By Mary Lee Blackwell, December 2012.  Sister Cities Essex Haiti is in full swing. The organization continues to inspire citizens to get involved; to make a difference. And oh what a difference they’re making. There are several programs that have been initiated and continue to evolve and garner support and enthusiasm from both communities. I was fortunate to be a part of the newly launched sports program on my first visit to Haiti in December. The program focused on tennis and, with help from American tennis pro John DeLong and the Deschapelles Tennis Committee, met with great success on many fronts.

One obvious objective was to teach tennis to both experienced and beginner players. This was met with more challenges than you might expect; there is little sense or experience with organized instruction, there are language discrepancies, cultural differences, and, facility and equipment shortages. In Haiti most children are never given an opportunity to attend school (the three hundred dollar annual tuition is prohibitive for most families) and the majority of people do not have steady work. Without these structured experiences, Haitians find that the concepts of waiting in line, taking turns, focused listening, and instruction are novel and take some getting used to.

Our French is a bit rusty and our Kreyol is essentially non-existent but the eagerness with which the Haitians help overcome the language barrier is heartwarming and at times laugh-producing. As you might imagine, much is still lost in translation. Sports are a universal language unto themselves and as such many barriers- including language- evaporate in the quest toward a common goal. It is hoped that tennis, and other sports that will be cultivated in this way, will become feeder programs. It is possible to develop collegiate or nationally worthy players affording a potential vehicle toward education and overall betterment.

And there are benefits for the coaches too. It provides an opportunity for them to take ownership, gain self respect, a sense of responsibility and pride that comes with the task of teaching. After DeLong’s departure, the tennis program was left to the Haitian coaches to run. DeLong will keep in touch to help iron out any remaining kinks and return periodically to provide refresher clinics.

Tennis was taught on the one and only tennis court in Deschapelles which has been there since the early 1900s when the Standard Fruit Plantation inhabited what is now Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS.) The tennis court was installed for managers of the plantation. It remains on the HAS property and is available for use by the community of Deschapelles. Many tennis balls and racquets were donated by area Connecticut individuals but the bulk (35 youth racquets) were made possible with help from Gamma Tennis racquets. Click here to learn more about the SCEH Sports-Tennis Program.

The projects that have been initiated, which have all been identified by the villagers of Deschapelles, include a library, a music program, an Early Education Teacher Training Project and a sports program. Recently the second annual Have a Heart for Haiti fundraiser was held at the Left Bank Gallery in Essex. The event which featured a Haitian band, an appearance by Kathy Pfeifer, author of Haiti; Footprints in the Heart, several photography exhibits, Haitian art and crafts sales, and Haitian food and drink, raised over $30,000 for Hôpital Albert Schweitzer and Sister Cities Essex Haiti.

The library, the first big undertaking by the collaborative Deschapelles and Essex teams, has an official site since the February signing of a ten year lease for property in Deschapelles where the much needed library and community center will be built. Plans for the structure are being designed and construction is slated to begin within the year. Click here to learn more about the SCEH Library Project.

The Early Education Teacher Training Project, while still in the early stages of development, hopes to enhance existing curricula, introduce hands-on manipulative educational materials important for the cognitive development of very young children and provide a platform to learn from one another regarding teaching strategies. Click here to learn more about the SCEH Early Education Teacher Training Project.

The music program initiated in the summer of 2011 continues to foster an already rich musical heritage. And the tennis program is well underway with eager Haitian coaches modeling sportsmanship and dedication which in turn encourages ownership, pride and a new found sense of purpose. Click here to learn more about the SCEH Music Program.

If you would like to get involved in Sister Cities Essex Haiti in any small way, please get in touch with us at www.sistercitiesessexhaiti.org. Because if you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito!

The above Vignette also appeared in the Spring 2012 edition of Essex Events.

In December 2012, Mary Lee Blackwell, professional writer and photography hobbyist from Old Lyme, CT, visited Hôpital Albert Schweitzer with Hospital Albert Schweitzer founding family member Jenifer Grant of Essex. Mary Lee is also a Director of Sister Cities Essex Haiti.

By Daphne Nielsen, 2011.  
On Saturday, September 4, 2010, I left Connecticut for a two week volunteer stint at an amputee clinic in Haiti. Prior to going I had gathered as much information as I could on the web, but did not actually know what was in store for me. Doing volunteer work in a needy country had been a dream of mine for many years. I remember being inspired by an article about the hospital ship, Hope, which I had read as a child. My friend, Jenifer Grant, had spoken to me several times about the Hopital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) which had been founded in Deschapelle, Haiti in 1956 by her mother and stepfather, Dr. and Mrs. Lorimer Mellon.

Following the earthquake in Haiti in January of 2010, the Hanger Prosthetics Company, through their Ivan Sabel Foundation, founded a clinic at the hospital in Deschapelle to donate prosthetics to the many victims who lost limbs. Jenifer shared with me the great need for physical therapists to teach the clients to walk on their new legs. Once I made contact the wheels turned very quickly and I was on my way with the gift of a ticket from an organization called Physicians for Peace. Deschapelle is located about 70 miles north of Port au Prince in an area that was not affected by the earthquake.

On my first day in Haiti, which was a Sunday, I was invited to go on a home visit to see the living conditions of a fairly typical Haitian family. Our goal was to assess the needs of a quadriplegic patient who was being cared for at home by her family. The young woman was in her early twenties with a partner and a young daughter and had been injured months earlier in a motor vehicle accident. She had been sent home the day after the accident in spite of her broken neck. In Haiti there is, most likely, no good outcome to a patient with her level of injury and patients are sometimes sent home to die with family. Her family took her back to the hospital after several days and she was airlifted to another hospital where she underwent an unsuccessful stabilization of her neck followed by extensive rehab primarily to teach her extended family how to take care of her. She had made a number of phone calls to her previous PT in Port au Prince to say that she was not doing well at home and wanted to return to the hospital. The rehab coordinator from HAS was joined by a PT who had treated the client in Port au Prince, myself, and the other PT who was working in the Hanger Clinic. The family lived in two small earthen huts with dirt floors and corrugated metal roofs. There were no windows, only a door and a space between the walls and roof to let a little light into the sleeping area. There was no electricity, running water, or screening to keep out flies. The cooking was done over an open fire in the yard and laundry was accomplished in washtubs. There seemed to be many family members who lived in these two very small buildings. The client had a deep, infected sore which needed treatment. She was transferred back to Port au Prince following our visit for further treatment, but the long term prognosis is poor. It was a very sobering look into the reality of life in Haiti.

I began working in the Hanger Clinic the next day. The clinic was staffed by a receptionist, two invaluable translators, five prosthetists, four prosthetic technicians, and two physical therapists. The head prosthetist will stay in Haiti for three months while the other prosthetists and the PT’s mostly come for two week periods.

I worked with another PT from Virginia the first week and one from England the second week. The Haitian people speak Kreyol which is similar to French. My long ago French lessons came in handy, though I was at sea when I got an answer to most of my questions!

Most of our clients came from Port au Prince and had been casted for their leg or legs a week prior to arriving for treatment. This delay allowed the workshop to fabricate the limbs so that they were ready to be fitted on arrival. While receiving PT and adjustments the clients are housed close by

I had been told that the clients I would see were primarily young and healthy and that I would be surprised by how quickly they adapted to their prosthetics. Surprised does not begin to cover my reaction – awed would be more like it. The Haitian people are incredibly strong both emotionally and physically. I found their resilience in the face of all they have been through truly inspiring. The Hanger Clinic was a very happy place to work as we were able to help people get back on their feet and get on with their lives.

It was wonderful to be able to work so closely with the prosthetists who were on-site to make any needed adjustments so that there was no delay in treatment. Many patients were ready to take their new legs home in three to four days. They worked very hard to get used to wearing their prosthetics, often getting up to try again after I had told them to rest for a while. The clients also critiqued and encouraged each other to succeed. I had one fifteen year old girl with an above the knee amputation who got her new leg and never needed a bit of instruction. She put on the leg, got up, and walked across the room without a cane or crutch and climbed the stairs!

We saw clients from age three to seventy three, the majority of whom were quake victims. The others were accident related and a few were diabetics. There are many motor vehicle accidents in Haiti with multiple people on every motorbike and many TapTaps, all going much too fast for the difficult roads. A TapTap is a sort of bus which is a pick-up truck with seats welded to the truck bed and usually a canopy to keep out the sun. The whole vehicle is brightly painted in a kalaidescope of colors. One ‘taps’ on the side to get the driver’s attention for getting on and off. If there isn’t any more seating room, people often get on the roof or hang off the side. When there is an accident, a leg that would be saved in our country is often lost due to infection or some other complication. We have all read about the number of people who lost limbs due to gangrene following the quake.

The visiting staff was very well taken care of while at HAS. I was picked up at the airport in Port au Prince on arrival and housed on the campus at HAS. The hospital is sited on an old Standard Fruit plantation and is dotted with beautiful stone cottages that house many of the staff and a pool to cool off in at the end of the days. Over the years HAS has added a great deal of housing for permanent and visiting staff. I lived in Alumni House with visiting doctors and the other PT. We had two wonderful Haitian women who cooked three meals a day for us, did our laundry, and even ironed my scrubs.

In Haiti everything is spicy – even the peanut butter. We ate mostly some type of stew which was delicious but not necessarily recognizable. There were often bone shards from inexpert butchering leading a visiting Swiss doctor to joke that perhaps we were eating roadkill!

The weather in Haiti is unrelentingly HOT and humid. Most people carry a small rag or washcloth with them to wipe the sweat off their faces. Carrying drinking water is a must. The week before I arrived the Hanger Clinic had gotten a huge floor fan which was a favorite of everyone and had a place of honor in our gym. Many afternoons there was a cooling thundershower, some of which were quite spectacular in their fury. The heat returned quickly as soon as the sun came out again.

Coming home after two weeks in Haiti was strange. In many ways I felt like my being there never happened as I quickly felt swallowed up by my everyday life here. I found myself in Stop and Shop two days after I got home thinking about what my clients might feel if confronted with the excess that we have available every day. I felt overwhelmed.

The contrast of the intense poverty there to how we live is enormous. I feel so lucky to have been able to go to Haiti and help a tiny bit. As I think is usual with this kind of work, I got so much more out of it than I was able to give. I hope to be able to go back to HAS in the future and continue to develop a bond with the people of Haiti.

To learn more about the good work of Hospital Albert Schweitzer, please click here.

Daphne Nielsen, an Essex resident, worked at the Hanger Clinic, a prosthetics facility at Hospital Albert Schweitzer in September  2010. Daphne is a physical therapist in Connecticut.

By James Blackwell. February 2012. Upon arrival we were crammed onto a bus. The bus brought us to a doorway where we were greeted by a local band playing traditional Haitian music. Once inside, we were surrounded by hundreds of people yelling at us and trying to grab our luggage. We had no idea what they were saying; all we knew was that they wanted to get paid. We were pushed and jostled through the throngs until we got to the conveyor belt that carried our ten checked bags filled with donations for our mission. Other locals descended on us, the blancs, to gain employment even if only for a few minutes. I was very shocked at how little order there was and how great the chaos.

The walk to the car was jarring. Trying to get through all of the people was nearly impossible, even with all of the cars laying on their horns threatening to run over the people standing in the middle of the road. The locals seemed unfazed by the cars; it was as though they didn’t even notice them. There appeared to be no rules just a need or desire to get from point A to point B. The vast differences between the U.S. and Haiti shocked me. I guess you could say I was sensing a bit of culture shock, especially when we started driving through the “city” of Port Au Prince. As we started driving, it just got more and more disconcerting. People live in houses or “tents” made out of tarps and whatever scraps of metal they could find held up by branches.

I expected, and I knew, the culture in Haiti would be different but I was not prepared for what I was experiencing. It is normal to walk around in battered clothing and not bathed. It’s normal to walk past stray dogs, chickens and goats eating from mounds of trash without even being aware of them. It’s also normal to buy a packet of water, drink it, and just throw the packet wherever. There are few trash cans in Haiti. The amount of trash that just lies around in the streets, the sewage, and the water is ridiculous, and they don’t understand that it’s bad. It’s just the way they live and they don’t know any differently, especially the children. What they do know, is that they have to survive. I felt unsure if not a little afraid. I felt pity and maybe a little disgust. I’m ashamed to say that I was anxious to go home. But we were traveling to Deschapelles, Haiti to introduce a new tennis program. Jenifer Grant, our hostess for the week is the step-daughter of Larimer Mellon and Gwen Grant the founders of Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles and as such is familiar with the locals, their language and their customs.

Our goal was to help tennis pro John Delong in his quest to teach the locals tennis and the Haitian coaches how to be better coaches. What I thought was most challenging was the language barrier; so much instruction was lost in translation. But what I realized was that it wasn’t so much the language barrier as a learning barrier. Most Haitians have never been involved in a structured learning environment. Because the majority of Haitians cannot afford the three hundred dollar annual tuition to send their children to school, organized instruction is a novel concept.

Public schools are non existent in Haiti. If a family can afford to send one child to school they have to choose which child they think shows the most promise. For example one of the head coaches, Walter, was illiterate, while his brother was a teacher. Having seen this I have a much finer appreciation for the luxuries we have in the US. Public schools are free up until 12^th grade. In contrast to the plight of the Haitians, it is an amazing extravagance that most kids –and perhaps many adults too -don’t appreciate. There is so much that we as Americans take for granted. If any of the Haitians got the chance to live an American’s lifestyle, they wouldn’t take any of it for granted. There is so much that I have taken away from this mission and so much of it is unexplainable that it is really hard for me to tell anybody who asks, “How was your trip?” All I can say is, “It was unreal.”

Walking down the main corridor of Deschapelles in the waning light of our final day with just my mother I realized… I felt safe, comfortable. I felt an affinity for the people and the place. While I may have been ready to go home, I wasn’t ready to leave. This week long event changed my life by showing me how blind I have been. It opened my eyes to the simple but priceless gifts which have been afforded me: plentiful food, comfortable shelter, clean water and, of course, education.