GPS Mapping Project

Julia and Shilpa eating (or more like attempting to eat) sugarcane. Photo courtesy of Julia.

Julia and Delshana making no-bake cookies! Picture courtesy of Genevieve.

Knips! They are delicious...they grow in bunches on trees. They taste a little like grapes but are sweeter. They are orange on the inside and have a giant seed.

Our Maternal Mortality Project is still going well! We are almost at our goal of 50 verbal autopsies…we have done 47 so far! So let me introduce the second project we are working on this summer - follow-up of the GPS Mapping Project that students last year did. The students last year went to the different health clinics, schools, churches, and community wells in Leogane to collect data about these places and create a GPS map of the area. After the earthquake, much of this information has changed. We are following up on the research by re-visiting the health clinics to see how they have changed after the earthquake. Some of the changes we have seen so far are that clinics that were destroyed in the earthquake are now functioning under tents, some doctors are now seeing patients from their private homes, nurses and doctors are volunteering their time to provide free care, and private Haitian doctors are seeing less and less patients because people are going to Doctors without Borders where they will get free care. We are also planning on mapping out the different NGOs, finding out what services they offer, and how long they are planning to stay. All this information will hopefully provide a better idea of the medical infrastructure of Leogane, help Family Health Ministries in designing their new hospital for children and women, and will assess the effects of the earthquake on the health resources of Leogane.

So on one of these GPS mapping excursion days, we were exhausted after having visited several clinics. We decided to end our day by quickly visiting the Sri Lanka UN military camp that is literally ½ mile from our clinic. We were in for quite a surprise! Well first was a failure. I attempted to speak in Hindi with the people at the camp and they didn’t really understand me…so we ended up having a conversation in a mix of Hindi, Tamil, Creole, and English. Soon we realized that sticking to English would be best. The Sri Lankan soldiers gave us a tour of their medical facilities which treat the general population of Leogane during any emergencies that arrive. And then they insisted on us joining them for tea. We agreed, but much to our surprise, they served us an entire Sri Lankan lunch! We had rice and 5 different Sri Lankan dishes. The dishes were very similar to Indian food…using many of the same spices…it made me remember home and it was wonderful to eat something close to Indian food! Then for dessert we had papaya and vanilla ice cream…one of the things I miss the most here is ice cream so it was a real treat!