By Kathy Chartier
Saturday night, April 25th, I returned home from Gran Sous and slept in my own bed with my down pillow. In Gran Sous I slept in a bed, but in a mosquito tent with my coat for a pillow. A tarantula over my head the first night! Mosquitoes, 3 inch cockroaches and geckos in our room every night. A symphony of animal sounds all night long – dogs barking, roosters crowing (it’s a myth that they only crow at daybreak!), goats bleating, cats meowing, I have never appreciated my bed so much!
Sunday morning I got up, turned on the faucet, and scooped coffee into the maker with tears in my eyes. In Gran Sous, a child takes the donkey or carries the bucket on their head down the steep, rocky path to the water project. Mama goes to the Friday market by foot or on a moto-taxi to buy the coffee beans. The elderly aunt grinds them by hand on the dusty ground with a big pan in her lap. Then it is cooked over a charcoal fire. The simple things we take so for granted,..
Now it is a week later, and I still think of the people of Gran Sous every day and dream about them every night. They have so little and need so much.
On a cold night in February Joanne Todd and I had dinner with Chad in Washington DC. Joanne had already committed to going to Gran Sous with Roots of Development and I wanted to hear more about it. We spoke for hours about Gran Sous; the people and their way of living, their struggles and their needs. Chad told us about the clean water project, the houses rebuilt after the hurricane, the clinic, the food that Roots supplied after the earthquake. Then we talked about the upcoming trip, the midwife project and the women’s group and their need for microenterprise loans. Helping people, especially women, to help themselves make their lives better has long been a passion of mine. I’ve seen microenterprise successes through the World Council of Credit Unions in Philippines, Mexico, Peru and Ecuador,
How could I not go to Haiti with Roots of Development?
Lucky for me, Chad was not able to find an engineer and I was able to take that spot. Even luckier for Roots, Chad found Geoffrey, our engineer just days before the trip.
We arrived in Gran Sous on April 17. The first couple of days were full of surprises. First was learning that our driver was shot in Port of Prince an hour before we landed. He is still in the hospital. Second was that the bay was so rough when we crossed by ferry that I thought we were going to sink. Third was that 13 people and all of their luggage could fit in the back of a pickup truck and travel over dirt and rock paths not fit to call roads for two hours without killing anyone! Fourth was the tarantula over my bed in the middle of the night. I wanted adventure and a little fear and I sure got it! If I could have gone home that second day, I still wonder if I would have.
As the week progressed, the spirit of the people with how little they have and how much Roots of Development has been able to do to help them were the greatest surprises of all.
Simple things we take so for granted; clean, safe drinking water, a health clinic, a roof over our head, sanitary bathroom facilities, tools to complete a job, food in our bellies – wouldn’t be possible for so many without Roots of Development.
Visiting Louis and his family, in his house funded by Roots and built by the committee, hearing about the food he received after the earthquake, seeing his new born son presented to Chad to name, then holding that child, will be burned in my heart and memory forever.
Meeting with the women, hearing their problems, achievements and hopes and dreams; seeing young adults practicing their English aspiring to come to the US and wondering what opportunities the future holds for them; seeing young children and teens learning on benches in churches and classrooms with few books or school supplies. Living with the people is so much different than watching a news segment on tv or reading an article in the paper. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
I will be forever grateful for a young man with a dream to improve the lives of the people in a community, in a country that he has grown to love. Thank you Chad, the world needs more young people like you.
And thank you to every one associated with Roots of Development for all your efforts for Haiti and the opportunity to share in your good works. Joanne and I believe that we will be able to help the people of Gran Sous with financial education and microenterprise loans. We have already started to make connections.
I look forward to a long relationship with Roots of Development.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
April 2010 Trip to Haiti
By Jennifer Demma
My name is Jennifer M. Demma and I am a Certified Nurse-Midwife living in Minneapolis and I recently had the opportunity to travel to Gran Sous, Haiti with a group of eleven people from the US as a part of a Roots of Development trip. There were four of us (myself, Lynn Stanley-Haney – a Nurse Practitioner, Vida Kent – a Certified Nurse-Midwife, and Jennifer Applegate -- a public health researcher and intern at Roots of Development) who were part of a midwifery initiative trying to work with the local midwives and the members of the community to learn about the maternal-child health needs in Gran Sous and on the island as a whole. The intention of the trip was that by better understanding the current situation and learning about available resources and current challenges then we will be able to work with the midwives and the community to help improve the health status of women and children on the island.
In making this trip I didn't know what to expect, since I had never traveled to a third world country before. Traveling to Gran Sous was not a simple journey for the team: flying to Port-au-Prince, traveling on a harrowing truck ride for a couple hours to a hotel on the coast to stay for the night, then riding a ferry for two and a half hours and then landing on the island and taking another even more harrowing truck ride on rocky "roads" for a couple of hours to finally arrive in Gran Sous. It was exhausting and exciting and yet it is a trip that people on the island often have to make just to try to acquire food and supplies.
Upon arriving in Gran Sous, we were greeted by a warm and enthusiastic welcome and met our host families. I stayed with an incredibly generous and kind family: a man named Stevenson, and his wife Jolene and their four children. One of the highlights of the trip was sharing time with my host family swapping stories and teaching them to play games. I discovered that connections and relationships can be formed through the simplest of interactions.
Despite being incredibly hot and dehydrated most of the time, we had the opportunity to build relationships with a group of 24 local midwives. I was surprised to learn that the majority of midwives on the island are men, which is different than many other places where midwives are predominantly women. Like many other countries, most of the babies on the island are born at home. For many reasons, women often do not receive prenatal care, proper nutrition, or treatment for medical problems and the midwives may or may not have the training or resources to deal with complications of pregnancy or birth. I was also surprised to discover that the midwives we met with usually do not get paid for their services and, despite this, they described how dedicated they are to caring for women and babies and how eager they are to receive training and access to supplies (like birth kits). Women do have some access to birth control but they often have to walk for hours just to get to a dispensary where they can receive contraception.
Even though we communicated to the village when we were planning the trip that we were not coming to the island to provide direct patient care, people would still approach us and show us various medical problems and ailments just to have us look at them to see if we could do anything. It was extremely difficult to not be able to help them and to know that they probably would not be able to access any help. We did, however, have the opportunity to bring a nine-year-old girl to the hospital for medical care that she would not have gotten otherwise. We also had the chance to help transport a woman who was eight months pregnant and bleeding to Port-au-Prince to find a hospital where she safely delivered a healthy baby boy by c-section.
Overall, what I was struck by the most was the tremendous resilience of the people: their strength and determination in the face of incredible odds against them, along with limited resources and isolation, was a true inspiration. I was also inspired and amazed by the hopefulness, vision and aspirations of the people. I discovered that no matter where you live, there are universal aspirations that all people share like the ability to have a home, shelter, food, jobs, education for your children, health, safety and opportunities.
Equally striking was bearing witness to malnourished children and families who struggle just to have food to eat on a regular basis. On our first day on the island, we saw a crucial food delivery that some of the people of Gran Sous had obtained and I marveled at the simplicity of how precious a bag of rice could be.
As I have settled back into the routine of my life here in Minnesota I find myself thinking about the trip on a daily basis. I wonder how an island only about 700 miles off the coast of Florida could be home to such hope and faith and strength and yet face such isolation, poverty, hunger, and struggle. I find myself unbelievably grateful for people and things I have often taken for granted. Most importantly, I remember how it felt to receive such kindness and appreciation for something as simple as sharing time with people, listening to the them, paying attention to their needs and promising never to forget them or their stories.
My name is Jennifer M. Demma and I am a Certified Nurse-Midwife living in Minneapolis and I recently had the opportunity to travel to Gran Sous, Haiti with a group of eleven people from the US as a part of a Roots of Development trip. There were four of us (myself, Lynn Stanley-Haney – a Nurse Practitioner, Vida Kent – a Certified Nurse-Midwife, and Jennifer Applegate -- a public health researcher and intern at Roots of Development) who were part of a midwifery initiative trying to work with the local midwives and the members of the community to learn about the maternal-child health needs in Gran Sous and on the island as a whole. The intention of the trip was that by better understanding the current situation and learning about available resources and current challenges then we will be able to work with the midwives and the community to help improve the health status of women and children on the island.
In making this trip I didn't know what to expect, since I had never traveled to a third world country before. Traveling to Gran Sous was not a simple journey for the team: flying to Port-au-Prince, traveling on a harrowing truck ride for a couple hours to a hotel on the coast to stay for the night, then riding a ferry for two and a half hours and then landing on the island and taking another even more harrowing truck ride on rocky "roads" for a couple of hours to finally arrive in Gran Sous. It was exhausting and exciting and yet it is a trip that people on the island often have to make just to try to acquire food and supplies.
Upon arriving in Gran Sous, we were greeted by a warm and enthusiastic welcome and met our host families. I stayed with an incredibly generous and kind family: a man named Stevenson, and his wife Jolene and their four children. One of the highlights of the trip was sharing time with my host family swapping stories and teaching them to play games. I discovered that connections and relationships can be formed through the simplest of interactions.
Despite being incredibly hot and dehydrated most of the time, we had the opportunity to build relationships with a group of 24 local midwives. I was surprised to learn that the majority of midwives on the island are men, which is different than many other places where midwives are predominantly women. Like many other countries, most of the babies on the island are born at home. For many reasons, women often do not receive prenatal care, proper nutrition, or treatment for medical problems and the midwives may or may not have the training or resources to deal with complications of pregnancy or birth. I was also surprised to discover that the midwives we met with usually do not get paid for their services and, despite this, they described how dedicated they are to caring for women and babies and how eager they are to receive training and access to supplies (like birth kits). Women do have some access to birth control but they often have to walk for hours just to get to a dispensary where they can receive contraception.
Even though we communicated to the village when we were planning the trip that we were not coming to the island to provide direct patient care, people would still approach us and show us various medical problems and ailments just to have us look at them to see if we could do anything. It was extremely difficult to not be able to help them and to know that they probably would not be able to access any help. We did, however, have the opportunity to bring a nine-year-old girl to the hospital for medical care that she would not have gotten otherwise. We also had the chance to help transport a woman who was eight months pregnant and bleeding to Port-au-Prince to find a hospital where she safely delivered a healthy baby boy by c-section.
Overall, what I was struck by the most was the tremendous resilience of the people: their strength and determination in the face of incredible odds against them, along with limited resources and isolation, was a true inspiration. I was also inspired and amazed by the hopefulness, vision and aspirations of the people. I discovered that no matter where you live, there are universal aspirations that all people share like the ability to have a home, shelter, food, jobs, education for your children, health, safety and opportunities.
Equally striking was bearing witness to malnourished children and families who struggle just to have food to eat on a regular basis. On our first day on the island, we saw a crucial food delivery that some of the people of Gran Sous had obtained and I marveled at the simplicity of how precious a bag of rice could be.
As I have settled back into the routine of my life here in Minnesota I find myself thinking about the trip on a daily basis. I wonder how an island only about 700 miles off the coast of Florida could be home to such hope and faith and strength and yet face such isolation, poverty, hunger, and struggle. I find myself unbelievably grateful for people and things I have often taken for granted. Most importantly, I remember how it felt to receive such kindness and appreciation for something as simple as sharing time with people, listening to the them, paying attention to their needs and promising never to forget them or their stories.
Musings on Haiti
By Lynn Haney (April 2010 Trip to Gran Sous, Haiti)
I awoke the first morning after our return from Gran Sous to the gentle sound of rain on the roof, classical music on the radio, and the security of my Connecticut life. I found it hard to believe that only 24 hours before, I had wakened to the sounds of roosters crowing, donkeys braying and dogs barking; the sounds of early morning in a remote mountain village in earthquake ravaged Haiti.
Thanks to Roots of Development, this is the second time I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit and be part of this remarkable community. Last year when I visited, I was moved and inspired as I watched the members of APDAG working to help the people of their village in developing plans to improve their lives. On returning this year, I was stunned by the work that had been accomplished and progress they had made in their understanding of group process.
The people of Gran Sous are quite simply, amazing! They open their homes, their hearts to us with warmth, generosity and a trust that is unique in my experience. They have so little, they live with none of the modern conveniences that we as Americans find “essential”, and yet are willing to share what they have without hesitation.
From early morning until darkness falls, they labor to achieve the basics of life. Women and children carry the water necessary for cooking and bathing long distance from the water source to their homes, in basins and plastic jugs, balanced on their heads. They cook their meals over charcoal fires, wash their clothes in the streams and then carry this heavy wet clothing back (again on their heads) to their homes. They walk countless miles over a rocky road to market for food and necessities, and then carry their purchases back. On market day, we joined them on their walk to market, carried nothing back and speaking for myself, were sweaty, thirsty and exhausted! These are the conditions in the main village area of the town. Relatively speaking they are luxurious compared the conditions in the more remote mountainous areas. The conditions in those areas defy description.
Within this community, I have found friendship, affection and acceptance from people of all ages. They gently tease me about my foibles, reach out to steady me when I clumsily trip over the ever-present rocks, hug me and most importantly, laugh with me.
I came to Gran Sous to assist them in working out a plan for improving health care. I continue to work with them to achieve these goals. In my case, I was part of a team assessing the potential for providing additional education for the lay midwives practicing in Gran Sous and the surrounding area.
However, what I can give to them seems small in comparison to what they have given to me. I have learned so much more than I have given. My life and my perspective have been forever changed.
Don’t misunderstand me; this is a physically arduous, emotionally draining trip. I found conditions that broke my heart, situations that appalled and frustrated me from a medical perspective, conditions that I simply cannot understand and find difficult if not impossible to accept. The day-to-day life is hard, adapting to such a deprived and rigorous lifestyle is not easy and it is often a struggle to keep up with the daily demands. I would be less than honest if I said that I wasn’t discomforted or at times miserable, but all in all the good parts far outweighed the difficulties.
Before the January earthquake the country was mired in poverty: confounded by the unjust distribution of wealth and power, working within a fragmented government structure, lacking natural resources, with poor to non existent health care, to name only a few of their problems. Now this natural disaster has compounded all the issues and problems and left in its wake a situation that seems hopeless.
However, despite all of this, I continue to maintain that there can be hope. Through organizations like Roots of Development, there burns a flicker of optimism. Employing Roots of Development’s philosophy of working with the intelligent and resourceful people of Haiti, we can help to show them that they are not powerless, they can work to achieve goals and they can achieve success. Small steps within small communities (such as Gran Sous) to be sure, but steps definitely worth taking if Haiti is to endure.
I awoke the first morning after our return from Gran Sous to the gentle sound of rain on the roof, classical music on the radio, and the security of my Connecticut life. I found it hard to believe that only 24 hours before, I had wakened to the sounds of roosters crowing, donkeys braying and dogs barking; the sounds of early morning in a remote mountain village in earthquake ravaged Haiti.
Thanks to Roots of Development, this is the second time I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit and be part of this remarkable community. Last year when I visited, I was moved and inspired as I watched the members of APDAG working to help the people of their village in developing plans to improve their lives. On returning this year, I was stunned by the work that had been accomplished and progress they had made in their understanding of group process.
The people of Gran Sous are quite simply, amazing! They open their homes, their hearts to us with warmth, generosity and a trust that is unique in my experience. They have so little, they live with none of the modern conveniences that we as Americans find “essential”, and yet are willing to share what they have without hesitation.
From early morning until darkness falls, they labor to achieve the basics of life. Women and children carry the water necessary for cooking and bathing long distance from the water source to their homes, in basins and plastic jugs, balanced on their heads. They cook their meals over charcoal fires, wash their clothes in the streams and then carry this heavy wet clothing back (again on their heads) to their homes. They walk countless miles over a rocky road to market for food and necessities, and then carry their purchases back. On market day, we joined them on their walk to market, carried nothing back and speaking for myself, were sweaty, thirsty and exhausted! These are the conditions in the main village area of the town. Relatively speaking they are luxurious compared the conditions in the more remote mountainous areas. The conditions in those areas defy description.
Within this community, I have found friendship, affection and acceptance from people of all ages. They gently tease me about my foibles, reach out to steady me when I clumsily trip over the ever-present rocks, hug me and most importantly, laugh with me.
I came to Gran Sous to assist them in working out a plan for improving health care. I continue to work with them to achieve these goals. In my case, I was part of a team assessing the potential for providing additional education for the lay midwives practicing in Gran Sous and the surrounding area.
However, what I can give to them seems small in comparison to what they have given to me. I have learned so much more than I have given. My life and my perspective have been forever changed.
Don’t misunderstand me; this is a physically arduous, emotionally draining trip. I found conditions that broke my heart, situations that appalled and frustrated me from a medical perspective, conditions that I simply cannot understand and find difficult if not impossible to accept. The day-to-day life is hard, adapting to such a deprived and rigorous lifestyle is not easy and it is often a struggle to keep up with the daily demands. I would be less than honest if I said that I wasn’t discomforted or at times miserable, but all in all the good parts far outweighed the difficulties.
Before the January earthquake the country was mired in poverty: confounded by the unjust distribution of wealth and power, working within a fragmented government structure, lacking natural resources, with poor to non existent health care, to name only a few of their problems. Now this natural disaster has compounded all the issues and problems and left in its wake a situation that seems hopeless.
However, despite all of this, I continue to maintain that there can be hope. Through organizations like Roots of Development, there burns a flicker of optimism. Employing Roots of Development’s philosophy of working with the intelligent and resourceful people of Haiti, we can help to show them that they are not powerless, they can work to achieve goals and they can achieve success. Small steps within small communities (such as Gran Sous) to be sure, but steps definitely worth taking if Haiti is to endure.
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