Bumi Sehat Haiti Update

Certified Professional Midwife, Katherine Bramhall has been my friend and midwife guru for years.  She has guided and encouraged and processed and taught me in Bali since 2007 when I was becoming a doula and through the journey on to midwife.  She has loved me from a far and put an arm around me.  She has challenged me to see outside the box over and over, again.  I would like to share her most recent e-mail from Haiti with you. 

"9/5/2010

Sunday morning in Haiti….not quite hot, already noisy. 

 I love it all.  I’m the only one awake at the compound after 2 nights and a day of birth at the dome…3 babies…3 new mothers…all born peacefully in one off the most beautiful birth settings I have ever been in.

Go figure.  In post-earthquake Haiti…that such exquisite beauty is not only possible less than 4 months after such devastation, but it is functional and operational.

It’s hard for me to not be in love with this.  It’s hard for everyone who visits to not be struck by it all.  And then fall in love.

It’s still pretty unbelievable, actually.

Except that it’s true.  All of it.

The dome at night is a looming, luminescent, white structure, softly lit…a 22 foot tall structure in the middle of a clearing.  44 feet in diameter.  Leon planted flowers around one side of it and they are in bloom. 

Inside, the walls which separate each birthing space are constructed of thick bamboo poles, with perfectly white, starched sheets stretched across the bamboo frames to serve as soft walls and doorways.

The center console, where the supplies are kept is made of wood.  An octagon, which mirrors the roundness of the dome.  Josh was brilliant in his vision of this.  Its feeling is it is the core of the dome, supporting everything which happens in it. 

 In the night, with the lights on….soft tube lights around the entire 44 foot circumference of the dome…Christmas lights…give just enough light in each room.  Headlamps on birth attendants fill in the rest at just the right times…only as needed. 

 This scene...this miracle of love…invited 3 new babies into our world in the last 2 nights.  This clinic, this soft, solid magic held the space for 3 new women to make their way into motherhood.

 And we know that none of this would have been possible without THOUSANDS of people opening their hearts to help keep this possible and happening. On this Sunday morning, the only feeling I have is endless gratitude. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you.

In love,

Katherine Bramhall

Director of Finances & Volunteer Midwife 

16/5/2010

Weekend in Haiti

After seeing 47 women and newborn babies on Friday in Prenatal Clinic, the evening breeze was welcome…we were all very tired, but profoundly satisfied. And all semi-secretly hoping for a quiet birthing night so we could sleep a bit. Saturday is the “day after” prenatals…catching up on inventory, charting, planning schedules. By noon all was finished, we were all here and a festive mood set in.

It was hot. It’s always hot, but this was oppressive. Blessing and delight came with the water truck to fill our tank on top of the bathroom building. It always overflows after a fill, a steady stream coming from the roof corner. Kate got THAT look in her eyes, walked straight over in her red tank top and capris and stood under, soaking and cooling every bit of herself…still with that look in her eyes, but mixed with relief.
The “coolest” one among us in more than one way! 

Pamela was working in the storeroom and found an inflatable beach ball, blew it up, tossed it out and a sweet game of beach ball volley began, while Nathanael, Stanley and Russeau played Monkey-in-the-Middle in the courtyard.
It was still hot and everyone dispersed…to naps, writing, disappearing to unknown places…and then it was evening.
Kate went to tour Jacmel on foot with Nathanael and Pam and I eventually followed, meeting them on the way back. She and I walked through night neighborhoods of Jacmel to the ocean-front, where you can sit and get a beer at a little table across the street from the ocean. It was the first time she had been out of the compound since she arrived a week later. The ocean was known only as white-topped waves in the dark and a thundering sound.
Oppressive night’s heat…no air moved and it laid on top of all of us. But another blessed night of rest. Sunday morning at 7 we got a call to the dome…2nd time mom in active labor. Pam got there before me and 7 minutes later, a baby girl was born…frank breech…with the placenta arriving almost simultaneously. No complications for mom or baby. Because the dome was so hot, we moved the bed outside under the tarp, so the breeze could cool mom and baby. Family wandered up with food, baby lay nursing peacefully.
Poetry would be so easy at this point in writing! Kate and Pamela burned the cord, as mom watched intently, her relatives observing the entire procedure. I just watched it all. Kate assisted Pamela in every way. The dome was beautiful in our clearing, pure white under the deep, clear blue sky, flowers planted around ½ the perimeter.
What do I write after this? How do I keep deep pride for what we have built out of my words?
Perhaps with gratitude…for the amazing midwives who come and help us build trust in the community one birth at a time by offering their hands, skills and hearts, helping us toward our goal to reduce the highest maternal mortality rate in the west. Perhaps with gratitude for the support we have from the Haitian community in Jacmel…the officials, the men building our clinic, one brick at a time. Perhaps with gratitude to Tata, Russeau, Nadej, Nathanael, Darline and Reginald who keep us going every day…washing our clothes, cooking meals, running errands, advising us…in a million ways.
Katherine Bramhall, Volunteer Midwife and Director of Finance for Bumi Sehat Haiti"