Jwaye Nwel

Okay, I'm going to try to make this quick, since we are at the clinic with a woman in early labour and I should really get to sleep, since I don't know when I will have to wake up. I'm all psyched up with excitement, so I'm not tired... yet. Ha. Besides, I have been wanting to write about my Haitian Christmas!

On the morning of the 25th those of us at Sarah's house - me, Sarah, her two foster kids, ages 15 and 8 and her goddaughter, age 2- woke up slow. Sarah and I chatted over sweet mochas with whipped cream and when the girls got up, we watched them open their gifts. It's fun when kids still get excited about balloons and pencil crayons and toothbrushes, as the younger two did! Shortly thereafter, Sarah got a call from a client who had called her twice in the night- her labour seemed to be picking up. We ate some yummy omelette sandwiches, and Sarah headed out to pick the woman up while I went to unlock the clinic and make sure there was a sheet on the bed and water in the pitcher and supplies in the birth tray.

When this mama arrived, it was clear that she knew what she was doing. G waddled in and immediately rested her hands on the seat of a chair, slowly wiggling her hips. Once her intake vitals and the baby's heart rate were done, we just retreated to sit outside the labour room and G's friend sat quietly in the corner of the birth room. An hour and a half later she was pushing, kneeling on a towel with her arms on the bed. We kept quiet as she worked, calmly, still moving instinctively to get her baby out. She only really shouted with two or three contractions. And just like that, another little girl had joined us. Sarah wrapped her up and placed her on the towel in front of her mother. After the placenta came (unaided) G stood up very matter of factly and stretched as if to say, "Okay, I'm done now." Awesome! Amazing. So cool.

With the postpartum looking straightforward, Sarah suggested I go along to the beach with another family, as we had planned. I ran home to get ready and along with D, the 8 year-old, got a ride to the beach from a young guy who works for the clinic doing odd jobs. We rode squatting in the little box of a three-wheeled moto. "Merry Christmas to me!" I thought, feeling so inspired by G's birth, as we zoomed along under a bright blue sky, palm trees and banana plants going by on either side. We joined Nick and Gwenn's family of 12 kids (biological, adopted and foster) at a long table under some palm trees with blue-painted trunks and splashing in the turquoise waves. As soon as I got in the water one of the teenage girls handed me little S, who was quite content to have me hold him and bounce around in the surf for what felt like a couple hours, happy kids careening about us.
We all had a meal together back at the table, which Nick ordered from the beach food lady- plates of fried plaintain, each with a whole fried fish, "picklies" (kind of like cabbage salsa). I chose a bottle of Tampico punch, which is likely toxic, but seemed to suit the context. We swam some more (no mention of the good ol' "Don't eat and swim" idea) and then I sat on the beach with S and watched his dad and a bunch of strangers play soccer until it was time to leave.

After a quick bucket bath at home to get the ocean stickiness off it was time to go to Ken and Maria's for supper. We helped Maria finish making banana bread when we got there, then sat down with their family to have a wonderful meal of homemade pizza and leafy salad- and then cheesy home-made garlic bread and banana cake afterwards! The food and company were just as lovely as the same at lunchtime. We made our way back down the bumpy bumpy road to Sarah's, all singing along with Ellie Goulding "Let it Burn", 2 year old A falling asleep in my arms.

The day wasn't over yet, though! Some of Sarah's friends had invited us to this concert/party at a club near the house. As we approached, the road was congested with parked cars and partygoers all decked out in their suits and ties and high heels and short dresses.  I was definitely way under-dressed- I had tried to dress as nicely as possible, but in this case that just meant wearing my best skirt and tank top, putting on a bra and borrowing sandals from Sarah, so I wouldn't be in my ratty Tom's or clunky Chacos. I didn't bring going out clothes! I just expected to work and chill out. The party was very interesting. I'm no authority, but it seemed like this was where to find the young and beautiful and well-off in Jacmel. We danced to the kompa style music until about 1:00. Kompa, for my dance friends, is kind of like a mix between kizomba and merengue. You just shuffle left-right, basically. I danced with one of our party who was French and he kizomba-fied it for me. Yay! I didn't expect to be dipping my toes into kizomba here, and it was quite enjoyable. I am hoping to get at least a bachata or two in before I leave, Haiti being neighbours with the Dominican Republic, but time is running out, so we'll see. Anyways, I am starting to ramble and feeling tired at last. I did the 1:00 am check of our labouring mama and fetal heart tones sound good, she's doing fine and going back to sleep, so it's off to bed with me too!

Helping Hands for Haitian Mamas and Babes

Here we go!!! Thank goodness the blog is reactivated for real this time. 
I just booked flights to spend 19 days in Haiti over Christmas break.

A very important thing has happened in my life since I last wrote on here- since this is my travel blog I will refrain from rambling about my life too much, but to understand this post you will need to know that I got in to midwifery school at UBC, a dream come true, as I feel I am on the path of my life's calling! I'm probably flattering myself to think anyone who doesn't know that is reading this, but I digress...

Not quite two weeks ago, my beautiful classmate, Kristi, passed on a call for help, which she received through the grapevine from an organization called Olive Tree Projects. Olive Tree Projects is run by a young Canadian midwife named Sarah Wallace and operates a maternity clinic in the city of Jacmel, Haiti. The clinic staff is expecting nearly twice as many birthing women in December as they usually accommodate, and reached out to student midwives here to come and serve as an extra set of hands. The organization who had shared this opportunity with Kristi were attempting to secure funding for a volunteers flight.

I immediately said that if it was funded, I would be there. If the money didn't come through, I told myself, I couldn't go. Having just begun some very costly education in the most expensive city in Canada and booked a trip to Europe (finally!) there wasn't much wiggle room on this decision. When the e-mail came on Tuesday after my first final exam of the term that there would be no money for flights I didn't even feel disappointed, because my perspective immediately shifted from "Waiting to find out whether I would be going" to "Okay, I have to go. How am I going to make this happen?". I had prayed that I would accept and embrace whatever the outcome while I waited for the news about funding- lots of people prayed with me!- and thought that it was an "A: money comes in, I go or B: no money, I don't go" kind of scenario. But in true "Julia's life" fashion it was secret option C that God handed me (chuckling all the while, I'm sure, at my attempts at pre-planning).

Secret option C meant "No, you will not have this handed to you, but I have given you everything you need to make a way- all those prayers have been heard". With the confidence of having previously raised an intimidating sum in just over 2 weeks (for Canada World Youth), I shook off some sticky bits of pride like grains of rice and asked my family and friends to send me to Haiti this Christmas. I love how matter-of-fact my parents' reactions were when I called them and announced my intention to raise the money myself. They, in their parently wisdom, mustn't have believed me when I said I wouldn't be going without that funding!

This is when it got really amazing. I created a crowd-funding page to make it easy for people I knew from all over to donate- and they did. I am tearing up thinking about how they did. The page went live on Wednesday night and by Friday night I had received $830. By Saturday night that was up to $1125, just over a hundred dollars short of the cost of the flight! I'm so overwhelmed by the way everyone from Mum and Dad and my closest friends to new acquaintances and people I hadn't seen or heard from in years have responded, not only with donations, but with the kindest and most encouraging words. I don't know how to thank you all enough; it's like I can't even articulate my gratitude in my heart, let alone in writing.

I will write more tomorrow, featuring an elusive Chinese herb and more details of what my time in Haiti may look like. I'm telling myself it's an ink-spilling exercise to help with writing my final paper for the term...

You can find my crowd-funding campaign here if you're interested in helping out with that final $100: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/helping-hands-for-haitian-moms/x/5640014
Any donations above and beyond what I need to pay for the airfare will go to Olive Tree Projects-I've pasted the link to their website below.
http://www.olivetreeprojects.com/about/