and on the third day

Tomorrow will be my third full day on the job.

Paulo Freire’s Method of Conscientization is about developing critical awareness of groups of people in poor communities, and it has been used by community literacy programs, health workers, and educators through out Latin America, India, and Africa. One principle in the Method of Conscientization is that group leaders must not ask questions with built-in answers, and must be prepared for totally unexpected answers and ideas to questions.

If my question as a group leader is “how to we provide care and compassion (a suffering with) with cleanliness, the answers I witness and receive minute by minute from the nurses, doctors, and staff at Vizitasyon continue to surprise me. Somethings are a bit confusing, I will admit, - - like when the grounds keeper seems to have many complaints about the parts of his job which involve, well, grounds keeping. He would prefer to fill protein bags, and hand off his broom. But then there are the nurses who bathed and shaved an incredibly destitute man - - gravely destitute - - who some of us picked up on the way back from the village. His testicles were literally the size of watermelons, and he has probably not washed in many, many months. The doctors determined that his heart is good for surgery. Treating Camile with dignity was an unexpected answer in this place, in this mountainous island in the sea, full of beauty, and death. And then there was Joselle. She is my age. She was our last patient to leave last night. I had a moment to ask about her. She had a spontaneous miscarriage at home. The nurses told me of her sadness. I saw her father walk her out, through the front door, holding her IV. I knew that my father would do the same exact thing for me.

If you were to ask me what the average day as administrator is like, thus far, I suppose I would hand you a list including: awake at 4 am to those who have traveled through the night for the 8 am opening of the klinik; plan community child deworming mobile unit in order to spend allocated money; run the generator so to fill the cistern with water; do the pay roll; hold sick babies in front of proud mothers; struggle with kreyol; tell local priest that he does not in fact run Vizitasyon- with delicacy; hunt down some Baygone for ants in office; discuss the Gift of Water project with Karen; drink finely prepared granadia juice; ask, ‘well what are they doing in Cange about X, Y, or Z?' Watch the sunset; take a bucket shower; think about the people who were sent home with medicines that require taking with food, knowing they have no food, - and day dream about our nutrition and food program available through our (God-willing) imminent PEPFAR grant and subsequent grants. - And last but not least - - let “the grounds keeper” know that he may not in fact hand his broom to children because “timoune pa travey ici! Ou comprand!?”

Below are a few photos. A photo from the back of where I live and work. A photo of the first building. The medical director Dr. JF (as I call him), and my boss Theresa, from the States who introduced me here, and held meetings, etc. And a photo of the quiet once the day is through.

“We already experience resurrection here and now, in the midst of life, when we rise up against death in life, now, against the oppressions and the hurts to which life here is subjected. In love, resurrection is not merely expected; it is already experienced. For love makes us come alive. And love never gives anyone or anything up for lost. It sees a future in which God will restore everything, and put everything to rights, and gather everything into [God’s] kingdom.” – Jurgen Moltman