Norway, Quakes, and Coconuts

     It is only Wednesday and already it is a pretty eventful week. Monday morning I got up at 6 am and went for a walk. I met Dale who was here with a group of families who had brought their kids to Haiti for the experience (the kids ranged in age from 5 to 11, maybe?). Dale was wearing a Penn State T-shirt. He comes from a small town not far from State College, PA. Dale has been to Haiti before. As we talked, I learned that Dale had been to Hopital Lumiere at Bonne Fin which is a hospital on the mountain road between Cavaillon and Baradères. It is in the middle of nowhere. I’ve been there, too. Small world.

     Later at breakfast, I was introduced to Signe Prøis. Signe is a Norwegian freelance journalist living in Port-au-Prince. She was visiting Christianville for the day for a story she is writing for a Norwegian magazine on faith-based organizations and their activities in Haiti. Signe was accompanied by Marie, an American freelance photojournalist who also lives in PAP. I had a long chat first with Signe and then Marie telling them about the lab and what we were doing here and also about my project for surveillance of sexually transmitted infections. I called Meer over and introduced him to the two women. Meer explained more about the projects and especially the BSL-3 tuberculosis lab. He invited them to come over after lunch to visit the lab. Monday is a quiet day as we wait for samples to come in from the clinics and hospitals. Signe and Marie came over to the lab and Marie took lots of pictures. She was particularly interested in getting pictures of real Vibrio cholerae growing on plates. Just imagine, that little dot (we call it a colony) is made up of over a billion Vibrio bacteria!

     Yesterday I got up at 6 am and went out for a run. The sun was barely peaking up over the mountains and the moon was still bright and high up in the western sky. I thought it would be just me and the sounds of early morning. But then Ken rode by on his motorcycle. He was coming back from the generator room after turning on the generator for the early power cycle. As I ran past the container pad where the generators are located, I heard the drone of electricity being made. Further down the trail, I could hear the roosters, near and far. It seems like they are talking to each other as first one crows and then another one in the distance responds. I heard the donkey braying on the road below before I saw its dark shadow pass by. Pretty soon the chickens would be clucking but there were no sounds coming from the chicken pens. No smells either. I must be upwind this morning.

Early morning haze in the mountains

     This afternoon around 1430, the lab shook for about five seconds. It was as if a large truck passed close by. But there are no roads next to the lab and no large trucks. It was a small earthquake. Meer and I walked outside. Everything looked normal. It was just a small tremor, less than the 4.0 minimum to register on the Seismic Monitor website http://www.iris.edu/seismon/.

     Later in the afternoon I wandered over to our house to see how the workers were doing on trimming the trees in the yard. The workers had taken a break and were drinking from coconuts from the tree above us.  The coconuts did not look too mature so I guess someone had climbed up the tree to cut some down. One of the men asked me if I wanted a coconut. “Oui, pourquoi pas”. A guy opened up a coconut with a machete (of course). Four or five well-placed slices to remove the top and one last cut to open a hole for drinking the coconut milk. He handed it to me. Delicious and refreshing! We stood around drinking while two small boys used a spoon to carve out and eat the fleshy inside of the empty coconuts.

Leftover coconuts a few hours after we drank from them;
they have oxidized in the afternoon heat  

Coconut tree in our yard

     Madsen arrived this afternoon. He is a Haitian doctor who is a faculty member in the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. Madsen is well-connected in Haiti and he helped set up the network of hospitals and clinics that are providing us samples. I was anxious to meet Madsen. I have a lot to learn from him. Madsen was delighted to hear that I speak French. It is another thing we share that connects us. Madsen will be here three days. I’m actually staying in Madsen’s room in the house I share with Meer. The idea was that Madsen would stay in this house whenever he visited Christianville. This trip, Madsen will stay in the guesthouse so I can stay in his room. The three of us sat in the lab and talked until 10:30 pm. Still lots to do but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I am exhausted. A good day!