Missing Thanksgiving in Chicagoland was not something to be taken lightly this year. November 22, 2007 market the end of an institution - the Emil N. Heidkamp Senior Family Thanksgiving.
The first time I ever sat around a single table for a Thanksgiving meal was about two or three years ago when I was living on the East Coast and joined a friend's family for their celebration. Before then all I knew of Thanksgiving was a church basement in the northwest Chicago suburbs filled with at least a dozen tables and 50-100 Heidkamps. depending on the year.
It wasn't just aunts, uncles and cousins (of which there are plenty- my Dad is one of 12 kids), but great aunts, great uncles and second cousins. It wasn't just one turkey - it was two or three. It wasn't football - it was my great uncles Dick and Don reciting the Cremation of Sam McGee. It was poker at one table and Trivial Pursuit at another. It was balancing spoons on your nose. It was being one of the only kids in the room who couldn't say the Hail Mary. It was lots and lots and lots of noise.
A few years ago one of my best friends from high school was at a church event when she heard another woman describing her family's plans for Thanksgiving: subterranean gathering in a a Catholic church, two twin great uncles who used to be priests and then married nuns reciting poetry. My friend had to ask. The woman was my cousin Nicole.
My parents said almost 120 people showed up this year to mark the end of an era. I'm really disappointed I couldn't make it 121.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Picture pages, picture pages
Here are some photos with captions of happenings in recent weeks including birthday celebrations, jet setting to south Florida, and Thanksgiving dinners.
For those who would like to see and hear more about my work at the clinic - those photos and stories will come in the months ahead. So far the work has been heavily administrative and I generally try to avoid taking photos, especially photos I would post, without actually having a relationship of some sort with the person in the photo.
For those who would like to see and hear more about my work at the clinic - those photos and stories will come in the months ahead. So far the work has been heavily administrative and I generally try to avoid taking photos, especially photos I would post, without actually having a relationship of some sort with the person in the photo.
Friday, November 23, 2007
AIDS in America - a Haitian disease?
In 1982 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officially described AIDS as the disease of the "4 H's" - homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin addicts and Haitians. Not yet knowing that HIV is transmitted through body fluids, the CDC labeled an entire country's population as being at risk of HIV for no other reason than their country of origin.
In 1982, some of the first cases of HIV outside of the US and Europe were reported in Haiti. It was an extremely professional and progressive team of Haitian researchers from the clinic where I work who recognized and documented karposi's sarcoma, an infection associated with AIDS, in a group of young Haitian men. No reports of similar cases had come in yet from Africa or Asia - so it was assumed by the CDC that AIDS was a Haitian disease (not that Haiti was quicker to identify and report an emerging global epidemic).
Significant consequences accompanied the labeling of AIDS as a "Haitian" condition by the US government. In the 1980's and 1990's people of Haitian descent in the United States were prohibited from donating blood. The tourist trade in Haiti collapsed partly under the stigma of AIDS and has not yet recovered.
25 years later, being Haitian is no longer considered an HIV risk factor, but some researchers are still trying to point to Haiti as the source of the AIDS epidemic in the USA. There has been quite a bit of press recently about a study that examined the genetic material from five HIV-infected Haitian who immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s. They were looking at the mutation patterns of the virus in these five people. Based on their limited analysis, the authors jump to a conclusion that it was a single Haitian immigrant the late 1960's who was responsible for bringing the disease to the US. The authors were some of the same people who worked at the CDC in the early 1980's....is this a coincidence or might they have professional reasons for wanting to justify their previous policy decisions to blacklist Haitians?
Check out this NPR interview with Dr. W. Johnson the Director of the Division of International Medicine at Cornell's Medical School who is a close friend and mentor to the director of the clinic where I work. He has some fantastic sound bytes that question the validity of the study including its methods, its conclustions and implications for racism and bias in medicine.
People like to talk about science as being unbiased but the reality is that scientists usually have an easier time finding what they set out looking for than what they are not expecting to see. Unfortuanately in the case of Haiti, the consequences of such widely publicized biases continue to be devastating as it perpetuates the completely unfounded racism, fear, and mistrust directed at many Haitians and Haitian immigrants ,,,, so much so that several members of the Haitian community have even threatened a law suit against the researchers who published their conclusions.
UPDATE - Here is a link to a commentary on the study above by Edwidge Dandticat, a wonderful (Oprah endorsed) Haitian-American writer. Read her editorial and then check out some of her fabulous books. Here is a link to a Dec 8 editorial in the Miami Herald about the study by the former USAID Haiti director.
In 1982, some of the first cases of HIV outside of the US and Europe were reported in Haiti. It was an extremely professional and progressive team of Haitian researchers from the clinic where I work who recognized and documented karposi's sarcoma, an infection associated with AIDS, in a group of young Haitian men. No reports of similar cases had come in yet from Africa or Asia - so it was assumed by the CDC that AIDS was a Haitian disease (not that Haiti was quicker to identify and report an emerging global epidemic).
Significant consequences accompanied the labeling of AIDS as a "Haitian" condition by the US government. In the 1980's and 1990's people of Haitian descent in the United States were prohibited from donating blood. The tourist trade in Haiti collapsed partly under the stigma of AIDS and has not yet recovered.
25 years later, being Haitian is no longer considered an HIV risk factor, but some researchers are still trying to point to Haiti as the source of the AIDS epidemic in the USA. There has been quite a bit of press recently about a study that examined the genetic material from five HIV-infected Haitian who immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s. They were looking at the mutation patterns of the virus in these five people. Based on their limited analysis, the authors jump to a conclusion that it was a single Haitian immigrant the late 1960's who was responsible for bringing the disease to the US. The authors were some of the same people who worked at the CDC in the early 1980's....is this a coincidence or might they have professional reasons for wanting to justify their previous policy decisions to blacklist Haitians?
Check out this NPR interview with Dr. W. Johnson the Director of the Division of International Medicine at Cornell's Medical School who is a close friend and mentor to the director of the clinic where I work. He has some fantastic sound bytes that question the validity of the study including its methods, its conclustions and implications for racism and bias in medicine.
People like to talk about science as being unbiased but the reality is that scientists usually have an easier time finding what they set out looking for than what they are not expecting to see. Unfortuanately in the case of Haiti, the consequences of such widely publicized biases continue to be devastating as it perpetuates the completely unfounded racism, fear, and mistrust directed at many Haitians and Haitian immigrants ,,,, so much so that several members of the Haitian community have even threatened a law suit against the researchers who published their conclusions.
UPDATE - Here is a link to a commentary on the study above by Edwidge Dandticat, a wonderful (Oprah endorsed) Haitian-American writer. Read her editorial and then check out some of her fabulous books. Here is a link to a Dec 8 editorial in the Miami Herald about the study by the former USAID Haiti director.
In a spirit of thanksgiving...with a little lamentation too
Many of you have heard me describe my seasons living outside of the US as living in the extremes - where the highs are higher and the lows are lower than I ever experience back in North America. While at times I do find life in my homeland a bit hectic, I definitely find my life here exhausting..... in the best just-danced-three-hours-at-a-Haitian-boy-band-concert sort of way and in the worst I-want-to-stay-in-bed-with-the-covers-over-my-head-and-never-speak-to-anyone-ever-ever-again sort of way. I used to think of myself as an emotionally stable person..... I used to think of myself as a lot of things before this whole PhD process started : )
I'm reaching the 6-week mark of being back in Haiti so in order to get folks up to date on the personal side I thought I'd just make a laundry list of my thanksgivings and lamentations. I will let you decide which are which. Feel free to overlook, skim or dig in.
...6:30 am mornings with Haitian coffee and Henry Nouwen...5;30 mornings with Haitian coffee and too many unwritten emails....6am mornings crying on the phone to my parents when i probably missed my Haitian coffee.....two weeks of a respiratory infection.....five days (and counting) with conjunctivitis....zero days of GI disfunction.... two weeks with a completely dead computer....one week (and counting) with a no-longer-dead but now virally infected computer .... one day (and counting) with a lost mobile phone and no other way to reach or be reached by people in P-au-P.... finding out that the one person I really really wanted to have join our project team but never thought would be available is actually looking for a new job...conducting an entire meeting in Kreyol and realizing that everyone understood almost everything....finally feeling like things might be coming together even if I still have a pit in my stomach just thinking about it... being granted a corner of space in the clinic.....being able to open the door to that space after three weeks of constant harassement to get the keys ...trying again and again to actually get a call through to my advisor but it just not happening....my advisor offerring to squeeze in a last minute 2-day trip to Haiti...four baby hats knitted with four more in the que..... friends who send birthday packages where the shipping vastly exceeds the material (but not the spiritual) value of the contents ....7 days of waiting for someone to get to the post office to actually pick up the package...birthday cakes make by neighbor who is a baker extraordinaire.... birthday emails sent by family and friends.... joint birthday celebrations pulled together in 48 hours that include the death of a goat and lots of rice and beans.... the Haitian friend who call at just the right time to remind me why borders are meant to be crossed.... five adults living in a two bedroom house... four weeks sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor.... five nights in my own bedroom while housemates travel to the US... two nights alone in a hotel on A-1-A beachfront avenue.... airtunes speakers in the living room....a renewed sense of music as food for the soul....girls night out to a Haitian boy-band concert with my friend L who is the younger sister of a Wheaton classmate and who welcomed me over to her place on 30 minutes notice last Tuesday night to cry, laugh and drink beer on the patio even though my eyes were pink and oozing puss...... impromptu weeknight pancake dinner and arrested development screening with housemates and mcc'ers.... discovering I have the same random $13 housewife dress as my Canadian friend M thus confirming the fact that I knew we were meant to be friends from the moment I met her and her husband.... vacationing friend K with a fabulous apartment who is letting me stay there for the two weeks he is away...housemates who plan and pull together an amazing Thanksgiving dinner and don't mind that I spent most of the day locked in a bedroom trying to work instead of helping them cook or clean....a visit to Haiti by one of my best friend's fiancees G which ended with dinner with another Baltimore acquaintance who happened to run into G at the Haitian hotel's bar....being reminded again and again that even unprayed prayers are answered...... and that there are a lot of prayers yet to be prayed before this is all through....
I'm reaching the 6-week mark of being back in Haiti so in order to get folks up to date on the personal side I thought I'd just make a laundry list of my thanksgivings and lamentations. I will let you decide which are which. Feel free to overlook, skim or dig in.
...6:30 am mornings with Haitian coffee and Henry Nouwen...5;30 mornings with Haitian coffee and too many unwritten emails....6am mornings crying on the phone to my parents when i probably missed my Haitian coffee.....two weeks of a respiratory infection.....five days (and counting) with conjunctivitis....zero days of GI disfunction.... two weeks with a completely dead computer....one week (and counting) with a no-longer-dead but now virally infected computer .... one day (and counting) with a lost mobile phone and no other way to reach or be reached by people in P-au-P.... finding out that the one person I really really wanted to have join our project team but never thought would be available is actually looking for a new job...conducting an entire meeting in Kreyol and realizing that everyone understood almost everything....finally feeling like things might be coming together even if I still have a pit in my stomach just thinking about it... being granted a corner of space in the clinic.....being able to open the door to that space after three weeks of constant harassement to get the keys ...trying again and again to actually get a call through to my advisor but it just not happening....my advisor offerring to squeeze in a last minute 2-day trip to Haiti...four baby hats knitted with four more in the que..... friends who send birthday packages where the shipping vastly exceeds the material (but not the spiritual) value of the contents ....7 days of waiting for someone to get to the post office to actually pick up the package...birthday cakes make by neighbor who is a baker extraordinaire.... birthday emails sent by family and friends.... joint birthday celebrations pulled together in 48 hours that include the death of a goat and lots of rice and beans.... the Haitian friend who call at just the right time to remind me why borders are meant to be crossed.... five adults living in a two bedroom house... four weeks sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor.... five nights in my own bedroom while housemates travel to the US... two nights alone in a hotel on A-1-A beachfront avenue.... airtunes speakers in the living room....a renewed sense of music as food for the soul....girls night out to a Haitian boy-band concert with my friend L who is the younger sister of a Wheaton classmate and who welcomed me over to her place on 30 minutes notice last Tuesday night to cry, laugh and drink beer on the patio even though my eyes were pink and oozing puss...... impromptu weeknight pancake dinner and arrested development screening with housemates and mcc'ers.... discovering I have the same random $13 housewife dress as my Canadian friend M thus confirming the fact that I knew we were meant to be friends from the moment I met her and her husband.... vacationing friend K with a fabulous apartment who is letting me stay there for the two weeks he is away...housemates who plan and pull together an amazing Thanksgiving dinner and don't mind that I spent most of the day locked in a bedroom trying to work instead of helping them cook or clean....a visit to Haiti by one of my best friend's fiancees G which ended with dinner with another Baltimore acquaintance who happened to run into G at the Haitian hotel's bar....being reminded again and again that even unprayed prayers are answered...... and that there are a lot of prayers yet to be prayed before this is all through....
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Finding the yellow brick road
Flipping channels in a Fort Lauderdale hotel room last week (more to come about that), I caught a glimpse of that cinema classic The Wizard of Oz. It was the scene where they discover that the yellow brick road had not led them to a great-and-powerful wizard but rather to a dude from Kansas whose hot air balloon went astray. Yet, even in his less than great-and-powerful condition, he showed them that along the yellow-bricked way the scarecrow had gained wisdom, the lion had gained courage, the tin man had gained compassion and Dorothy had gained a renewed appreciation for her community of origin.
I was struck by just how well their little story captures this PhD experience. I know this is a little cheesy but bear with me. It's late here and I should just be sleeping.
Almost every day, I have daydreams of two years from now when I reach the Emerald City of my "B exam" - the day I defend my final thesis and officially receive my degree. The reality is that I am still somewhere back in Munchkinland dumbly declaring that I am not in Kansas anymore.
I still have to find my travel companions (i've finally identified a team of 4 people who will hopefully be joining me in the next week or so). map out the yellow brick road (finalize my research proposal by January and defend it an my A exam back in Ithaca in February) and then skip along that shimmering path while watching for lions and tigers and bears (spend 9 months implementing the intervention and collecting data plus a year or so to analyze and write it up).
I won't go as far as comparing my thesis advisor to Belinda the Good Witch (she is however both kind and extremely intelligent), but I am hopeful that when I arrive at the B exam , the traits I've acquired along the way are not so different those Dorothy and her companions found - plus a bit about nutrition and a Kreyol vocabulary.
Anyone got an extra pair of ruby slippers they want to DHL to Port-au-Prince?
I was struck by just how well their little story captures this PhD experience. I know this is a little cheesy but bear with me. It's late here and I should just be sleeping.
Almost every day, I have daydreams of two years from now when I reach the Emerald City of my "B exam" - the day I defend my final thesis and officially receive my degree. The reality is that I am still somewhere back in Munchkinland dumbly declaring that I am not in Kansas anymore.
I still have to find my travel companions (i've finally identified a team of 4 people who will hopefully be joining me in the next week or so). map out the yellow brick road (finalize my research proposal by January and defend it an my A exam back in Ithaca in February) and then skip along that shimmering path while watching for lions and tigers and bears (spend 9 months implementing the intervention and collecting data plus a year or so to analyze and write it up).
I won't go as far as comparing my thesis advisor to Belinda the Good Witch (she is however both kind and extremely intelligent), but I am hopeful that when I arrive at the B exam , the traits I've acquired along the way are not so different those Dorothy and her companions found - plus a bit about nutrition and a Kreyol vocabulary.
Anyone got an extra pair of ruby slippers they want to DHL to Port-au-Prince?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)