Lessons learned and lessons to be learned

The other day I tried typing up a quiz for the students that was handwritten in Creole. My level of Creole does not match the level needed to write formal midwifery questions, so when the students were handed the test, there was a consensus of confusion. One question had to be thrown out because no one could understand it!

Credited to Cheryl Hanna-Truscott.

So, after that fiasco, I sat down with our head instructor for the class to review some basic Microsoft Office skills. Everyone is learning on the job! Nothing wrong with that I guess.

Our hospital staff midwives

Some of our matròns.

After discussions with Nadene and observing our boarding students, I am becoming more and more frustrated with the way Haitians learn. When you walk by a school in town, you will catch the voices of young children repeating after the teacher's verbal lessons. Sometimes on my walks behind the house, I pass by older students reading aloud from their lesson books as they pace back and forth. It seems that memorization is the only taught and accepted form of learning. At dinner this week, I talked to the students about memorizing versus comprehending the material from their textbook. I explained that grasping the general idea from 

the material was much more important than memorizing word for word. They nodded as if in agreement, but later that night I heard all of them reading the chapter aloud together, not stopping to discuss what they just read. Maybe with some persistence and gradual incorporation will these students learn how to involve critical thinking into their studying techniques. Just as they were taught, memorizing the chapter is the only way they know how to study. 

Me collecting data from the hospital birth log.

I also spent part of this week getting ready for two matròn (home birth attendant) classes. We are beginning a new class in a community at the edge of town and continuing to hold monthly education classes for our graduated one. Data collection sheets, clean birth kits, demographic sheets, etc. had to be assembled for Friday morning. Thanks to this week's group of volunteers, I had some helpers prepare the kits. 100 total! 

These photographs included in this blog post were taken by Cheryl Hanna-Truscott at http://hannatruscott.blogspot.com/. I mentioned her in my last blog, but she is a midwife and professional photographer. Thank you Cheryl!

Ready for Round 2

"A Book for Midwives" that we had copied for each student and teacher.

Happy New Year to everyone. I was warmly greeted when I arrived back in Haiti last weekend. The MFH staff seemed happy enough to have me back, and, I must admit that I am happy to be back as well. It feels like I had never left. After a month traveling around the US seeing family and friends, I am  ready to take on the next half of my stay here.

Nadene and one of our interpreters giving
the introduction to the course.

As soon as I got my things organized, I began running around helping prepare for the next class of midwives that started this past Monday. Between myself, Nadene, Steve, and a veteran volunteer, we worked to gather supplies, handouts, and the classroom together for the 17 new students. On top of those preparations, we had a film crew from Every Mother Counts (EMC) that was visiting to film our entire program (along with the start of our new class). Thanks to an EMC grant, we will soon have a new media production for the MFH program. To learn more about EMC and to check out their blog posts about their MFH visit, check out http://everymothercounts.org/.

Luckily for me, I hadn't forgotten too much of my Creole after my US visit. So, I agreed to help Cheryl Hanna-Truscott, who is a midwife and a photographer, take some shots of patients and our midwives at the hospital. I did my best to explain to the women with their newborns why we wanted to take their pictures. It was interesting working with Cheryl because I learned about the challenges she faced when trying to capture the bond between the mother and baby or the pride of one of our staff midwives working with them. Cheryl said that the lighting and the poses were not always as perfect as she would have liked, but when you are working cross-culturally, you take what you can get.

Class VI with Nadene, Steve, an interpreter, and teachers.

I am not the only one settling into life here in Hinche. We have four women from different parts of the country living in the house. They are students in the course. The organizations that they work with are paying for their room and board. So, I am helping them get accustomed to the house and soon to Hinche (we plan to tour them around town). We had a laptop tutorial the other day. At least two of them have never even touched a computer, so we are going over the basics of putting in a movie, setting up email and Skype, and YouTubing their favorite songs on the internet.

With some of the EMC film crew, Clancy and Jessica,
up on a hill back behind the house.

No, this is not Haiti. Went from cold Yosemite to hot Haiti
in a matter of days. 

More to come soon! I went to my first funeral memorial service last night. One of our recent graduates passed away the other week from an unknown disease. Well, at least that's what the doctors said. It would have been diagnosed in the States. I can't imagine losing someone to an unknown disease that kills in a couple of weeks, can you?