate back home. The culture shock of living astride two different worlds is eased when outside of cul-de-sacs and suburbs, away from the down-town hustle and bustle where even the poorest of the poor look a bit overweight. As much as I absolutely love the beauty of the place we are going to call home for a while, the retreat from the land of shopping malls and billboards advertising what we must have next and the accelerated pace of traffic down freeways, I find myself missing people. Patrick recounted a particularly beautiful hike he took yesterday, and the wildlife he saw doing their wild things. "Ah, but I bet there wasn't a guy at the corner ready to sell you a Tampico? Or a crowded tap-tap on the available to haul your tired legs up the mountain again? Or a lady balancing a menacing looking basket of produce that might cure a hunger pain?"

This new home will take a little getting used to. This life that feels familiar in some ways and foreign in others. The learning curve of living here is nothing like our first few days in Haiti, a fact to be lamented as well as celebrated. So we move on keeping Haiti close in heart and mind. We attempt to stay connected by watching news when we can stomach the helplessness it inevitably inspires, sending e-mails to friends there hoping to keep lines of communication open. We still plan with Haiti in our present and future. For as a wise (and king of understatements) Patrick Villier said to us in response to the news that we were resigning our posts as missionaries for the time being, "we're waiting for you, come back, because the work isn't yet done."