You Might Be in Haiti If:

• You make a mental note to not go anywhere, ever, without Kleenex or toilet paper in your pocket
• The colors are so clear and intense that the entire day feels like being stuck in an issue of National Geographic.
• You wear a size 10 and are the fattest woman in town.  You are also the hottest woman in town and all women wish they were as fat as you.
• You see a truck going down the road with seven bleating goats tied upside down!
• You start a mental list entitled “Things I Have Seen On a Motorcycle in Haiti” and it includes A Family of Four, a live pig, and a goat.
• If you are cuddling a little kid at a feeding center whom you realize is soaked in pee…. and then you realize that’s okay.
• Your favorite perfume is “Eau de DEET”.
• You order “rum and coke ” and you get a bottle of rum and a bottle of coke.

You Might Be Working for Midwives for Haiti If:

• A set of clean “sea foam green” scrubs, size small, is not only a Hot Commodity that you can trade for beers or favors at the house, but Very Nice Business Attire for the day.  Every day.
• You are exposed to TB and Hepatitis in less than five minutes.
• You get a blood pressure of 220/130 on a clinic patient who thinks you are crazy for being VERY concerned. She also tells you that taking her diuretic is not convenient because it makes her pee all the time when she rides the Tap Tap.
•  Everyone is reminded to start their day with 1000mcg of misoprostol in their pocket.
•  You have to step over a stray brown dog in the doorway of Labor and Delivery.  All of the dogs look the same and you think they must have come from the original Adam and Eve of dogs.
•  Colleagues come in from the hospital night shift report a set of twins (one breech),  and one eclamptic mama, with the comment ” but a lot of the night was quiet”….

Can you relate???

-Compiled by many of the volunteers for Midwives for Haiti and originally posted on the blog of Wendy Dotson, CNM, longtime volunteer and friend of Midwives For Haiti.