Just Another Day: A Bird's Eye View Into our Daily Life in Haiti

BY KATHY

We often get asked what a typical day is like for us living in Haiti.  It is hard to answer, because our life here is wildly different each day.  When we look back on any given week, it often seems like we have lived a month’s worth of days!  But to answer this question, I picked a day at random (several weeks ago) and recorded the day’s events:

5:00am     Our alarms go off.

6:00am     We load up the car, today with some suitcases and bags of items we purchased in the US for the hospital, since we just arrived back in Haiti the evening before.  (We buy what we are able to in Haiti, but many necessary supplies and medicine are not available in Haiti.)

6:15am     We leave our house in Port au Prince to drive to the hospital in Saintard.

7:00am     We stop at a guesthouse on the way and pick up a lab tech friend who works at a non-profit that helps equip medical labs in developing countries. 

7:45am     We arrive at the hospital.

8:00am     I sneak to my secret spot to have devotions, then my morning prayer walk around the hospital.

8:30am     I make arrangements for an interpreter to come for the training our lab tech friend is providing for the laboratory staff.

9:00am     I check in on the lab training to make sure they have everything they need.

9:30am     I make my rounds to greet each staff member.  This greeting time is more important culturally in Haiti than in the US.  Today I greet longer than usual since we had just returned from the US.

10:00am  I am visited by a soon-to-be father asking for a present for his baby.

10:30am  I work on financial reports for the hospital.

11:00am  We are visited by a community leader asking for help with a local need.

11:30am  I arrange for food to be brought to the lab staff during their training.

12:00pm  We have a meeting with the non-medical director about payroll.

12:30pm  We check in on the gentleman who lives at the guesthouse.

1:00pm    I work some more on financial reports.

1:30pm    I distribute printer ink and other supplies purchased in the US.

2:00pm    We are visited by another person asking for financial assistance.

2:30pm    I begin organizing and gathering things for the trip home.

2:45pm    We begin to leave, when 2 patients arrived with minor injuries.  The staff has already left, so Mark tends to the patients.

3:25pm    We leave the compound.

3:30pm    The traffic is stopped by a protest.

4:00pm    The traffic is still stopped; passers by warned us of  guns, burning tires and vehicles, and to turn around.

4:15pm    We see riot police with guns, masks and armored vehicles driving toward us, so we know they have broken up the riot and we can continue again.

4:45pm    We arrive at the compound to drop our lab tech friend off where he is staying.  We see another friend there who works with that nonprofit, and catch up a few minutes.

5:00pm    We continue on our way, and get stuck in a traffic jam due to a broken down vehicle.

5:30pm    We continue on our way, and again we get stuck due to a broken down vehicle.

6:30pm    We finally reach our house in Port au Prince and unload the vehicle.  The electricity is on (unusual for that time of day!) so I quickly shred some papers while I have electricity.  The electricity is on for a couple of hours.

6:45pm    I get the laundry off the line while Mark puts more duct tape on the loose fender on our vehicle.

7:00pm    I gather supplies for a hospital staff birthday party the next day while Mark mixes the cake batter.

7:15pm    We both catch up on emails.

7:30pm    Mark fixes salad for dinner while I finish the financial reports.

7:45pm    We read our hometown newspaper online while eating dinner.  (Our favorite part today is the word jumble!)

8:15pm    We make pb & j for our trip to the hospital the next day.

8:30pm    Mark washes dishes while I prep for a language evaluation the following day for a 2 year old child who is nonverbal.

9:00pm    I start boiling water to cook some vegetables for soup the following day, but we run out of propane for the stove.  It is too late to walk to the corner gas station to buy more propane, so we abort.

9:15pm    I have a FB Messenger conversation with a Haitian friend to arrange for drop-off of 

some items that we carried into Haiti from his US friend.

9:30pm    We watch an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation on my computer, then go to  bed.

10:30pm  The Haitian electric company gives us a few hours of electricity, allowing us to cool 

down enough to sleep and get ready for the 5:00am alarm the following morning.

During this particular day, Mark was busy doing all kinds of things I didn’t list above, like helping a patient jump start his car, helping coordinate a new malnutrition program, tracking down a problem with our computerized patient record system, arranging for repair of a sickle for the groundskeeper, gathering some medicine to send to a Haitian nurse who works in the mountains, and fixing a toilet. 

Many days are very different from this one.  We try not to work this many hours every day; some days that works, others are long ones like this one.  Sometimes we live in a guesthouse for a week to host specialized teams, like the team that came to implement an inventory system and teach a new employee to maintain it, or medical teams that can teach or work alongside our Haitian staff.  Some days we stay at home the whole day just to catch up on paperwork.  Some days we run errands, like renewing our residency permit, or visiting other medical facilities to learn from their experiences, or just buying groceries.  Some days I walk to a nearby school and provide speech therapy. 

I hope my description of our sample day doesn’t sound like I am complaining or looking for sympathy.  When we have had people visit us at our home in Port au Prince, some have said “This is much nicer than I anticipated!”, and others, surprised at the conveniences that we don't have, have said “How do you live like this?!”.  We are grateful for things like indoor plumbing and a kitchen with a propane stove; these are things that most Haitians do not have.  We are grateful to live in a place where we feel safe.  We are grateful to own a car.  We are grateful for God’s protection.  We are grateful that friends and family are in the US, praying for us, and supporting the ministry in so many ways.  We are grateful God can use our education, past experience, and the talent he has placed within us to serve in this way.  And, if I am being completely honest, some days I just plain feel sorry for myself that I live so far from our family and long-term friends!  But mostly I try to stay focused on the incredible blessing it is to know the Lord.