Vassar Haiti Project

VHP members have been busy in Chermaitre! Below, VHP Co-president Fiona Koch ’12 details their most recent work, from meeting with village leaders, teachers, and focus groups, to running a clinic in Fierville.

The gang is back in a warm and windy Cap Haitien after spending five intense and overall very successful five days/nights in the rural inlands. We arrived in Chermaitre at 2pm(ish) on Wednesday, with Caitlyn arriving on site first. This gave us plenty of time to settle in and speak to the teachers and director of the school, after which we were led on a hike to the main water cistern and reforestation sites nearby. It was a beautiful evening, with stunning views of the tropical forest around Chermaitre, and we were very excited to see the source of our water purification initiative, as well as some of the mango, orange, avocado and breadfruit seedlings that were planted recently.

On Thursday morning, Andrew, Lila and Caryn led a prep meeting, after which we split into teams to do the health measurements of over 230 children in the school, recording height, weight and overall health (to be compared with the data we have from previous years). David, Caitlyn and Pierre (our superstar med student contact and translator, who joined us from Port-au-Prince) looked for signs of malnutrition and skin infections in the children. Sahara, Tamsin and I led small focus groups with some of the girls, in which we created a comfortable space to have a dialogue about health and education. The same evening, we attended an Episcopalian mass led by Pere Quatorze – which ended just in time before a massive rainstorm hit, and we had to take shelter inside. Part of the church wall fell down, which caused some havoc, but luckily no one was injured, and we even managed to rearrange our tents so that the leaks in the school roof did not bother anyone at night!

On Friday morning, we had a very successful 2-hour meeting with all of the school teachers, followed by a focus group meeting with 36 women to learn about their financial situations at home, and we brought up the need for a womens’ center. At the same time, another team gathered data on soil and water testing in the mountains. Laura, Cindy and Charlotte led this expedition, while Francis played soccer with the boys, and taught some of the younger kids to sing and count to ten in Swahili! (and I swear this song will be stuck in everybody’s heads FOREVER MORE). In the evening, we had another 2-hour meeting, this time with the village municipal leaders, during which we addressed reforestation and water, in order to better understand how to prioritize the funding for different aspects of the initiatives. We covered a lot of questions in all three meetings; the overall feeling was one of trust, respect and progress in dialogue, and we are contemplating a lot of new budding initiatives based on these discussions.

The gang split up on Saturday, with one team heading down the mountain at 6:30am to run the day-long clinic in Fierville, while the rest stayed back to do a small census survey of some of the households in Chermaitre. I was in the latter group, and helped translate from English to French to Creole with the help of the school director, as we visited 9 homes in two hours to gather important data about the daily lives of people in the area. We saw a wide range of wealth in this small sample. After the census, we packed up and headed back down the mountain to pick up the medical team, eventually driving back to Gros Morne for dinner and well-deserved showers at the rustic “Hotel” Georges. Our final days (Sun-Wed) will be spent back at Pere Noe’s house in the Cap, with trips to local sites and art markets.

We accomplished a lot in the short time we spent in Chermaitre. Having been on the trip in 2010, I am very pleased with the progress we made in communicating with the people who benefit from our education, water, medical and reforestation initiatives. In past years, we focused mainly on education and the children, but during this trip we were able to include the adults and leaders in the community, which is crucial to establishing a sustainable relationship. I was particularly moved by the dialogue we had with the women, during which many of them shared stories of personal loss and the hardships of subsistence farming. While some of these dialogues were intense, they were also very hopeful, and I am excited by the possibility of providing health care and business models specifically targeted to the women, based on our discussions.

Apart from a few head colds (brought on by the storms in Chermaitre, no doubt) and some minor allergic reactions, we are all healthy. It feels good to be back in the Cap with more time to process and discuss the ideas that developed in the past week. I don’t think any of us will be ready to leave Haiti this Wednesday… but we are excited to share our experiences with everyone when we return home!

N’ap boule. See you all soon.