Miss Midi was my main translator at Dr. Joey's hospital. She worked there as a nurse almost every day, and generally did triage/pharmacy. However, if there was nobody else to translate for me, she would do triage, then translate for me, then go back and dispense meds. Made for slow going, but the patients all got seen anyways.
Miss Flo (left) translated for me at occasional Cite Soleil clinics, though she was more needed in the pharmacy. She also ran the nutrition program for LAMP, hannding out fortified peanut butter and doing weekly weigh-ins of the kids in the program. Her nursing background helped her translate very well.
Dr. Jacky (right) translated for me occasionally, but it was kind of silly, since he was just as capable (actually, potentially more capable) than I was to see patients. Anthony (left) was translating for me at most Cite Soleil clinics. He's a medical student, and he was a decent translator, though he did have some difficulty understanding me occasionally. He was best when it came to tackling psychiatric issues, though, since that was an interest of his.
Rogerio was my translator while I worked with the Brazilian mission group. He was fluent in Portugese (of course), English, French, Spanish, and a couple African languages, and has worked as a nurse on medical missionary work for about 10 years now. It was a little harder to see patients who only spoke Kreyol, but many spoke enough French that we could converse decently.
My primary translator, driver, and escort for walking between the hotel and Dr. Joey's hospital was Dave. He and his sister are the only ones in his immediate family in Port au Prince. I always felt safe as long as he was around to watch out for me, even if we had mishaps like a broken down van. As a translator, he did quite well as well, since he's very fluent in English and Kreyol and seemed to be picking up on the kinds of things I wanted to know with my questions, repeating the question if the answer wasn't quite what I was looking for. I think Dr. Joey's had him do medical translating before, which helped a lot. Dave was also taking some medical classes, and would probably do well someday with training to be an EMT, especially if he can get a job driving Dr. Joey's ambulance.
I somehow missed photographing Carlo, one of the boys who helps at Dr. Joey's hospital. His English isn't perfect, but was plenty good enough for the few people he translated for me. I also missed photographing Doucette, who was one of my favorite translators largely because she would give me literal translations of how patients would describe their symptoms, as well as cultural insight. I probably related more easily to her since she's Haitian-American, having been born in the US and attended college there as well. Her biggest challenge was medical terminology and drug names, but I tried to avoid too much terminology. Hopefully the Kreyol half of the conversation was as helpful to the patients as the English half was to me.
To all you wonderful translators that helped me work in Haiti, merci!
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