November 7, 2009

We got up today with plans of full day of Jacmel adventure and fun. After I showered and saw that breakfast was not ready yet, I grabbed my camera and went down to check out the hotel beach. There were 2 little boys there with paintings, so I took some pictures. For breakfast I had crepes, a little too sweet this morning for my mood I think. We headed off to Basin Bleu at around 8 ready for a full day out in the sun. A rache pwel turned out to be a tap tap sort of transport, seats in the back of a truck. We drove that through town and it was a neat experience to be going down the street but more in the open, we even drove across a river! Up the mountain we got to a spot where the road had washed out and they were building cement tracks for two tires to make it more stable…so we could not drive any farther. We got out for a 3km hike to begin our actual hike. Karen was saying she must have lost a lung somewhere along the way and was finding it a challenge. We had not been walking for very long, less than a km when Cyril asked if we wanted to take a picture on the edge with the valley behind us. Of course we did. So he leads us up this embankment and we all held hands, me between Jolyane and Karen, Karen took a step backwards maybe because she was off balance and slipped down over the cliff. I still had a hold of her hand so I fell over too and I really really thought that she was going to stop on the next small ledge but her momentum pulled her right out of my hand and she fell to the road below about 14 feet! It was one of the worst moments of my life, to feel her slip between my fingers and then watch her bounce off the rocks and crash onto the ground below. She says that the look on my face will haunt her. Cyril and Nath went running down and Jolyane and I were standing there looking down at her in complete shock! We got down to the bottom and she actually stood up and was walking around in circles, like when someone is trying to “walk it off” it was probably the shock that allowed her to move so well. She was in a lot of pain and you could tell it was taking a lot out of her to maintain composure…I was feeling somewhat the same way. I wanted to cry. I felt responsible, like I should have been able to hold on.
The plan had been that Cyril and Nath would go with Karen back to the truck and the driver would take Nath and Karen to the hospital. Cyril called Christophe and he recommended the best MD he knew who was going to meet them down there. Then Cyril was going to lead Jolyane and I on the rest of the hike. We stood under a tree out of the sun and were to wait for him to come back. It was taking them a long time get back up this small hill we had just descended because the pain of her injuries was starting to set in. We got very lucky and a group of young guys came along and they had a mule, so they picked her up and got her on the mule to get her to the truck faster. At this point Nath motioned for Jolyane and I to come up to them, at first Cyril had not been too worried about her injuries because she had seemed so calm, alert and with manageable pain…but as she got further up the hill she began to experience excruciating pain and was nearly passing out. So we all went with her to the hospital because it became more serious. On the back of the truck on our way down I was beginning to lose my battle with the tears and a few sneaked out under cover of my sunglasses. The place we went to was a private clinic and we had a bit of a wait for the doctor…he checked her over and did not believe she had any fractures, but recommended x-rays to make sure. Karen remained in fairly good spirits throughout all this, although curse words were emitted because she was so upset that her trip was getting ruined, that and the pain and all the other complications that would come from being injured in another country. While we were standing there waiting Karen looks at me and says “are you ok?” I guess the look on my face was evident of my guilt and concern and she gave me that look and I just started to cry, I couldn’t help it, and I was apologizing for not being able to have held on. So big hugs all around and then we pulled ourselves together again. We went to the hospital and had a long wait there. It was a very hot and worrisome day . I took some pictures to show mom the radiology dept. She may like the Aberdeen more after she sees them, they even had to fix the generator so the machine would work. I was quite impressed though with how quickly we had her films after they were taken. We looked at the xrays and our untrained eyes did not see any fractures. We went back to the clinic and Cyril took the films in to show Dr. Nelson and we all stayed in the van, expecting to head off for some lunch. He came back out and said you have to come in with me Karen because he thinks you have a fractured pelvis. So in she goes because the MD had called his friend an orthopod to do a full exam because he was not confident in his xray reading. He gave her a very full exam and confirmed that there were no fractures, just very bad contusions. So arm, ribs, pelvis, and hip were still intact which was really good news. He recommended she stay non weight-bearing on the L leg for 24 hrs and see how that went. He had concerns that she may develop a hemothorax or whatever but we are to keep an eye on her breathing. The whole time she kept getting us to give her cognitive questions because she had hit her head and wanted to make sure she was ok.
We were now starving because it was about 2:30pm, so Cyril’s assistant took Jolyane and I to Hotel Florita to get some appetizers before lunch, and they would join us after Karen finished at the clinic. The hotel was a very nice place, and by that I only mean great architecture, not fancy…it was quite old. We took a tour of the hotel and had some rice that is flavoured with a mushroom called something like djean-djean that grows on dying mango trees, it was really good and had some lentils in it as well. Then the group arrived and our meal was served. I had fish, but it looked so gross when they put it in front of me, and when you are very hungry your stomach is sore to begin with, plus that gut feeling I had all day with the worry. I ate a few of the plantains but they felt too heavy in my stomach and I ate about half of the fish, but did not enjoy it. It was not as good as the red snapper, it was much more fishy tasting, but again, not nearly as bad tasting as it had looked. The lady brought out more of the rice so I had more of that and was satisfied. After our meal we walked over to the art school, but everything there was really expensive, and mostly voodoo style. I did like one painting, the colours were great and it had those coral fans painted onto it (the real fan with paint dripped over) but it was $2000 US.
We continued shopping at a few smaller places and we would park right in front of the door so Karen could see in, and then hold stuff up for her at the door. We even modeled Karnaval masks for her! I bought a tete zeb (a papier mache zebra bust), a small wooden fish and a stone carving of a man kneeling that was made out of an orangey stone. I think overall I spent $32 US. We stopped at a place that Cyril thought had homegrown coffee, but they did not have any. We got back to the hotel at about 6:30 and I was able to pick up an internet signal and I wrote home about the accident, letting them know that we were all ok, incase the team sent out a message. Then we went swimming in the ocean while Nath helped Karen shower to get ready for the evening. While we floated in the ocean Cyril said we could do the Basin Bleu hike again tomorrow and this time he will try to arrange that we go up the mountain on horseback, that is exciting! Nath is not going to come because she has been there before and would rather lay in the sun with Karen, and keep her company. I feel bad, because Karen had really been looking forward to Basin Bleu.
Now that Karen is injured, she cannot go to Ile a Vache, because there are too many stairs and we have to walk up a big hill to get to the orphanage. It was supposed to be her and I that left for there tomorrow at noon, so now I cannot go alone because no one there speaks English, and it is likely not wise for me to go off there all by myself. So we will all go back to PaP tomorrow and maybe I can go to Ile a Vache just a day later. It would have been fun for Karen and I to be on the island with just us, and to visit Soeur Flora without the rest of the group, but-what can you do. I figure I can suck up my disappointments because I did not fall off a cliff…consider my blessings counted. Another unfortunate aspect of today was we paid $375 US for this weekend and ended up spending our one full day at the hospital. Karen feels horrible because she thinks she ruined our trip, I am sure Cyril feels awful because he suggested the picture, I feel awful because I was not able to hold onto her etc…so our mood was up and down today, but we tried hard to keep the mood light and make jokes.
For supper I had grilled fish, I believe it was red snapper again, very good. I had papaya sorbet for dessert but I did not like the papaya flavor. Tonight’s conversation centred mostly around people’s accident stories, I didn’t really think of any to tell.