Midwives for Haiti - Spring 2013

 It is April and I am in Haiti.  I have decided to work with Midwives for Haiti; an organization that trains Hatien midwives, provides prenatal care in mobile clinics and works with local matrones to increase the safety of the births they attend.  This work combines three of my great loves; education, community and birth.

I come to Haiti in the midst of considerable thought about social sustainability; that is how a community creates a good and healthy life for its people both now and for future generations; knowing that it requires these things for all people in order for it to exist for anyone.

Here in Haiti, I have come to find the deep interconnection between my country's history, with all its wealth and the deaths of mothers and baby's in this country.  I have heard well meaning people comment that perhaps they have too many babies anyway and so it does not matter so much.  In healthy sustainable communities people plan how many children they have with reasonable reassurance that this child and the child's mother will live.  They know that baby will be offered a free education and will be given the health care needed for a productive life.  The parents in Haiti want this as much as anyone.  It is the song within a mother as she caries her child.  Always when the baby first opens it's eyes for the first time, the mother has hope.

If one fourth of all the children in your community do not live to be five years of age, you do not meet the most basic elements of a healthy, good life. And yet in Haiti we see many, many ways of living day to day life that are at the heart of healthy, sustainable happy lives.

In my time here, I hope to reflect on how the lessons of motherhood and birth are passed down through informal and formal systems of sustainability; how a country shaken with disaster and poverty maintains that which we in the United Sates struggle to hold onto and try to imitate.  I hope to share stories that illustrate the best of how people create goodness for now and future generations.

Dancing with Sean Penn in Haiti

Dancing with Sean Penn in Haiti

Now that I am back in the United States, many people ask me if I saw Sean Penn in Haiti. Maybe I am in the grocery store or walking down the street with my grandkids or carrying a load of plants for my garden.

“Hi Sarah. How was Haiti? Did you see Sean Penn?”

And then, I can’t help it, my mind drifts and I am walking down the dirt road outside the birth center. There is me, Michael Jackson. Sean Penn and yes there is always Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. There are all the people I knew in Haiti. They are well fed, alive,happy and carrying tools of their trade. There are cows and horses and goats and chickens on every shoulder. We spread across the street and the parade goes on for miles . I am right up there in the front with Sean Penn and Michael Jackson and the president of Haiti and Bill Clinton and we are singing “Life’s A Happy Song” from the Muppets. There is a marching band from a high school and the ra ra bands from carnivale. Everyone is singing in unison.

Everything is great.

Everything is grand.

We have the whole wide world in the palm of our hand.

Everything is perfect. It’s falling into place.

La, la. La.la.

It is so great. Bu then I remember where I am and that I have to answer, “Actually I never saw Sean Penn. I never saw any singers or movie stars…..

I try to explain that I was in Cap Hatien and that maybe all the movie stars are in Port Au Prince but by then they are walking away. I return to my musical version of helping Haiti.

There is nothing we can’t do

The skies are blue when its me and you and you and you and you…

Life’s a happy song when there is someone by your side to sing along.

I heard Sean Penn told the Canne Film Festival that the whole world forgot Haiti. I sigh but take some comfort that my co-star in Hait; the musical is having trouble explaining the situation and he’s an actor.

Sometimes I try to tell myself that it was a dream, or that it never really happened. It was a movie or made for television drama. Someone made the whole thing up. It could not possibly be real.

I guess that’s why they ask me about Sean Penn. The real questions are just to hard for any of us to ask or answer.

Happy Fathers Day to the 1000 fathers per day.....

Each day 1000 mothers die from pregnancy related deaths worldwide. A special fathers day wish to all the men left to make hard choices about the babies the mother left behind. Here are two of the many fathers I met in Haiti, who lost their wives shortly after childbirth. The twins were placed in an orphanage and baby Dafka is being raised, with help, by her Dad. They must put aside their own grief while they work to care for the infants who have no food while continuing to support for the family. Happy Fathers Day to these very special dads.

Monumnet to Haiti on the Washington DC Mall

The monument to Haiti on the Washington DC Mall

Being back in the United States has forced me to examine the relationship I had tried to create with the people of Haiti and to look more closely at my country’s influence on those people’s well being. I had to ask myself again and again, how one can be a global citizen, committed to the well being of others, without repeating centuries of colonial and imperialist ways of thinking. I saw my life and everything around me through the lens of Haiti and the lessons she so generously taught me.

Shortly after returning to the United States, I went to Washington DC for a Helping Babies Breathe conference. I got up early one morning to ride a bike around the monuments that stand as testimony to what the country stands for. I had not had the opportunity to ride a bike in some time so having the wheels beneath me on a morning washed clean by a warm, summer rain felt delicious.

I rode comfortably down wide bike lanes, reflecting on the many ways US cities have come alive with pedestrians, housing, art and gardens. Efforts to recycle and collect rainwater were everywhere and there was even a beehive in the White House kitchen garden.

As I approached the mall, memories of tear gas, singing, marching and prayers swept over me. Most of my memories of Washington DC were as a demonstrator and not as a tourist.

As I rode past the statues, fountains and monolyths, I saw them with my Haiti lens. I began to see the monuments within the monuments; the spaces between the marble where the unwritten stories were told. In my imagination, I saw the monument to Haiti; a monument celebrating the second independent republic in the western hemisphere and the first and only successful slave revolution in the world.

I saw Haiti in the other monuments too.

I saw Haiti at the Washington monument; saw the not yet written engraving that said, “The father of the American Revolution, tired, overworked and misguided sent $400,00 in arms and supplies to help defeat the second revolution in the Americas. He, who gave so much for the freedom of some, failed to recognize that until everyone is free, no one is free.”

As I turned past a group of school children, lining up for a photo, I thought of the young Henri Christophe who had been a 14-year old drummer boy at the Battle of Savannah in the Revolutionary War. He along with four hundred and fifty men from Haiti came and fought in our war for independence! That same boy went on to be a revolutionary leader in Haiti’s own bid for independence. I see the invisible statue of that young boy, with his drum, there amongst the monuments. Did our revolutionary leaders accept the young boys offer to fight their war and then deny him help when he too strove for the very same independence?

I ride past the Jefferson Memorial as school children are getting out of the first buses of the day. Jefferson refused to acknowledge Haiti as an independent nation and in 1806 declared an embargo on Haiti; a legacy that was to hurt the Haitien people for many years to come. There can be no doubt that save for the revolutionary efforts of Haiti, France would not have been forced to sell the Louisiana Purchase to the United States and Jefferson’s great legacy would have been told differently. The efforts of the former slaves in Haiti had caused the landmass of the young US republic to double.

Haiti was not recognized as an independent nation, by the United States, until Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Haiti’s recognition became a battle cry of the abolitionists. When the south succeeded, there were, at last, enough votes to recognize the tiny island as an independent nation.

I think about the fourteen year old Henri Christophe leading the long march against colonialism. I think of Jefferson and Washington and how some guidance, friendship and support might have caused Christophe to choose democracy for his new republic instead of declaring himself king. I think of Washington who turned down an offer to be king and how that might have been a model for Haiti had our founding fathers shown a little kindness and believed the words they themselves wrote. If there had been support instead of embargos perhaps the Hatien revolution would have been less violent and easier to achieve. Perhaps today the ease and standards of schools, health care and clean water would have been a given and not an on-going struggle.

In my monument to Haiti, I see Fredrick Douglas, the first ambassador to Haiti and there is a plaque that quotes Douglas.

“Haiti is black and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being black. After Haiti had shaken off her bondage, and long after her freedom and independence had been recognized by all other civilized nations, we continue to refuse to acknowledge that fact and treated her as outside the sisterhood of nations.”

I peddle into the new monument to Martin Luther King Jr. He is is the only statue but I see many others come to stand with him and it is there that I put my imaginary monument to Haiti. I see Martin Luther King surrounded by a crowd of people who fought to destroy slavery and its legacy. And there in the group that stands beside him is a farmer/ soldier from Haiti; arm in arm with all those who fought marched, prayed and sang their way to freedom.

As I ride away, the sun high in the sky, I think about all the untold stories of the Washington monuments. I think of the shadow of Haiti and other countries like her who were always there providing labor and natural resources that in some way helped build the clean, smooth streets I ride on.

I find myself wanting to apologize for Washington and Jefferson’s tolerance of slavery; for their lack of support for Haiti; for so much. I want to explain to the visitors that it is not quite the way it looks.

But our history and the history of Haiti are always being created each day. There is more empty land around the pools and still time for the monument to our mistakes and vulnerabilities; for the places where we failed and a monument to the places where we keep trying. This is the monument that I love best. The one that allows me to love my country because of all the goodness in the people and for their fight to keep trying to be better while learning from the past.

I love living in a country with a rich history of immigration but I am sad for all the conflicts that caused them to flee or be forced off their own land. My monument is the monument of this dichotomy; the place of discomfort and the place of pride.

Remember David

David

Remember my brother, David
for the way he tickled my toes and
kissed my outstretched fingers.

Remember the funny faces
that made me laugh;
the way
he carried me upside down
when our father was gone
and we went looking for a
neighbor to give us food.

Remember David for the
way he cried the night our
mother died; for the way
he held me;
All of us wrapped inside
our fathers arms
in the darkness that
seemed to never end.

Remember David in his
new clothes when and my sister
got to go to school all
proud and clean,
looking back with a wave
as my father held me
and sighed; the first
smile on his face in
a long, long time.

Remember David
for the dark, handsome
face that was the first I saw
each morning and the last
that kissed me at night.

Bouncing, running, jumping
never resting.

Remember his new shoes;
the ones Dad bought
him in Port Au Prince.
The way
he looked when he first
put them on
runnning fast
through the field to the
one room where we all sleep
together.

The bed where I was born;
the place where we were once
five and now are just three.

Remember David,
Gone to Heaven with Mama
who dad says was lonely up there
without any of her children.

Remember David;
whose jumping on clouds
in Heaven and tickling the
toes of angels.

Remember David who
through years go by
and time passes will
always be my brother.

Dafka

David is a six year old little boy who died from complications of a UTI in Haiti. He is the older brother of Dafka. Their mother died last January leaving three children; one who was baby Dafka. Dafka was kept alive by waves of volunteers at MamaBaby Haiti who brought formula, fed her,held her, bathed her and gave her medicine. David seemed a strong and resiliant little boy and I never feared for his safety in all the days and nights I worried about Dafka's ability to survive. I wrote this poem from Dafka's perspective; trying to celebrate his hard, young life as I struggle with the waves of grief that I am feeling.

He is one child, of thousands, in the world who dies each day from a lack of adequate medical care.

Did you know Audubon was born in Haiti?

“All the birds in Haiti, have gone to the Domincan Republic” Clauden

Each morning, throughout the fall and early winter, Clauden and I spend the early hours of the day working in the clinic garden. It is cool then and the world is still quiet except for the women waiting outside the wall who talk and laugh together.

We have planted a patch of sunflowers to greet people as they come into the clinic and on that morning, the stalks are knee high with leaves and buds. With this observation, I feel hopeful about so many things. I comment to Caluden that the birds will also like the sunflowers but her interrupts my enthusiasm to explains that “ all the birds in Haiti had gone to the Dominican Republic.”

I am shocked by this relevation and its significance. There are already millions of Hatien immigrants in the Domincan Republic as well as a significant amount of the manufacturing. Many a mother reports that her baby’s father is in the DR as it is commonly called. How can the birds be there too?

I look up at the blue morning sky and I realize that there is not a bird in the sky and none in the nearby bushes or trees. Why hadn’t I noticed before?

Clauden explains that many people hunted even the smallest birds and that when they cut down so much of the forest, the birds like many people migrated to places where it was easier to find food, safety and the ability to earn a living.

I dig deeper, determined to make the grounds around the clinic a safe haven for birds with places to hide and get water; a place of seeds and soil rich with insects and worms.

I also look up “Birds in Haiti” and am surprised to find out that James- John Audubon was born in Les Cayes, Haiti which was then known as the French Colony of Saint-Dominique. His father came to Haiti as a Lieutenant in the French army and then stayed to make his fortune on a sugar plantation. James Audubon was the son of a Creole mother who died shortly after he was born. His childhood was marked by the cruelty of slavery and the slave rebellion. He had three known siblings in Haiti; all of African heritage.

When his father left for France, he took his two fairest skin children, James and Rose, and left the darker skinned children in Haiti. They were adopted and raised by his father’s French wife. At 18, restless and lacking ambition, he left for America, where he made his mark as a great naturalist and illustrator of birds.

I wonder that I was never told that James Audubon was Hatien. I have gone to the Audubon Center hundreds of times but have no memory of that being shared. I say to everyone, for many days after, “ Did you know Audubon was Hatien but mostly they do not know who he is. I say, with excitement that he was the most famous American bird illustrator and he was Hatien! I am so excited.

I discover that Haiti always stayed with him and that the early deaths and violence of both the Hatien and French revolutions were strong influencing factors on his view of life and death. Perhaps it bred in him that sense of the wild that only can only be calmed, for some, in nature.

In an article in the New York Times at the time of the earthquake, the author reflects on Audubon’s bird illustrations and Haiti.

The same sleight of hand informs Audubon’s bird pictures, which are vividly lifelike although they usually used dead birds as their models. But for all their vitality, Audubon’s paintings resonate with loss as well as life—touched, in Audubon scholar Christoph Irmscher’s words, “by the experience of death, or at least impending death.”

Audubon seemed infinitely fascinated by the precarious line that separates life from death, and how that line can vanish in a matter of seconds. That dark recognition started for Audubon in what is now Haiti, and it gives his bird pictures an especially unsettling resonance as the people of his birthplace continue to mourn their dead.

I learned, in Haiti, to look for birds as a sign of life, hope and recovery. I watched the skies and in time, I began to find them, though more often in the mountains and by the sea. I saw hummingbirds in the bright pink flower by the side of the road and stopped to watch a hawk drifting over head. In this, I found reassurance and hope.

One day, at the fishing village, I saw a group of young boys with a bird they have captured. It is small and surely would not offer much food. I offer to buy it from them so it can go off and make more birds but they want more money than I have and I am forced to give up and keep walking.

I remember Audubon’s painting of birds and I realize how so many of them have both dead and live birds in them; capturing that place of inevitable transition. I think of the many mothers, fathers and children who I knew and held and died in my short months in Haiti. I too must make peace with this inevitable edge.

I trapse through the forest and climb into the mountains, looking for answers in the tiniest flower and the song of the bird hidden in the underbrush. I think about his siblings who were left behind because there skin was too dark and what may have become of them. I think of how Audubon was presented to me as a French aristocrat who painted but never a young boy, orphaned and raised in Haiti.

Once I was told that African- American children don’t like nature and I think, “Ah but you were wrong. One of the most famous naturalists of all time was of African roots.” I think of how my understanding of the world and its history would have been different if someone had told me the true story of a little boy, born of a French soldier and a descendent of an African slave; in Haiti, a place I did not know.

In my life, I look for those places where the natural world and history come together; that place where they influence each other and culture takes root and grows. I know that the birds left Haiti because so many rich and powerful countries took the hardwoods and because of hunger and the loss of farmable fields. But I also know that life regenerates itsel,f when given a chance. I know that there is time to tell the story of Audubon’s Haiti and to replant trees and welcome the birds back to Haiti.

Dancing with ths Matrones / The Matrone Song

The Matrone Song / The Midwives Song

Each day, at the midwives training in Bas Limbe, Haiti, the matrones danced to a rousing chorus of this song. It was led by my translator, Mama, who always got everyone up singing and dancing as they waited to wash their hands before lunch. I

Although they came by foot or four to a motorcycle and though they traveled through streams and large muddy holes in the road, they arrived in their Sunday best clothes with hats and a smile.

After an opening prayer, birth stories and morning demonstration they welcomed the opportunity to stand and dance with each other, their instructors and Mama. They sang the song with pride and determination for their villages, their country and for their God given profession.

Most of the matrones, in Haiti, believe that they were called to be a midwife by God and so they do this work to honor him and not for any personal benefit to themselves. The song was sung with a joy for life despite inevitable hardships.

It was a great joy and honor to sing and dance with them. When I return to Oregon, and teach an art class to 7^th grade girls I get them up dancing and tell them in Haiti, I never taught without dancing and they look at me somewhat surprised but when the music goes on, they too dance. I tell them that I don’t ever want to live my live again without this commitment to joy in the face of hardship and loss; dignity in the footsteps of a history burdened with oppression.

I want, when all else, fails to stand and sing and dance and to remember the simple and complete happiness of washing my hands before delivering a baby.

Here are the words in Creole and the translation into English. Mama gave this to me so I apologize if I have not copied it correctly.

Water, soap and cups these are the three things that are necessary.

Put a lot of water in your house for you to wash your hands.

Midiwfe, you need to wash your hands before delivering the baby.

This protects mama as well as the baby.

One- pour water on your hands

Two – Wash your hands well

Three- Lather your hands with soap

Four – Clean under your nails

Dlo, savon, ak yon goden tois babgay necesae.

Mete anpil dlo lakay nou pou nou lave men nou.

Matron fou lave men ou avan ou fe akouchman,

Sa protégé mama ansemble ak tibebe.

Yon – vidle dlo sou men ou

De- Byen frote men ou.

Tois- Savonnem men ou

Kat – Lave