My daily life

As you know, the place I am volunteering at is a malnutrition center. There are so many different people that come together to make the center function. However, I thought you might want to know what my job is here. I have many different tasks that fill my daily life at the center. In between all my other tasks, my absolute favorite of course, is cuddling and playing with the babies. I also have my online classes through Concordia that I have to keep track of in the midst of it all.

A lot of the things that I am currently doing at the center were added onto my plate after Jenna, our amazingly talented communications coordinator, moved back to Canada. She was one of my first friends when I came to Haiti so I really miss her as a friend but I also miss all of the work she did for the center.

It is important to track the progress the babies make. One of the ways we do this is to compare photos taken of them at admission, to photos when they enter the outpatient program or when they discharge and no longer live under our roof. For each of these steps a baby takes at the center, I am the one that takes the photos of baby and mamma. I love this because I get to greet each new baby who enters our program right away. This may sound easy, but imagine trying to tell people how and where to stand when they speak another language. We use a lot of sign language! I also help with intake by setting the baby up with all the supplies they need in the center, such as clothes that fit, a bottle, mamba bowl, and ID band.

One of the office tasks that I have been working on is going through every single dossier which has all the information on each child in our program. I have been transferring information from each one into a spreadsheet so that we can look at the data as a big picture. This job was a challenge to begin with because the dossiers are in Creole! I am thankful for a translator app on my phone and the people around me who help. Through this task, I have learned a lot about the lives of Haitians who struggle with malnutrition, and I have also learned some Creole in the process.

In addition to the pictures, one of the other jobs that I acquired after Jenna leaving, is writing email updates for donors for middle ground, and writing weekly social media posts. I am actually writing these for the first time this week since Jenna continued to do some things even from abroad to make for an easier adjustment.

My favorite part of each day is when I go see the babies who are in our care to love on them and play for a little bit. It is honestly amazing to see the personalities of these babies just blossom as they grow and become healthier through our program. The video below is one of my favorite moments playing with this little cutie who was actually the first baby I bonded with when I visited Middle Ground last Decemeber.

As sometimes happens, she went home last year and did not thrive as much as hoped so she was readmitted during my third week here. When she first arrived she would cry if I even walked in the room because according to her mom, she was scared of white people. This was definitely something new for me and hard since I wanted to immediately love on her. I had thought I would never see her again. Now though, we are buddies and she actually cries when I put her down to leave the room. She is now healthy and actually able to go home within the next week which is so exciting but I can’t help but be a little sad that I won’t be able to play with her, hear that little giggle, and look at this contagious smile every day.

With all of these different tasks my days are absolutely filled but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love the work that I am doing here and cannot believe that it has already almost been 2 months, or in other words, half of my stay in Haiti!