I am sorry I have not written sooner. I have been very busy and have been doing quite well. It has been "Cho", very hot. So this post will be a little different - a photo post and not as much a diary.
This is my suite in the penthouse. You can see the mountains surrounding Port au Prince (PaP) in the background. If I were to turn around, we could see the ocean, off in the distance. A beautiful view of sunrise and sunsets. The ropes you see running along the roof are tied off to re-bar that penetrates the roof that forms columns below. I was told in the event of an earthquake and the building were to begin to collapse, I could hold on to the ropes and ride the building down. Gee Haw!
Many buildings and homes in PaP are located in compounds. These compounds are usually surrounded by a 10 to 12 foot cinder block wall and access is controlled by locked driveway and walkway doors. This is a picture of the driveway and parking area inside our compound. A tarp has been stretched overhead to make shade for local workers to prepare food and other basic needs for distribution. (more on this below) The brown doors in the background is a storage area "Garage" that I manage. In the foreground the man in the green pants is carrying a shotgun - he is our contracted security guard. They were unarmed until the earthquake and we have had no problems here. Praise God!
As you are probably aware, the earthquake impact has been astounding. World Concern surveyed the residents of the area near the office, an area that the Mayor of PaP and the other Non-Government Organizations (NGO's) have agreed to let World Concern Haiti (WCH) to be responsible for. The survey was made on January 18-19th, 6 days after the earthquake : 6% of the pre-quake population in their survey area were killed; 10% more have been injured and 18% had already been homeless. 19% of families said the had received little or no damage; 48% said their housing was destroyed and 33% said their houses were severely damaged. 99% of those surveyed said they were living in the open air and 77% of those had no shelter.
This picture is taken from the "penthouse"; this is a compound 2 doors down from the WCH office. Their home(s) have been damaged (or not) but they are sleeping in tents in the yard. Bermande's house was not damage and some in his family sleep in the house, but Bermande and many others sleep in the yard out of fear.
This picture is also taken from the "penthouse - you can see a damaged building in the foreground and a small sea of tents towards the background. These are really small neighborhood or even family groupings but the following pictures tell a very different story.
These tent cities are everywhere - and I have seen so little of the city.
On Wednesday I was informed i needed to go with Elias to the US Army base, on the waterfront in downtown PaP. WCH had arranged two very large generators to be donated to Haiti and shipped by the US Army - one for the Mayor of PaP and one for a hospital. We had to meet with Capt Orr from the 82nd Airborne and introduce him to two representatives from the Hospital. Our journey took us past some amazing and heartbreaking scenes.
Here is a hospital no longer able to care for patients.
Even the Haitian Presidential Palace was destroyed.
The eerie part is that the building on the left and right are nearly undamaged and the one in the middle is totally collapsed. At least there was a chance for some to survive this one. However, 10 bodies were pulled from this building and 8 others remained buried.
This was at least a 4 story building. Each red layer is a floor. My guess is no one survived this.
I took many more pictures, you can view them on Facebook when i figure out how to do that. I finally had to stop taking pictures -on most streets, every third house was a total ruin. It was over whelming.
This is literally right across the street from the WCH office. This was a two or three story building that totally collapsed on itself. There are several residents still buried in the rubble.
One of the programs being operated by WCH is a food and supply relief ministry, funded by a Great Britain charity. My numerous trips to and from the warehouse was to support this effort and the dozen or so local people who were employed by WCH to put relief kits together for local residents. (see below)
WCH works with an existing local neighborhood organizer that creates a list of names of people who need distribution in their neighborhood. Then a day and time for distribution is selected and the staff checks people's ID s to verify they are on the list and the local organizer is supposed to be there.
The distribution includes Mazola corn oil, rice, beans, spaghetti, chicken bouillon, salt, sugar, shampoo, combs, tooth brushes, bar soap, laundry soap, a metal pan, toilet paper and a Bible in Creole.
One problem was the local organizer did not show and some residents whose names were on the list had no ID and many showed up whose names were not on the list and things go a little tense. See below.
No one got out of hand and those who received distributions were not hassled in any way. I am in the shade to the left of this picture. I am by myself and there is only one other white person there, Jillian, the new Emergency Program staff support - she is at the far corner of the truck. I am amidst the crowd and obviously do not know verbally what is going on. So I say to myself, "What can I do?" So I began to sing - not too loud but audible to those around me. "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roar....it is well with my soul......."
As I am finishing the second verse, I think I hear harmony. Then I realize a small Haitian woman has come up along side of me and is singing the song in sweet harmony and in Creole! The turquoise arm in the left side of the picture above is mine and the woman next to me, with her arm raised and a navy cap on is my duet partner. I looked her in the eyes at the end of the song and said, "Merci".
Trying to help make a difference. Thanks for listening. The next post will be a little more introspective. TTFN.
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