Trying to Deliver a Goat and Haitian Dogs

Monday, as we were walking home from the last day of CHW surveying in Do Dique, we noticed a goat who had just given birth.  We had actually recently had an in depth talk about how many pregnant goats we saw each day, and that our chances for seeing one give birth while we were in Haiti were probably high—and I was very excited by this prospect as I’ve still never seen any sort of live birth in person.  I first noticed the goat because she was right alongside the road, and I could see afterbirth membrane hanging out of her.  Then we saw her two goat kids; one who was still wet/bloody from the birth (and TINY), and one who was dry and more normal sized.  We thought it was very curious that she still looked very pregnant.  We ended up checking on her several more times that afternoon assuming we’d find a third kid at some point.  However, after about 3 hours of monitoring her, we got worried that maybe her labor had stopped, or that the third kid was malpositioned and unable to come out on its own.  So, we went back to Matana, fired up our Wi-Fi and looked up how goats give birth.  After reading that usually there is only a 30 minute delay between kids, we started getting really worried.  Abbey, being an ob-gyn resident was willing to try and reposition the kid if it was in fact breeched and help her deliver it.  We set back out with water, crackers, and gloves, to see what we could do to help this poor mama.  She guzzled down almost 2-liters of water and ate a half-sleeve of Ritz, but she shimmied away from Abbey’s gloved touch each time she tried to reach inside.  I, of course, volunteered to try holding her, but we were all sufficiently freaked out at her shrieking screams when I grasped hold of her horns… and we decided we would need her to lie down for us to be able to do anything.  Throughout this time we noticed that the babies were also not getting anything from her teats when they would latch on, and after nearly 2 hours of our discouraging attempts to help her, we were feeling especially glum. 

               Eventually, two Haitian farmers strolled by on the road, and inquired what we were doing (they definitely thought we were crazy).  They actually knew the owner of the goat who ended up sending his two sons up to where we were. They picked up the new baby kids and carried them (by their front legs) over to a more open area.  The mama waddled and shrieked down the road after them.  We finally got Guirliene, one of the CHWs at the compound who understands a little bit of English to come back with us to the area they moved her.  The farmer and her had a quick discussion and she told us that the goat was done having kids.  We stood arguing with her for several minutes, but in the end there was nothing else we could do, since it wasn’t our goat.  We left the situation very sad, and fear that the babies, the mama, and the unborn kid(s) will probably all die.  I wish I had a happier ending to report for that story. 

               This story does bring up the interesting point that there are virtually no veterinarians in Haiti.  Abbey has been really interested in getting my sister, Sophie, who is in her 3^rd year of vet school to come down here and work on a dog neutering program—where it could eventually become a sort of vet tech training program.  The number of malnourished, diseased, maimed, and injured dogs you see each day around here is astounding, and we think this type of a neutering program could help remedy this.  Ultimately, the dogs end up competing with people for food, and most of them are totally untamed and on the vicious side.  See Abbey’s last blog post where she writes about this idea in a little more detail.  www.abbeymerryman.blogspot.com.

Below are some pictures of puppies we’ve seen, and the last picture is of Rascal (or Rascella) the dog at the Mission that I am very tempted to try and bring home with me. 

Bel Timoun

Since I’m slightly unsettled right now due to a very loud voodoo celebration full of chanting and drums around 200 meters from my room, I think this is a good time to post a blog of cute kid pictures.  I have nothing against voodoo, and am actually very interested in learning more about it, but hearing a full-fledged festival (this is day 3 or 4 of this particular celebration—but the loudest night of drums so far) right outside your bedroom is a bit unnerving.

At Liz's latrine lecture in Do Digue

Anyway, Thursday and Friday when I went around to homes with the Gadyen Dlo workers, I met MANY precious children.  Some are a little afraid of me, most are pretty cautious about touching my white skin for the first time, and absolutely all of them point at me and exclaim “BLAN…. BLAN!!!” with wide eyes when they first see me.  

On the way to Raypool

 It’s funny because sometimes I’ll notice older children (like ages 8-11) will try and force their more timid younger siblings (age 3-5)  to touch me because they think it’s hilarious how scared they are.  

My girl, Islan and a three year old from Do Digue

Other times, groups of kids that aren’t afraid of me or get over their fear really quick will sometimes go to the opposite extreme and constantly touch me, pet my hair, hold on to my hands for dear life, etc.  

About to walk over the dam to Do Digue

And, I can sometimes now understand when their parents or grandparents look over at them laughing and say something like “hey, what happened, I thought you were afraid of that blan?” or something to that effect.

Girls cleaning their hair barrettes with toothbrushes in Raypool

I especially like practicing my Kreyol with kids because they get really into teaching me new words, and I don’t feel as embarrassed when they don’t understand me.  I can just smile big and tickle them or something… which is a lot harder to pull off with adults ;)

Kids in Do Digue who really loved my sunglasses

I’m easily distracted by cute kids in any setting, but the little Haitian children I've been lucky enough to meet over the last two weeks really are just too darling for words—literally, I can’t describe it, just see the pictures.

Gadyen Dlo Training "Graduation"

On Wednesday, we completed our Gadyen Dlo employee training.  We had the new employees role play as if they were families in their communities, and gave them each hard scenarios to work around.  For example, we had one of them pretend to be someone who says: "Yeah, I know it's important to treat water, but I just wait for the Red Cross to give us free AquaTabs and use those."  Then, the two other guys had to decide how best to handle a situation like that.  It was a fantastic activity that proved fun and functional.  It also proved to Liz and I that they were ready to go out on their own into their actual communities. 

Coconut water break during the last day of training (coconuts from Watson - he's in the background with his machete opening them for us)

I also brought with me a few of the water quality tests Santho and I had done on Monday, and had them guess which sources came back positive and negative for coliforms. They were all surprised that the only water that came back negative was the bags of water we purchased from the coke (cola) lady's little store.  Below, I'm showing them the positive water samples.  They actually were so into to it, and completely grossed out that their community pump water was positive, they requested that they each get one of the positive samples to carry around with them to be able to show people.  We thought this was a pretty great idea, and glad that they were so into it.

After completing our whole water safety/Gadyen Dlo system training, we presented the new Gadyen Dlo employees with CHI backpacks, hats, shirts, and their name badges. 

On Thursday, Liz, John, and I went around to a few houses from each of Rolax, Watson, and Santho’s communities.  This was so we could observe each of the guys giving their sales pitches/in-home water safety lessons, and also so they could get ideas from, and help each other.  It was a great success; in part because at most houses we attracted a large crowd of children who were curious to see the blan—and the guys took this opportunity to get out their color laminated posters and gave the kids mini water lessons while the other one talked to the adults of the household (or cluster of homes) about Gadyen Dlo.