Since I last wrote a great deal has happened. On a clinical side, I have done HPV screening (equivalent with a pap smear) for about 150 women. This has been interesting but so fast that I do not get a great chance to interact with them. I do try and keep an eye out for other problems that I can refer to Delson if they need. I was not supposed to be doing all this....but since I am here...
On the research front, I have identified my team of helpers. They are all young college age students from different areas in and around Leogane. Wilkins is my translator and more of a perfectionist than me which is very good for the study and much more than I expected. He has been a great help already with getting my documents ready. Two girls, Lillian and Enid are helping me actually run the groups. I am anxious to see how this will turn out but we will see tomorrow as that will be my first group.
On the fun side, I have continued to eat really good salty and slightly hot Haitian food of all types including goat and conch and all kinds of fried things. I got to make friends with GiGi Delson's 18 month old son who is adorable and now no longer cries when he sees me. Friday I went to Port au Prince for the weekend which I was unsure about at first given that all I have seen of that city is not enjoyable. But, we stayed in a very ritzy suburb called Petionville which actually seemed like a different country all together. I felt like we were in the south of France or something. It is on the top of a hill and as you go up the hill from the ocean, you also go up in class, the houses get more and more expensive and the cars more beautiful. It was a nice little break.
Yesterday, I moved to the guest house I will be staying at. It is very nice and this week busy with Haitian Americans and Americans who are visiting. At some point, I will be the only guest and after a few days dad will join me. This morning, my hostess in the home (from New York now) took me to her ancestor's village about 25 minutes from here which was beautiful. It was a totally not commercialized fishing village which had only ever had 3 doctors visit it (me being the third). In any case, the children were beautiful playing in the ocean and with the hand made canoes. They brought us fresh, fleshy coconuts and I got to go for a swim in the Caribbean. It was a pleasure to just be with them.
I have learned that Leogane is the African center of Haiti and as such it is a center for voodoo and other related culture. This weekend, there are brass bands with African rhythms walking the streets followed by crowds of people dancing. This Ra Ra music is supposedly left over from Africa and somehow related to voodoo....it sounds kind of like the circus....at 4 in the morning. Voodoo is interesting. I am still learning about it but it is very different than what you think of in the Hollywood version. In general, it is an African native religion where all things in nature have spirits that are to be prayed to and with and to be appeased in order for good things to happen. Good voodoo priests actually see it as their calling to care for their community by conversing with the gods. "Good" voodoo cannot be bought or learned but it is a "gift". "Bad" voodoo exists and those people that buy their powers can only be bad. They are the ones responsible for placing curses on people and families. Voodoo is mixed up in every religion in Haiti in many ways. All I can keep thinking is that I believe in spirits too but I am glad that I know the God of Gods...and there is nothing to fear.
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