Today I wish I was on assignment for This American Life

I had this day today that was like straight up an entire episode of This American Life. I wish I'd had my audio recorder running the whole day long.

Yesterday I came down to Medford from Portland to begin an assignment to collect 4 Health Care stories for the project that I'm working on with Care Oregon - one of the largest managed care providers in the state, and OCCV, the Christian advocacy organization that currently employs me.

It probably didn't hurt that I brushed up on my This American Life (TAL) listening by catching up on podcast listening the whole drive south. In particular, I listened to "Road Trip" - and thought a lot about Dishwasher Pete, who rode the Greyhound bus in search of some good stories and was just unlucky enough not to find people who wanted to share. I have been having an opposite problem.

Maybe it is because health care is something that everyone can say something about. We've all had experiences of either exceptional heath care, or inadequate health care - or know someone who has had one of those experiences. I myself share stories about having an easier time of getting medicine in third world countries than I do at home... or I tell the horror story of when I got Swine Flu last fall - tonsils the size of golf balls and stuck in California in a hotel room just aching to be at home. (I'm getting a flu shot this year.)

I started off the day picking up Jerry - my Care Oregon partner - and we headed up the road to Grants Pass, struggling to find the location that was just under our noses.. FYI - SE "G" St., S "G" St. and SW "G" St. are merely 3 blocks apart...

Tracy was the first interviewee. She kicked her drug habit last year and has been sober for 7 months now. Her face lights up when she says this. She has 3 kids ages 9 - 15. They all have health insurance, and she's glad that the state helps her out with this. Her daughter has severe asthma, and the medication that she used to get is now no longer covered by the state. Will another medication work just as well, they don't know yet. Time will tell. However, Tracy's determination to be a good mother and to turn a corner on her life were more than evident. She looked like she knew what health really means. She understands the holistic implications of health. She wants her kids to know that too. She is waiting to hear about a new job, and has plans to be a drug and alcohol counselor. For some reason I don't doubt that she will.

We waited around to hear from another contact and spent some time exploring Rogue River... after searching for an open cafe or bookstore, we found an antique store and then ended up in the coffee shop next door. Here's where I really wish the tapes had been rolling.

Jerry ordered a peach smoothie. And somehow that just opened up the conversation.

Bob, the owner of the establishment began to talk about eating healthy.... etc. and as Jerry put it, had pretty much memorized anything you could read on the internet about natural health. He was also one of those conspiracy theory type of guys convinced that the government doesn't want people to know that there are a lot of natural remedies for everyday maladies.

Bob's big story was that 4 years ago he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and the doctors told him he needed a liver transplant. But as he said, "If my liver goes, I'm goin' with it." and he refused to get on the transplant list. He turned instead to colloidal silver and 17 other herbs that he takes religiously. He praised the virtues of alfalfa several times. And claims that not only did this - along with elminating processed foods - reverse his health problems, but it helped him lose 35 pounds, too!

His coffee shop, also has a movie rental business, work-out room, and adjoins a natural health office where people can get prescriptions for medical marijuana and other herbal remedies.

Our third health story was Faith. When we went to her mobile home at the trailer park, her husband came out to tell us that she was at Wal-Mart. after some hemming & hawing, Jerry asked if we could go try to find her at Wal-Mart as she had forgotten her cell phone. her hubby showed us an old picture of her. I took a picture of that picture on my cell phone and off we went. I thought we spotted her, but just to be sure we paged her to customer service. Of course she was surprised and had no idea what was going on. We went back to her house and on her porch commenced the interview.

Kids kept running back and forth on the porch. Her severaly autistic child couldn't get enough of the tri-pod, which he found fascinating. Mounted with a $2000 camera, his enthusiasm made me a little bit nervous. This family was one of those families that lives life on the edge of "just barely" - life is hard. The care that the kids receive through Care Oregon are just one less thing that the families have to worry about. The autistic boy receives weekly therapy and has started to interact a little bit more. He is three and a half and can say one word. When asked what her hopes are for him, what his mother answered was "well, I hope that one day he can say 'hi' to me." Wow. Her husband has a leg condition that requires surgery, but the doctors won't do it until he can put $9000 down. He told me that he'd be lucky to save up $1000 before something goes wrong. When I asked her what she'd do if they didn't have Care Oregon she said, I try not to think about that.

Finally we ended off the day with dinner with a Nurse Practitioner who makes house calls and usually rides her Harley to these appointments when she can. She's devoted to serving her rural clients and people who struggle to get the care they need or can't get out of the house easily. What was amazing to me was that this is a return to the old way of doing medical care. Your doctor would make those house calls. He knew you, because he could take the time to know you. Their decision to do health care this way removes the major overhead costs and so instead of a break-even of having to see at least 17 patients per day, to BREAK EVEN, she only has to see 3. She spends a average of 1 hour with each patient. And this is considered "novel" and "unusual."

It was a good way to end the day, though. This woman has remained committed to her passion and ideals. Health care for people who need it and often can't afford it. She has been paid in kind through trades and bartering. She said she likes this. I feel happy knowing that there are some people who don't let their bottom line be the only thing driving them.

Knowledge that is not passed through the heart is dangerous

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts. —Salman Rushdie

If you keep telling the same sad small story, you will keep living the same sad small life. —Jean Houston

Those times of depression tell you that it’s either time to get out of the story you’re in and move into a new story, or that you’re in the right story but there’s some piece of it you are not living out. — Carol S. Pearson

One lesson we can learn from pre-industrial peoples is the power of storytelling. I am struck by how important storytelling is among tribal peoples; it forms the basis of their educational systems. The Celtic peoples, for example, insisted that only the poets could be teachers. Why? I think it is because knowledge that is not passed through the heart is dangerous: it may lack wisdom; it may be a power trip; it may squelch life out of the learners. What if our educational systems were to insist that teachers be poets and storytellers and artists? What transformations would follow? —Mathew Fox

hmmm... knowledge that is not passed through the heart is dangerous.

Haiti Snapshot #3 - A Love Song

"I cannot do all the things that the world needs,

but the world needs all of the things that I can do"

As the 45 sweetly accented voices repeated this chorus over and over my friend, Emily, and I could not help but notice the way that one little boy's gaze never left us. He paid no attention to the choir director's enthusiastic arm-waving, but steadily studied the two of us as we sat on the wooden bench in the back of the church.

This is Nelson. At age 10, he really looked more like he was seven years old. He arrived early every day, wearing his Sunday best, a blue and yellow sports jersey tucked into khaki dress pants secured with a belt pulled tight abound his abdomen. Around 7:30 am he would take his place on the exposed foundation of the school that acted more as a bench for the children to sit on while we finished preparations for the classes that would begin at 8:00.

Usually sitting by himself on one of the front rows during the morning assembly, it never appeared that he had too many friends. But the smile on his face exposed the delight and enthusiasm that he felt for the Art Camp that we were putting on for these kids.

One day, Emily and I went on a walk on some of the paths outside of the compound where we had been staying. We explored some roaming trails and found a few local folks that we greeted with hearty Bon Swa-s, and took some photos of some of the children herding goats. We found our way the dirt soccer pitch where the kids passed around whatever they could find to act as a ball. And suddenly Nelson appeared, wearing only some baggy blue shorts, running over to us, holding our hands, delighted to indicated to the others that he knew these foreigners. Our lack of language skills didn't ever allow us to really get to know much about this boy, but I think that it wasn't actually too difficult to fill in the blanks on what his life was probably like.

On the bench in the church, as Emily and I sat watching Nelson singing this beautiful refrain in both English and French, I turned to Emily and said,

"Look how Nelson is looking at us - I think that he's singing us a love song."

After the song ended, we waved him over and he almost flew across the church to squeeze in between the both of us.

Haiti - the Composite, or at least an attempt

**Warning, super long!**

this is the "official email" I sent out in July after I returned from the trip.

From Haiti, With Love

I have been home from Haiti for just over a week now. In some ways it feels like a long time ago, but that is probably because it is such a different world from my normal day-to-day here in Portland. Last Friday I reflected that it was only a week ago that I was busily working in Haiti to complete the stories that the kids were working on.

But first, I wanted to extend my heart-felt thanks to you for supporting me on this trip financially, and with your prayers, good wishes and encouragement. It was a wonderful trip, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to be there working with the children. Our team of BuildaBridge artists put together an Art Camp for kids ages 10 – 14 in the city of Pont Sonde, a few hours north of Port au Prince. Another team of artists worked in an orphanage outside of Port au Prince creating a mural with the children there.

Even though the earthquake did not directly affect most of the children in our art camp, it is fair to say that the “after-shocks” of this disaster have permeated all of Haiti. Some children in our Art Camp had been sent away from Port au Prince by their families to live with their rural relatives. And in truth, life in Haiti has been hard for a really long time, so a project like this was a welcome diversion for the children we worked with.

I was fortunate to have a translator for the week, which helped to ensure the success of my class. I worked with a few young Haitians as well in my class, and this gave us an opportunity to work in collaboration with local Haitian teachers and artists, which was mutually beneficial. We were able to elevate the use of the arts – dance, music, poetry, storytelling and visual arts – to engage the children and to provide opportunities to reinforce lessons of Hope and creative, therapeutic play.

Haiti is a storytelling culture, so using stories and engaging the students into the art and form of stories was a natural fit. I was fortunate to find a book at Powell’s that had both English and Creole translations. It told the story of a little Haitian boy who experienced slavery, but demonstrated a strong, resilient spirit, and used a song to encourage and strengthen his spirit when he felt sad. This was a great way to reinforce aspects of Haitian culture and history and to highlight the parallels for the children between the ways that the boy in the story stayed strong through trials, and how they could do the same.

Each day we focused on different aspects of Hope. I tried to tell them a story that correlated with that each day, and I found Aesop’s fables to be particularly useful. These stories commonly use animals as the key characters, and I find those to be universally understood. One day I told them the story of the Mouse & the Lion – proverb being that “even small creatures can be important.” We then used a metaphor of trees to talk about life and how to be strong in the face of adversity. I encouraged the students to talk about the things in life that helped them to be strong and to not “fall over” when hard times came. Using these metaphors from the natural world made it easy to emphasize the teaching moments for Hope, the theme of our work there.

The following day, we discussed the importance of persistence in fulfilling goals, supported by the fable of the persistent and thirsty Crow that patiently dropped little pebbles into a pitcher of water until the water-level rose sufficiently for the crow to drink. Having a “future-orientation” is a vital aspect of Hope and trauma therapy. We talked about ourselves and our future goals, some of the children’s goals were to be an engineer, hairstylist, and motorcycle driver (from a 10 year old girl!). And then we talked about what things the kids needed to do now in order to achieve their future dreams. All in all, this was a fun experience, and one that I found the children to really engage in.

When I put the children into groups to create their own stories this ended up being more of a challenge. I realized that they are not accustomed to a lot of free-play and creative time in their education system. And most of the stories that were supposed to be “hopeful” tended to end with all of the characters dying. This is where I came to learn a lot about the role and function of storytelling in Haiti, and many Afro-centric cultures.

Put simply, life is hard. That is a given. People understand this, and don’t try to protect their children from that fact. After discussing my observation with my friend Joe, he pointed out that it really wasn’t until the Victorian Era that people felt the need to create these “happily ever after” schemes to protect their children from reality. Telling stories that are sort of tragicomedies teaches a helpful truth that bad things do happen, yet in front of that backdrop each story would have a teaching element – a lesson to be learned, or a situation to laugh at. Tales of foolish actions serve to teach kids what not to do without sounding punitive or harsh. Actually this is a prime example of the functional place of stories and their use in teaching cultural norms and mores.

When I asked one group if someone who was struggling or having a hard time would feel better after hearing one of these stories where “everybody dies”, they replied “YES! Because its funny!!” – in a way that implied “obviously!” After hearing their story again, I had to agree. It was funny, and there were important lessons to be learned.

This story about three brothers taught three important lessons.

1) don’t be greedy.

2) don’t laugh at other’s misfortune.

3) don’t be in such a rush to spread gossip.

Clearly the implication is that bad behavior such as this can result in undesirable consequences.

Thank you for being invested in this trip, in Haiti, and in my well-being.
With gratitude,
Emily

Haiti Snapshot #2 - Juxtapositons

Start listening to this in another tab first...

Now read this...

As the plane began to prepare for its descent into Port au Prince I pressed my face up against the small plastic oval of a window and scanned for signs of the havoc that the notorious January earthquake had wreaked on this fragile city. From the air what was mostly visible was a landscape dotted with dwellings, lush flowering trees and snakey dirt roads. As the land drew closer, however, many of those dwellings revealed themselves to be acres of tents, and the piles of rubble were more apparent. Inside Baggage Claim, the scent of diesel fumes mixed with dust quickly reminds me that I am in another world.

Right outside of the airport is where many people in their tent-cities currently reside, and as we casually drove by I was astonished at the number. In truth, Port au Prince resembles more of a war-zone like Kosovo or Baghdad. Fallen walls have crushed cars. There are piles of rubble that line the street. Some buildings are standing, but jut out at odd 45-degree angles reminding you that things are not as they seem. The presidential palace, the symbol of hard-earned hope and freedom for the proud Haitians is now a concave behemoth, a symbolic testament to the enormity of the effect that the earthquake has had on this fragile country.

Yet, in front of this somber backdrop, vital signs of life juxtapose themselves with the tragedy that is seen everywhere. Joyful pops of color can be found on everything from the tap-taps and mini-busses, to the Digicel umbrellas, to the works of art that adorn a concrete wall, and the lively political graffiti on every blank meter of concrete, reminding you that the spirit is not broken.

People bustle about, avoiding the broken pieces of the road amidst the hum and honks of the traffic. Demonstrators celebrate the birthday of deposed President Aristide in front of the presidential palace, which is kitty-corner to the completely toppled Holy Trinity Anglican church. Everyone largely agrees that these demonstrators must have been paid to do this. Uniformed school children walk home in groups, making up for school time lost in January and February.

In a rented van, our group begins our ascent into the mountains above Port au Prince, Petion-ville, where the shocks were also felt. The lush canopy of banana trees, palm trees, and other vegetation masks the demolition that has happened here, too. Many churches and homes built into the hillside couldn’t withstand the tremors and tumbled down. Many people are making-do in donated tents, but the rainy season that is now upon us threatens this existence as well.

In Petion-ville, our hosts inform us that the view of the valley below was where hundreds of sugar-cane plantations once were. They show us the heavily rusted iron neck chain that was found in the garden, and most assuredly was worn long-ago by a slave who escaped to these very hills.

That evening, our hosts, some Americans whose hearts have turned Haitian and a few their local friends generously share with us the gift of hospitality and song: their belief in Haiti and their hope for its future.

Haiti Snapshot #1- Phillipe

The children were subdued on the first day of the art camp as they sat and watched me, their lively American teacher, make all sorts of attempts to entertain and communicate with them in broken Creole, elementary French and my native English, which they barely understood, if at all.

Of the 3 boys and 7 girls in my class not one of them missed a day of attendance all week. The youngest boy was seven or eight, and the older children were 13 or 14. Phillipe was about 12 years old with a serious demeanor. His eyes took everything in as he, no doubt, was working to evaluate what was going on and what to make of this American lady. He showed up early every day in clean clothes, but he was not overly playful.

He responded well to the initial art activity in which they were instructed to draw a tree. There were not many parameters put around the tree drawings except that each tree should fill up the paper and should have roots. I could immediately tell that this boy was naturally artistic and really warmed to this task. He drew elaborate leaves and outlined the trunk of the tree in a creative an colorful way. Yet, he was uncomfortable making eye contact with me most of the time.

As the days went by I could tell that the children enjoyed the story-telling activities that I led them in. When I gave them the task of writing their own stories things became a little more difficult for them. We had to go back to the concepts of “beginning, middle and end” more than once and made a lot of efforts to refine story ideas into some sense of coherence without the fatalistic ending “and then everybody died” that seemed so common to these stories. Did the children not know of another way to end the stories?

Phillipe’s group of boys worked on their story with the help of my Haitian teaching assistant for several days. What they finally came up with was a story with the lesson that “everyone is equal,” which recounted the volleyed taunting of a dog and a cat until another creature came by and remarked upon the beauty of each creature. I was pleased with that, and it was quite apparent that these boys were very pleased with themselves. Phillipe had worked to draw a beautiful road-side scene for the background of their story and the boys had created puppets with brown paper lunch-sacks to act as dogs and cats for the story.

I noticed that he had warmed up to me quite a bit and actually seemed to be having more fun with the tasks that were given. On the final day we had our Celebration with all of the Art Camp classes together. I was so proud of my class as they repeated a poem about having the strength of trees for their parents and friends, and shared one of the group’s stories. As I sat down on the bench, with the children from my class squeezed up against me, I told them in Creole that I was very happy. At this point, Phillipe leaned forward and with a sweet smile that lit up his whole face he told me, in Creole, “me too.”

Only a few hours left

I woke up early this morning. 6:00. Up with the sun, which is something that almost never happens spontaneously in my life. I'm amazed that I actually got any sleep last night. I was busy packing and trying to fit stuff in...
Challenge #1 in Flexibility was just what to do with the GIGANTIC 42" high cot that was sent to me with instruction to bring it to Haiti. I didn't have a bag big enough to put that in it, so I was reduced to leaving that as an entire checked item and then shoving everything else into the duffle bag and backpacking backpack that will serve as my carry-on. But I think I made it work.
Any effort at cuteness has definitely gone by the wayside as I have packed my bag to the top with crayons, markers, glue, paper, yarn, and fabric. I think I only packed 3 shirts and one pair of shorts, and a couple pair of pants... but that is all just fine.
This morning as I sit here and savor the last few hours of "certainty" before I leave I am taking refuge in the fact that I am not going alone, and that I have a big heart with a lot of love to share, and God is with me.
For now I will enjoy my last normal shower for a few weeks and my last cup of Stumptown coffee...