Guatemala!!

The whirlwind month has slowed... Match day brought much anxiety and emotions all leading to a climax of opening a small letter-sized envelope - fate enscribed within. UCLA were the words in my envelope. So that's it. I will be a doctor. I will be a pediatrcian. And my first job will be at UCLA. Four years of working extremely hard, sacrificing, headaches and tears. But it has all led me to a great place and I could not be more thankful. On to my Family Medicine shelf. What? I'm still taking national exams AFTER I have matched?? Let me tell you...my heart was not in that one! So, finished the test, drove up to Chicago, spent 2 fabulous days exploring the freezing windy city, and hopped on a plane heading to Guatemala! That's right folks, you know me...give me even the slightest opportunity to travel and I will be on a plane before you can blink your eyes. So, what am I doing in Guatemala?? Well, besides having the best time ever... I am doing 2 weeks of medical spanish classes, followed by 2 weeks of working in a clinic in Antigua. That's right folks...not only do I get to travel to one of the coolest, most beautiful countries in the world, but I am getting school credit for it and advancing language skills which will be very useful as a pediatrician in LA! Yay for me! I have been here for 1 week and 2 days so far and am absolutely loving it!! We are living with a host family in Guatemala who is super nice, cooks us amazing food 3 meals a day (think I've gained about 10 lbs), and are basically like parents :) They have a son who is ~12 and super cute, a little shy though! Jaclyn, Devon, and I arrived last Sunday and Tiffany was already here. I met Tiffany at my away rotation at Children's Hospital, Oakland and told her about this rotation. She arrived 1 week before us. Then on Friday, Kristina from SLU and her friend Jamie arrived as well. So now there are 6 of us staying with our host family! And another of Kristina's friends is going to arrive next Saturday! So there will be 7 students! Full house! And poor Devon is the only guy! (I don't think he minds though...) We have spanish classes every monring for 5 hours. They are long and painful, but I already feel that my spanish is improving ALOT! I can conguate all my verbs into present, past, and future tense, and am now working on vocab, especially medical vocabulary. Our lessons are 1 on 1 and I have an adorable teacher who is about 4'9" and so sweet! We have had the opportunity to go to the market together to learn the fruits and vegetables, and often play games of "guess the animal written on my forhead" or scategories to work on vocab. So it's not all hard work! We finish class at 1pm, eat lunch, and then have the rest of the day to play! So far we have walked all around Antigua which is an old colonial city known for its beautiful architeture, bright colors, flowers, coblstone streets, and old churches. It is surrounded by 3 volcanos, 1 of which is still active and causes the groud to shake daily (although I have barely noticed). Since Guatemalans realized that the beauty of this old town would be a strong tourist draw, they have stopped developing or building and instead have turned their efforts to restoring old buildings. It is a truly beautiful little town. Very small with only 8 streets in each direction coming off a little town center with a park and fountain. Last wednesday we had a tour guide take us around the town and explain the history of guatemala, the culture of its people, and their way of life.

The people are so friendly here. I really love chatting with the locals in my limited spanish. There is one adorable Mayan family that sells things on the streets. A mom and her 2 little girls and baby boy and her mother. We have chatted with them a bunch of times. Then we noticed the baby boy had really bad tinea on his head. So I went to the pharmacy and bought some ketoconazole for him. I think his mom was really happy. Made me feel good too :)

One night we went out to a little bar called Cafe No Se. It was a little hippie joint with live music. We made friends with the 3 bar tenders...1 girl from Scotland, 1 local Guatemalan, and 1 guy from Belgium. Fun peeps! We stumbled across a rooftop bar with amazing views of the entire city and volcanos one evening. One of the best glasses of wine I've ever enjoyed :) We also went to a coffee plantation and saw how they make the local coffee...which is pretty fabulous. We have also been entertained by a local guy with a guitar who sang to Jaclyn...here are some of his fantastic lyrics:

"I love your legs...I want to have many childrens with you...some people say you are miss america...but i say you are miss universe..." hahaha!!

This past weekend we headed up to Semuc Chamey which is this amazingly beautiful national park in the north of Guatemala. On Sunday we had the best day! After breakfast we headed straight up for a hike in the jungle. It was a greulling hike but so beautiful! And at the top of the mountain we had the most beautiful lookout across green lagoons and rolling mountains! It was so worth the tough hike! We hiked back down the other side and arrived in the most pristine, clear, green-blue lagoon! It was breathtaking! We swam, jumped off rocks, slid down rock slides, and even ran down an almost vertical drop to a pool 50ft below! It was scary! But soo fun! After the lagoons we floated down the rest of the river in intertubes, just enjoying the scenery. When we got back to the hostel we had some lunch, changed into sandals, and went cave diving! The caves were sooo cool! It was pitch dark and we each carried one candle with us! We had to crawl up through crevases and jump down into pools without putting our candles out! Quite often we had to swim because the water was so deep, holding our candles in one hand and using the other to paddle and hold our flip flops (which are worthless when swimming). It was such a crazy fun adventure!

So, besides one bought of terrible sickness with GI problems, fevers, horrible pain, and a swollen face (nothing that 3 days of antibiotics couldn't fix!), this trip has been an amazing success! I will let you know later how the rest of the spanish classes and the clinic work goes! But for now, I must go and enjoy a beer on a rooftop somewhere and prepare for a hike up an active volcano tomorrow!! I love my life!!

Much love to you all! xoxoxo

Success!!

The last 3 days in Haiti were extremely successful! So after all our work at the orphanage, we were informed that the 4 orphans that we had chosen to give scholarships to and had interviewed on video were actually NOT ready to go to the trade school! We were informed that due to their circumstances living in extreme poverty or losing their parents, they had not started formal schooling until they came to live in the orphanage. For 2 of them this was not until 8 or 9 years old! So even though they were ages 16-20, they would not graduate from high school for another 3-5 years! There were suggestions that they could leave school early and learn a trade, but we felt that this was cheating them out of essential education. After talking to the head of the orphanage about the situation they agreed to continue to allow the 4 children to live at the orphanage until they finished their high school education and we would pick up the responsibility for their education upon graduation. Evans, one of the men responsible for the orphans, said to me "we have invested so much in these children, we would not want to just leave them to struggle on the streets now when they have a chance to go to the trade school in the future". I was extremely happy to hear his commitment to these kids and that they would be taken care of and to continue their education until we started funding them to become health care worked in 3 or 4 years. This was a successful arrangement.
However, we now felt that we had to start over at the beginning. The entire reason for this visit to Haiti was to meet with the students that we were going to fund to go to school, video tape interviews with them, and ensure that they were set up to begin their further education in September. We have met 4 amazing students that we have committed to assisting with their education in 4 years, but what about now?? Haiti desperately needs health care workers now and there are sooo many bright, driven students in Haiti who deserve to further their education and would make amazing health care workers, but who do not have the means to fund their way through school. So...it was back to the drawing board! We gave Ebed an impossible task - 2 days to find 4 students that he believes are intelligent, hard workers who want to work in health care and who do not have the means to pay for their own tuition. And, of course, he came through with it!
Ebed is such an amazing person! His vision, drive, passion, and commitment to the people of Haiti are awe inspiring. Never before have I met someone who believed so much in all people, who valued education above everything as a means to advancing such a devastating country, and who was so extremely successful in his endeavors. He not only pays for hundred of children to be educated, he runs a micro-loan program for both business and education, he builds wells for clean water sources for rural villages, has built a trade school so as to educate more Haitians and provide more skills so as to create more jobs, and has started classes on creativity and critical thinking so as to empower Haitian students to think for themselves and create innovative ways to lift up the country. He has immense faith in people around him and often told Jenna and me that he could see something special in both of us and knows we will change the world. He told me I was the next Paul Farmer (those of you who know me well know that this is one of the greatest compliments someone could give me). But it is Ebed who should be world renowned like Dr Farmer. He is changing lives daily in Haiti and represents the change in mentality and opportunity that Haiti needs. The more time I spend with the man, the more I am amazed at his capabilities and insights. I feel very lucky to be working with such a great man.
Two days ago Ebed asked us if we could come to his school and teach all the students about Cholera and the importance of washing their hands and practicing preventive measures. The night before at dinner we composed a song in Creole about washing hands and practiced it all night and upon waking the next day. Early in the morning we headed over to the school. First Ebed brought us to the kindergarten class and we said hi to all the little ones and sang our song to them. Then we headed to the church where the entire elementary and high school were assembled. It was such a fantastic experience! There were approximately 300 students in yellow uniforms with yellow bows in their hair all packed into a small church. They were all smiles and so enthusiastic about everything. We did not understand the announcement that were being made but every so often a huge cheer would go up from all the students. When I asked Ebed later what they were cheering about he said he was telling them that they would be successful. That they were going to be leaders of Haiti, that they were going to change their country for the better. It was very inspirational to see these children's enthusiasm for school and ambition to succeed. We gave them our talk about cholera and taught them the song we had made up and they loved it! They laughed and clapped and insisted on singing the song again and again. As we drove away we heard them singing the song as the excited the church. And that night when we were attending the local soccer game (which I will say more about later) a group of kids ran up to us singing the song! It was so great and we had sooo much fun with them! I felt so special to be able to interact with them and laugh and play despite our language barrier.
After we finished at the school, we all piled into a truck and headed up to hike up to the Citadel. The Citadel is an ancient fortress built in 1804 after Haiti gained its independence from France to protect against any future attacks, although it never became necessary. As soon as we began our hike, we were joined by a group of the village's teenage boys who were eager to accompany us and tell us the history of the Citadel in their best English (or Spanish, in Jenna's case). So with entourage in tow, we huffed and puffed up the mountain while the Haitians trotted along beside us in flip flops acting as if they were going for a leisurely stroll. They even brought their horse, Toyota, in tow hoping that we would become too exhausted and give them a few bucks to let us ride him some of the way. When we climbed the 1000ft up to the top of the mountain and into the Citadel, the views were spectacular! It was quite an amazing building with a great deal of history. According to our Haitian guides/friends, the soldiers ran out of water to make the cement while building the fortress and instead used the blood of 20,000 slaves! Quite gory...we weren't sure if that one was true or if they just told this to the tourists for shock value.
So, tired and sunburned, we descended the mountain and headed back to Ebed's.
With only moments to rest back at the house, Ebed was calling us excitedly. "Our soccer team is winning and everyone is very excited! Do you want to go down to the school and root them on??" Of course even though we were exhausted, we couldn't pass us the opportunity to watch a local soccer game! So we all piled back into the bed of Ebed's truck and headed down to the school. And boy were we so happy that we did! It was such an exciting experience! The entire town was out watching the game and cheering. They crowded the goal line and side lines, pushing out into the field and then jumping back off the line every time the ball came close. Then when the home team scored a ball, all the young children from either goal line would run across the middle of the field cheering, leaping and yelling. It was really such a sight and you couldn't help but smile and laugh the entire time. After the game, groups of children ran up to us singing the hand washing song we had taught them earlier in the day! :) They then followed the opposing team off the field and to their bus chanting "we are better than you" "we are on a higher level than you" "we are the best" in Creole. It was such a laugh, but I must admit that I felt a bit bad for the opposing team that had to take such abuse after a loss!
We went home and ate a quick meal after the game and the Ebed told us that he has 5 students that he would like us to meet and interview as possible candidates for our funding. They were such phenomenal people! One boy came from a very poor family; his father had died and he was now helping to care for his mother and 6 siblings. He had been enrolled in the medical school in Port-au-Prince and was in his first year there when the earthquake happened. The man who had been funding his education at medical school had unfortunately been killed in the earthquake and so he had nothing left to do but to come home and help care for his mother and siblings. He now cannot get a job and has no money to help pay for food or supplies so he feels completely useless. The other 4 students had similar stories. One became an orphan at a young age and was raised by neighbors and worked as a child laborer to earn his keep. Ebed found him and offered his a scholarship to go to school, and he has excelled and received excellent grades. One female student wants to be a nurse. She said that this opportunity would not only change her life, but also that of her families, and, hopefully, her community. All of these students had worked so hard to get where they were, yet now they were not able to get jobs, further education, and were struggling to survive. They felt useless and hopeless, yet had the capacity to make so much of themselves if only given the opportunity. So, we decided that we would fund all 5 students to begin at the trade school in September. Anna told us that she had raised 300 dollars at her high school before she came (yay Anna!), so we are only about 300 short! (It is only 600 bucks for their 1 year of education - 50 bucks per month!). Even if we have to take this money out of our student loans we will...these amazing students definitely deserve his chance! (Shh...don't tell the government!)
Sooo...all things considered I think this was an amazingly successful trip to Haiti! We accomplished what we came to do; met with 5 fantastic students who will be starting trade school in September to become health care professionals. We worked in the clinic daily, learning more about malaria, HIV, and syphilis, and had our first exposures to cholera. We painted a school, taught in a church and a school about cholera prevention and when to seek medical care. We explored more of the history of Haiti and visited rural villages, getting more exposure to the Haitian culture and way of life. We spent a day with amazing orphan children and got to see the light in their eyes when we gave them toys and played jump ropes with them. We also developed relationships with the older orphans in order to help them with their education in the future. But the best part by far is that we got to better know and understand the amazing people of Haiti. They are so honest, caring, and real. They are kind and generous and never trying to swindle or scam you. They have so much drive and ambition and they funnel it into an effort to not only improve themselves, but to help each other and try and build a better community for everyone. I am humbled by their humanity and feel very lucky to get to be a part of their lives.

Political frenzy, voodoo parties, and cholera

So...the adventures continue!
Unbeknownst to us, this week was a defining week for Haiti in terms of the political reign. Haiti has undergone its first round of elections for a new president and there was disagreement about which 2 candidates would go on to the next round of elections. The popular vote elected 2 persons which they supported from 2 separate parties, but the government insisted that their candidate had more votes than one of the 2 elected. So after the results, the government announced that there was a mis-count and that in fact their man should be one of the 2 to advance to the next round. As you can imagine, this caused alot of people to be upset and they broke into the street and rioted, throwing rocks and attacking government officials. The international committee said they would review the situation, and the current government would announce the final decision on Feb. 2nd. Ebed told us all of this on Feb 1st!! He also told us that if they decided to keep the government's man in the running for president that there would be mass chaos, rioting, and danger in the city of Cap Haitien. And it was Feb 1st!!!
As you can imagine, we were not at all pleased by this news...
Anyway...on Feb 2nd we worked in the clinic again in the morning. We saw alot of people with horrible hypertension - as high as 240/130, who had strokes, were blind, headaches, etc. They had either never been treated or could not afford medication/doctors consultations so did not seek medical help until they heard that 2 American doctors were seeing patients for free. We also saw what we think was secondary syphilis. We had a woman come in with a horrible asthma attack that had been going on for 8 days!! She was so exhausted, she was too tired to walk. We quickly got her steroids and sent her to the near-by hospital for treatment. I saw a man with a disseminated rash most likely molluscum contagiosum, and a small girl with breath sounds that sounded like pleuritis.
After the clinic we went to the orphanage because they had not yet announced the results of the political election and it was still somewhat safe to be on the roads. The orphanage was amazing! So many beautiful children who were so excited to see us. They sang us a "welcome" song in English and 2 of the older children gave speeches about how happy they are that we are investing in their future and that we believe in them despite being from a different culture and a different world. One boy spoke of social injustices and racism and that we did not come to just look at them or "humiliate" them, but we came because we believe in them and we want to help to lift up the country as Haiti. They also gave us a bunch of plastic flowers because they said they had nothing else to give us but those flowers and their hearts. :)
Jenna and Anna were in tears, I must admit that I was choking them back. It was very touching.
We handed out Muscle Milk drinks and toys while taking turns interviewing the 4 students who are interested in going into the medical field. We had soo much fun with them playing jump rope, slap hands game, and taking lots of pictures.
Then Ebed came to get us and drove as fast as he could to get out of town before the election results were announced. We made it home and then heard the announcements...the government has relinquished their position and have agreed to allow the other 2 candidates to proceed to the final election!! This was such an unexpected result and all the people of Haiti were ecstatic!! They were all smiles and waving after this was announced! We were so happy as well...I think Jenna may have been happier than Ebed! This is a huge accomplishment for their country and a huge step forward after all the corruption and dictatorship! Yay Haiti!!
Today we worked in the clinic in the morning and I had my first cholera case. A boy of 18 who came in with the classic diarrhea, vomiting, chills and weakness. His stools were maybe not rice-water, but he said they were white... So I took him down to the UNICEF cholera clinic where we were able to meet a nice doctor from Columbia, trained in Cuba who has been working in Haiti for 9 months. He is only 2 years out of medical school and running a cholera clinic by himself in Haiti! Pretty crazy and impressive. It was interesting to see the cholera clinics set up in big tents with IV bags hanging from the metal bars.
In the afternoon we toured around the rural villages and visited schools. It was great to see the way very rural communities are living and surviving off the land. There were so many adorable children who ran out naked from their houses yelling "Blanc! Blanc!" (white) when we drove by. Ebed said these villagers maybe see a white person once a year, so it is very exciting for them when we come to visit. We drove through numerous rivers and had to get out and push the car only once when it couldn't make it up a hill. We learned how to make the local bread from a tree root and we still decided to try some even after they told us that the liquid in the root is poisonous and that if they did not properly squeeze all of its natural juice out before cooking it that we could get very sick. Jenna refused to try until she saw that my Dad and I were still alive and we played the card "you don't want to leave Haiti and regret not trying it". That one always works on Jenna... ;)
On the way home we drove by a Voodoo festival with hundreds of people milling around. I learned more about Voodoo and the origins for the belief. Then a fight broke out and people started smashing bottles, so we got out of the area quickly.
This evening we went to Ebed's church and taught lessons about Cholera. We told them about preventive measures and signs and symptoms of the disease. Then we opened it up for questions. Jenna and I were both extremely impressed by the intelligent, insightful questions that they asked and I felt that we really were able to make an impact.
Tomorrow we are teaching at schools in the morning and hoping to visit the Citadel afterwards. We are all having a great time and starting to feel very comfortable in this country. I can definitely say that there are some amazing people who have touched my heart and left an lasting impact on my life. It is such a beautiful culture with genuine, loving people and I feel very humbled to be able to work alongside them.

Painting and playing doctor.

So today was our first real day of work in Haiti! The trip here was loooong! 2 days of traveling, to Miami, onto the Dominican Republic, and then a pretty comfortable bus ride over to Haiti. All and all everything went smoothly. After 2 taxi rides in the morning in Dominican Republic (the first one dropped us at the wrong location), my dad befriended a man with a shot-gun at the bus station and he directed us to the correct bus. And guarded our luggage with his life...or his shot-gun.
Crossing the border was a crazy experience. We were shocked by the drastic increase in poverty the second you cross the boarder. Literally on one side of the river there was infrastructure, buildings, businesses, and a relatively clean enviornment (Dominican Republic), and on the other side there were seas of trash with naked, hungry looking kids wading through them and skinny cows munching on tin cans. There were no buildings but metal roofed huts and thousands of people sitting around (Haiti). While in the DR we had noticed that they were significantly more developed than Haiti, but we were not expecting such a sudden, drastic difference.
So we made it to Cap Haitien relatively unscathed and Ebed picked us up at the bus station (only 1 hour late!). We then settled into Ebed's, had a nice meal, and had long discussions of the politics of Haiti, the current state of the country, the cholera outbreak, riots, and much more. We then had a very cut-throat game of racing demon (the best card game ever!) before heading to bed.
Today we awoke to the sounds of roosters and prepared for our first day of work! We headed straight to the clinic, donated our Cytomax, Pedialyte, and alcohol swabs, and got to work!
Jenna and I each saw our own patients while my Dad and Anna took pictures and listened in. There was also a Haitian doctor who was conducting seperate consultations and also helping with ours when we couldn't understand something or wanted to know more about the kind of bites people get here etc. It was quite a successful morning in the clinic and we enjoyed seeing the patients and we were able to see them all by lunch time.
After a quick lunch we headed to the trade-school and started to paint the classrooms!! Jenna, Dad and I painted one room together. We made a mess of our selves and every once in a while managed to get some paint where it wasn't supposed to be....but all in all I think the room turned out pretty well and we were all happy with our accomplishment! My hands are permanently yellow now though...this oil-based paint is impossible to remove! We worked until it was dark and we were out of paint (we did about 1/3 of a wall in the 2nd classroom) and packed it in and headed back for dinner. It was a pretty exhausting day today (who would've thought painting would be such a work out?!) and I know we will sleep well tonight!
Tomorrow we are headed to the orphanage to interview the teens we will be sending to trade-school and donate all our toys and muscle-milk!! We are all really looking forward to it! Must go now and continue my reign of terror in racing demon!! :)

Back to Haiti 2011

Dear Friends and Family,

First and foremost I want to thank all of your for your support and interest in my endeavours abroad and for following my blog! It is very important to me to have all of your love and support.

So...as you can see, we are headed back to Haiti!! This time there will be 4 of us...a fabulous group of trouble-makers! This time it will be me, Jenna, Jenna's cousin-Anna, and my Dad-Nick! Jenna and I are very excited to introduce the country we have a strong love/hate relationship with to 2 of the most important people in our lives!

The goal of this trip:

Well, the main goal always become diluted with side goals whenever you work in a developing country. But, the main goal of organizing this trip to Haiti is to assess the progress of the non-profit organization that we started; Health Care for Haiti. We have transferred all the money that was raised to a bank in Cap Haitien and want to be there on the other end to ensure the money makes it into the correct hands and that the orphans are all paid for to go to school and to continue to live in the orphanage with room and board provided.

For those of you who don't know about the organization - after Jenna and I spent a month in Haiti following the Earthquake in 2010, we tried to assess the need and develop a project to help alleviate this need. What we saw was that there is a severe lack of health care workers, and that the country has an outlandish amount of orphans (estimated 850,000 since the earthquake!!).

We spoke to many orphans while we were there and despite their hardships, there was an overwhelming desire among them to find a career that involved giving back and helping their fellow Haitians. Many of them expressed desire to become nurses, doctors, teachers, ministers. Anything where they felt that they could help poverty-stricken people in Haiti. However, due to the lack of financial support and minimal resources, orphans who are not adopted are only supported until age 16, at which point they must leave the orphanage and school and fend for themselves. Still only children, they must find a way to survive on the streets of Haiti. When they spoke of the future, they knew this reality and so didn't dare to hope to pursue their dreams, resigned only to their fate. It is a horrible thing when a child cannot dream or even have hope.

These are the thoughts Jenna and I were struggling with on the flight home from Haiti. What could we do to address the needs that were so obvious to us?

We came up with Health Care for Haiti and began fundraising. It was hard work...harder than we could have ever imagined! But we had a goal...we wanted to begin the next school year funding 4 orphans to go to trade school to learn how to become health care workers in Haiti while also paying for their room and board.

Thanks to our amazing friends and family, and many fabulous physicians at SLU and WashU, we were able to raise the exact amount to fund these orphans!! It costs only $50 per month for one child to be educated, fed, clothed, and have a bed to sleep on. Only $50 per month!! Many of us spend more than that on a single dinner! We have enough to pay for 1 year. The course is 3 years long...so we will need to raise the same amount for the next 2 year as well (marketing plug here....if you are interested in donating any amount it would be VERY MUCH appreciated!!).

So, this trip is to ensure the money is being used correctly. We also are bring a video camera with us so that we may record interviews with each of the orphans that we are funding. This way, we can bring back these videos and all of you who have donated money will be able to see exactly where your money is going!

We are also planning on helping with the Cholera epidemic, painting a school, education at the orphanage, and much more! We will be gone for 9 days only this time, so it will be quick and busy!

I will keep this updated about our adventures along the way. Thanks again for following!

I love Haiti!!

Before and After!!