A little insight…..

2/11/15

It is hard for me to believe how much time has already gone by. We have stayed very busy. The truck of course makes us more mobile and enables us to do many more things. I know Bob talked about the meeting we attended last week setting up the agricultural meeting and the new mobile clinic. Sr. Julia came last Saturday and we chose a place to hold the clinic and looked through the medicines I have set aside for the clinic. It was determined I had a good start but we will need to buy some more medications. We don’t have prenatal vitamins, children’s antibiotics, and a few other medications Sister is used to prescribing.

This clinic  will open on Tuesday, will be the only clinic for two of our chapels. Before now they had to go to the hospital in Gros Morne for medical attention. This is far and expensive so often people would not go or wait until they were really sick to seek help. Sr. Julia and I talked about a reduced price for pregnant women to encourage they receive prenatal care. This care is important in many ways; the women need the vitamins and education. The women that died started bleeding hours before she sought help. We are hoping the clinic can be self-sustaining, but few clinics here are, the people just don’t have the money. Sustainability cannot be reached until the individual families have an income.

I have really become aware of just how many superstitions the people here live with. In my language text-book it talks about if you have a conversation with someone before you wash your face and brush your teeth in the morning, you are wishing a bad spell will be put on them. I asked Johnny about this and he said yes people believe that to be true, you can say Good Morning to those that are in your household but should not say much more than that, until you have washed up. But this is only one of so many, I thought they didn’t want us to sleep with the windows open because people would come in during the night, but really it’s because they believe spirits will come in during the night. A young mother brought a baby to me that head was covered in a terrible rash, it was also on the baby’s arms and legs, but the worse of it was on the head. I was not sure if it was scabies or this other fungal problem we see quite often. I did not have any of the cream to treat scabies, so I gave the mother the shampoo we treat the fungal problem with, I told her to return if she didn’t see any improvement in a few days. After she left Johnny told me that this baby had this problem because the mother was angry while she nursed the baby.

I have been pondering about all of these many, many superstitions ( I have only listed a few). I know we all have things that are truths believed in our families that are passed down. My Grandmother would be making you drink whiskey and honey if you merely cleared your throat. She had a child that died and she wasn’t going to take any chances. Through education we change are ideas (I bought cough medicine for my children) I have to wonder how long it would take to weed out some of these fears. Is it lack of education? I don’t want you to think that these people all are practicing voodoo, these are common beliefs that most Haitians live by. Just like Americans believe that a high cholesterol diet will led to heart attack and stroke. Their convictions to these beliefs are as strong. They have been pasted down for generations, just as many of our beliefs have.

The problem I see is that the people live with so much fear, and I feel like it gets in the way of a full relationship with Christ. I know evil is real, and the devil is always trying to gain power, but I chose to walk in the light and avoid the evil one.  Here even if the people don’t practice voodoo they are afraid of it. They do believe in its power. I have never really experienced voodoo, other than hearing the drums and seeing voodoo offerings along paths .I have never knowingly met a voodoo priest or gone to a ceremony. Most Haitian people do not really want to talk about voodoo to a foreigner. It is a belief system like any other that has a light side and a dark side. There seems to be a sense of pride that it is a part of their heritage brought from Africa, a heritage in many ways was robbed from them. I know not all of it is bad; they have many herbal cures that I am sure work some of the time. I guess this is not a challenge that I hope to overcome, but one to work here I have to have an understanding of. I will be open to people’s insights as I try to come to a better understanding.

The best part of learning about these superstitions is it is relieving many of my own fears. I am not sure of how much of our personal security is to protect us from actual physical threats, and how much is to protect us from spells and evil spirits. But either way I know that many people care about us and want to protect us.

Thank you for your interest

May God Bless you,

Denise