Clancy and Jessica go to Haiti: Day One

Clancy (EMC’s Manager of Special Projects) and Jessica (our Portfolio Director) traveled to Haiti this weekend to meet the Midwives for Haiti 2013 class of midwifery students who start school next week.

These are the students you’ve helped get into school because it is your fundraising and donations that allowed us to provide a grant for their tuition. Upon graduation, these students will go into their communities to provide women with skilled midwifery care during their pregnancies and deliveries. That’s how you’re helping women in Haiti — the students, their patients, families and communities. Who knows how far these grant benefits will spread as more and more students care for more and more women. We’ll meet “our students” together and follow them through their training. The story begins when Clancy and Jessica’s plane touches down.

We touched down in Port au Prince today, on the three-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated much of Haiti in 2010. We met up with Carrie at baggage claim. Carrie’s a firey Creole-speaking redhead and the volunteer program coordinator for Midwives for Haiti. Carrie was just returning to Haiti from winter break in the US and was carrying two large bins of supplies with her. When we reached the parking lot, we met up with Nadene Brunk CNM, founder and Executive Director of Midwives for Haiti, Steve Eads, Medical Director, and Belony Jean Pierre, the cinematographer from the Cine Institute of Jacmel who is working with us to document the beginning of this trip. Our plan was to catch a ride in Midwives for Haiti’s pink retrofitted Jeep, but the accelerator cable was broken. Apparently it’s normal here for vehicles to need lots of TLC because of the constant jostling and bouncing on Haiti’s rough roads. After about an hour the Jeep was fixed and we were ready to roll.

We drive along a narrow winding road packed with cars, motorcycles, and people through Port-au-Prince, over a mountain to the central plateau and to the town of Hinche. On the way, we passed one of the last tent camps in Port au Prince. About 300,000 people still live in tent camps. Hinche and the northwest part of the country did not feel the impact of the earthquake. The epicenter was Leogane, about an hour west of Port au Prince.

Like many countries where roads are few, people’s houses are built almost on the road. Often the only light people see is that from the lights of the cars and motorcycles going by. People were having dinner, selling wares and getting kids ready for bed — all by lamplight.

We’re excited for tomorrow when we’ll meet the 2013 class of midwifery students as they start to trickle in, in time for classes to start next week. For now though we’re relaxing with our gracious hosts and the only student we’ve met so far is Ina May the house cat (fittingly named for Ina May Gaskin the legendary midwife) — she’s pregnant and works in the house as a mouser.

Written by Clancy McCarty and Jessica Bowers

Read the other blogs in the series: “Clancy and Jessica go to Haiti: Day Two -Sunday”, “Clancy and Jessica go to Haiti: Day Three — Monday”, “Clancy and Jessica go to Haiti: Day Four — our last day”