Just Another Day at the Beach

Perhaps I have neglected to mention a very crucial part of the Haiti experience, EXTREME HEAT! Take it from someone who is normally always cold, having a layer of skin feels like too much in this heat! There is a remedy to the heat and humidity it's called, the beach!

When Doucette and I finally convinced Dwight to take us to the beach I had no idea what I was in for. The drive was about 45 mins but luckily we were in Dwight's car not in a Tap-Tap so it was a pleasant ride. On the way, Doucette and Dwight got into a discussion about the mass graves. After the earth quake so many people were killed that there wasn't enough space to bury people so Dwight told me that the bodies were loaded into dump trucks and taken to ditches where they were dumped and covered. Dwight warned us that when driving near any of the mass graves the smell of decomposing bodies is so overwhelming that there's no way to ignore what you're driving past. He also explained that after the quake, one of the ways people were able to locate dead bodies burried underneath rubble was by following large groups of flies. Where the flies were heavily concentrated, there was usually dead bodies underneath. We didn't pass any of the mass graves on the way to the beach but we did pass a few areas where people were buried after the quake.

Upon our arrival at the beach, Doucette informed me that I had to try a delicacy known as Lan Bi. Lan Bi is conch from a conch shell and it tastes kind of like Octapus. It is very popular at the beach where it's the most fresh and where it's cooked over an open fire and covered in a sauce containing a variety of Haitian spices (but it is cooked differently depending on where you eat it). After I had already devoured a plate full of Lan Bi, Doucette and Dwight started laughing and told me that Lan Bi is notorious for being a very powerful aphrodesiac...jokes ensued. Thanks a lot guys, thanks a lot!

After eating, I went right back into the water where there was a man swimming laps. I directed Doucette's attention toward the man because I noticed right away he was very good looking. He had a tan body which he clearly took excellent care of, dark hair, and when he came closer, bright blue eyes. I didn't want to be obvious so I didn't stare but maybe he saw us looking or maybe I just stand out because I am very light, whatever the reason he came over to us and tried to talk. He was from Brasil, his name was Christiano (the same name as my favorite soccer player), and he was in Haiti working for the UN as an officer. That was about all I was able to decipher through a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish (which I learned are very different!) He was trying to talk to me beyond that and I couldn't understand him until we found a Haitian guy who spoke Portuguese and he was able to translate into Kreyol for Doucette who was able to translate into English for me (quite the process).

Christiano said to me, "You are so beautiful! I love to look at you and if you lived in my country Brasil I want to marry you and make you my wife!" This was followed by a short amount of talking before Christiano said, "I want to sleep with you tonight"...GAME OVER BRAZILIAN MAN, GAME OVER! I don't know if he ate too much Lan Bi or I ate too little, but I just walked away and left him standing there. I heard stories of UN officers attempting to proposition Haitian women for sex (Flo, Doucette, and their friends told me stories of officers coming up to them and holding out money asking for sex) but I was still caught off guard by his epic fail of a pick up attempt and all I could do was laugh hysterically and walk away.

An hour or so after shattering Christiano's ego, Aigo (Doucette's boyfriend) came running down the beach yelling for me to come with him. At first I thought he was joking then he got more insistant and said, "Lee, Doucette needs your help someone is in trouble." I ran out of the water and threw on a shirt as I continued to run down the beach baywatch style (though so much less gracefully).

About 1/2 a mile down the beach a very large crowd was gathered around a man laying on the ground and there were Brazilian UN officers controlling the scene. Although Doucette tried to help because she told me the man who was the primary on the scene was having difficulty (which became apparent later) the officers would not let her through. When they saw me, they saw that I was white and they automatically assumed I was a doctor (that happens a lot here) and they let me right in. I pulled Doucette through with me and told them if they wanted my help they had to let her come with me. Then another man stopped me and good old Christiano explained that I wasn't a doctor but I could help because I had training for this situation. One of the men spoke English so I asked him what happened.

He told me the Haitian man laying on the ground was very drunk (which I didn't need him to tell me because I could smell that he'd been drinking for hours) and that he had jumped off a pier and when he didn't come up 4 men carried him out of the water and he wasn't breathing. The man speaking told me he was a nurse so he gave the man "chest thrusts" (which could either mean CPR or maybe he meant abdominal thrusts I wasn't really sure) but he looked at me scared and in a panicked voice he said, "What do I do now?!?!" I had already been checking the man's ABC's (airway, breathing, and circulation) so I knew that he had a pulse and he was breathing. I told the man good job he's breathing now, but he's vommiting and asphixiating on vomit so we have to turn him on his side and keep his airway open. 3 officers helped me turn him on his side and keep his airway open while the others continued to help with crowd control and take pictures (which I thought was inappropriate but I had enough to do so I ignored it), and Doucette stayed back with Aigo and explained to him what was going on. I told the nurse we had to do finger sweeps because there was vomit stuck in the man's mouth and it was obstructing his airway (and I could see it to remove it).

I didn't have gloves so the nurse handed me guaze and I used that as a disease barrier while I did continual finger sweeps and kept the man's airway open using a jaw thrust. I noticed he was shaking and he had shallow breathing (he was also still very out of it) so I told the nurse that we needed to get him out of the sun, away from the crowds, and to a hospital. I also suspected he might be going into shock (shallow breathing, paling skin, and shaking are all signs of shock) so I instructed the nurse that absolutely no one was to give him food or water even though he stopped vommiting.

We lifted the man and carried him into the shade while the Brazilian nurse managed to recruit someone from the crowd that followed us to drive a car and transport the man and a small team of officers to the hospital where he could receive further medical care and observation that he needed. I instructed the nurse to keep the man's airway open and continue with finger sweeps if necessary and no food or water. I made him repeat what I told him to make sure he had heard me and was paying attention. He said thank you and they left with the man to take him to the hospital. I got a smile and a nod from Christiano before I headed to the outdoor showers to rinse off and that was the last I saw of my misguided Brazilian friend.

The rest of the day was spent swimming and relaxing before stopping in Acaye (not sure about the spelling) for dinner and dancing. A perfect end to an eventful day!