CARE International has launched an emergency operation to provide assistance to the people of Haiti, hit by a dramatic earthquake on Tuesday, January 12th. According to the latest estimates, more than 3.7 million people are in need of assistance. The Haitian government (as of 10 February) reports that 212,000 people are dead, 300,000 are injured, and 1.2 million are displaced from their homes and communities.
Read our staff's blogs, stories and eyewitness accounts on the ground:
07/04/2010 - In the heart of the operation
07/04/2010 - Airways of Hope
07/04/2010 - Rice is not enough
07/04/2010 - Testimony of a rape survivor
08/03/2010 - A midwife's tale
07/03/2010 - Not again!
02/03/2010 - A day in the "Cité de CARE"
20/02/2010 - Dormir à la belle étoile
16/02/2010 - “Mèsi Bondye paske ou bann lavi ankò”
15/02/2010 - The earthquake destroyed our future
13/02/2010 - Rice and shine!
09/02/2010 - Bad spirits
09/02/2010 - A day in Haiti
07/02/2010 - Stoic
07/02/2010 - Mixed blessing
05/02/2010 - Healing hands
02/02/2010 - Returning home
02/02/2010 - Breathing easy
26/01/2010 - I pledge allegiance
24/01/2010 - Scout's honour part 2 : Profile in courage
22/01/2010 - Scout's Honour
22/01/2010 - Life Hanging by a Thread
21/01/2010 - A flawless distribution today in Pétionville
21/01/2010 - Wednesday's distributions were a mixed success
20/01/2010 - Working hand in hand with authorities and local communities
20/01/2010 - Distribution has started in Leogane
20/01/2010 - A companion at the end
18/01/2010 - Safe water
17/01/2010 - Desperation at our gates
16/01/2010 - CARE convoy heads through streets of Port auPrince to distribute water purification supplies
15/01/2010 - "People are desperate for help"
15/01/2010 - "Crossing borders"
14/01/2010 - "Like going from Heaven to Hell"
14/01/2010 - "I don't know what I'm going to find"
13/01/2010 - "Everything is urgent"
07/04/2010 - In the heart of the operation
by Sabine Wilke, CARE Deutschland-Luxemburg
Standing in the middle of the dusty parking lot surrounded by huge trucks, you find yourself right in hustle and bustle of the logistics centre supporting CARE’s emergency response. Planes are roaring over the site every couple of minutes – Port-au-Prince’s airport is only a couple of blocks away from the warehouse. And there is another particularity to this location: “We’re right in the middle of the red zone,” says Geoffroy Larde from the CARE logistics team. The warehouse borders on Cité Soleil, the infamous slum that has been neglected for years and has experienced severe damage from the January 12 earthquake.
Men are taking out boxes from a truck but suddenly one of the cardboard boxes rips at the bottom. Out falls a huge stack of clothing relief items that have to be quickly picked up and stored again. Time is money around here. Trucks are bringing in new items around the clock. The team has to make sure they are safely stored and then loaded onto the trucks going to the different distribution sites. With distributions accurately organized to reach the most vulnerable, it is crucial to deliver the precise amount of relief items expected by the distribution team on the ground. One can only imagine the disappointment if a woman has to return empty-handed even though she has been given a coupon for a mattress, a hygiene kit or another item that would make her family’s life easier.
Luckily the logistics operation runs smoothly and professionally. Around 50 people are employed in the warehouse, and in line with CARE’s mission to empower women, a female staff member heads the team. Patricia A. Louis is 31 years old and at first sight her petite frame seems quite out of place in this manly environment of muscles and machines. But you quickly let go of this thought once she starts talking. “I’ve been working with CARE for three years now and used to be responsible for our inventory in the office.” Now she’s got a desk in the middle of the enormous warehouse and her task is to make sure that everything coming in and out is being registered and accounted for. In these physically challenging surroundings, is it tough to be a woman leader? Patricia shakes her head firmly. “No, once you’ve got the leadership spirit, it does not matter where you exercise it. I am used to giving orders now and leading a team. That’s nothing new to me.”
It’s up to 40 degrees Celsius under the roof of the warehouse and the atmosphere is heating up. Geoffroy takes off his cap and wipes away the sweat on his forehead. He has seen it all: Congo, Timor Leste, and now Haiti. And he’s chosen logistics for a reason. “I have managed projects and done other assignments in the past. But with logistics, you know… I just love it. You see the immediate effects and it’s always moving. Everything here is constantly on the move.” Just like him. It’s exhilarating to watch Geoffroy on the job. He is everywhere, running around the warehouse or the office, constantly talking on the phone and dealing with the small and big emergencies that are coming up. This job certainly doesn’t get boring -- neither does the management of the warehouse, he explains. “It never looks the same. You look around in the morning and there might be hygiene kits, blankets and plastic sheeting stacked up to the ceiling. At night, everything has revolved – the items have long been distributed and new goods have come in.”
The interior of the warehouse is filled with items whose value easily adds up to the sum of one million US dollars. Needless to say, security is a major concern here. It was especially tough in the first couple of weeks after the earthquake when people were desperate to get their hands on anything that would help. So CARE is reaching out to the local population to make sure that they also benefit from the emergency operation. Just behind the warehouse is an open space that the local population has been using as a dump. The smell is excruciating and it is shocking to see that there are even a few makeshift shelters here and there and children running around. “We will be setting up toilets here and distributing kitchen sets in the neighbourhood,” explains Geoffroy.
He contemplates the role of logistics in the emergency response while walking through the warehouse and checking the different stacks. “We are always serving people. The downside is that we are not present at the distribution sites, so you don’t get immediate feedback. Our job is hidden, but I still think it’s highly rewarding.” So you could say that logistics are the heart of the operation? Geoffroy laughs and rectifies the phrase modestly: “No, we are in the heart of the operation. That’s a difference. But I am really proud of my team. They are doing an incredible job.” And then he’s off again, continuing his tour around the warehouse. There certainly is a lot of heart in this operation.
07/04/2010 - Airways of Hope
Community radio helps earthquake survivors cope
by Rick Perera, CARE Media Officer
The studio at Radio Francisque FM is a tiny affair, but buzzes with activity. DJ Bernard Felusma works the audio board, headset glued to his ears as he spins his two-hour morning show, Recréation 10-12. The sounds are upbeat: Creole hits, hip-hop, and easily recognized international stars.
Entertainment is serious business at this little station, supported by CARE and based on the second floor of a squat, concrete building in the northwestern Haitian town of Gros-Mornes. After every tune, Bernard flips on the microphone and engages his audience with something useful: health and hygiene tips; a lost-and-found service for residents who have misplaced something like an ID card; advice about how to access government services – and crucial information for those displaced by last month’s horrifying earthquake.
Funneling information to the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled Haiti’s devastated capital, Port-au-Prince, for provincial towns and villages like Gros-Mornes is an important task -- difficult in the early days when communications links were all but cut off. “We would broadcast names of people who were missing, and invite them to come to our affiliate station in Port-au-Prince to contact their families here,” recalls the DJ.
Bernard, age 19, is a volunteer – like all 30 staff members at the station (98.9 on the FM dial). He brings a young, hip edge to what is in fact a crucial public service. He and his colleagues brim with enthusiasm at their project.
CARE supports Francisque FM – named for a famous variety of mango that is the chief product of Gros-Mornes – through a special project funded by the U.S. State Department. Designed to promote good governance and social inclusion through the media, the two-year project seeks to strengthen 10 community stations; staff have stretched the resources in order to reach 13.
Part of CARE’s support is practical: making sure the stations can stay on the air. “There are six solar panels, 12 batteries and an inverter, to run the transmitter even when the city power supply is out,” boasts Dorcin Fresner, CARE project manager, pointing to a small room containing Francisque FM’s electrical equipment. “We’ve even arranged for Internet access by stringing a cable from another office building. That way the station can become part of a network, carrying programming live from Port-au-Prince.”
Along with technical help, the project is training 30 journalists, reinforcing newsgathering techniques and ethical principles, while encouraging them in their mission to educate the public and hold the powerful accountable.
Rural Haitians have limited sources of information – only 80,000 people read newspapers nationwide, according to the NGO Internews, while the Internet is limited to urban hubs. TV sets can be useless due to erratic power supplies. But as many as 92 percent of Haitians listen to radio.
In even the most makeshift camps for displaced people in Port-au-Prince, neighbors cluster around battery-powered radios, seeking entertainment to pass the long days, as well as information as they struggle to rebuild their lives. Likewise, former residents of the earthquake-affected zone who have fled to rural areas cling to their radios for news from home and tips on how to survive far from their support networks.
By supporting community radio stations in rural towns, while also working to educate citizens about civil rights and civic participation, CARE is creating a network for change where it is most needed.
“Radio has immense power and influence in Haiti, and our goal is to put some of that power in the hands of those who have traditionally been left out,” says Dorcin. “We want to be a voice for the voiceless.”
07/04/2010 - Rice is not enough
by Rick Perera, CARE Media Officer, March 2010
I love watching the humming machine of the Haiti relief effort in action. CARE has more than doubled our local staff since the Jan. 12 earthquake, and the well-oiled supply chain is cranking along. Our huge new warehouse buzzes with workers loading and unloading, trucks rolling in and out. It’s a sight to see.
Yesterday I visited our largest-yet distribution of non-food items – a massive and well-run operation. At the seaside district of Village Gaston, overflowing with makeshift shelters, nine trucks arrived at 4:30 a.m. By 6:00, nearly 1,700 women had started lining up to collect crucially needed materials: tarpaulins for protection from the impending rainy season; blankets; mattresses; jerry cans to store water; and hygiene kits – brightly colored buckets stuffed with items to help families keep clean and healthy.
Smiles broke out as each recipient reached the front of the long queue and deftly balanced supplies on her head.
The machine chugs even faster when it comes to food. At our last food distribution, in Delmas district, 2,500 women walked away with big bags of rice in just a couple of hours.
As of this week, CARE had reached some 278,000 survivors. Along with other humanitarian agencies, we have supplied emergency shelter material to 50 percent of those in need, and the speed is increasing daily. Given the unprecedented scale of this crisis, and Haiti’s limited infrastructure, that’s faster than we could have hoped.
And yet, it’s still not enough. Once people’s immediate needs are met, they naturally start thinking about the long term, and they’re worried.
You meet them at Place St. Pierre, a public park just steps from CARE Haiti’s offices where several thousand survivors are sheltering. The residents are so grateful for our help that they’ve named the camp “CARE Village.” Many now live in tidy tents, and there’s food and clean water. But they need more. Pierre Richard Bayard, 47, has a wife and six children. He’s fed up with just being fed. “They always bring rice, rice, rice,” he says. “But we need work. Our children need to go to school.”
There’s no shortage of work to be done as Haiti struggles to get back to its feet. CARE is mobilizing to create jobs. As a start, we’re about to hire more than 300 local workers in the hard-hit community of Léogâne, in collaboration with the Haitian Department of Agriculture. They’ll clear roads, clean irrigation canals, and plant trees to prevent erosion.
There’s plenty of work to be done on Haiti’s farms, too. Even far from the earthquake zone, rural areas are overwhelmed with people fleeing greater Port-au-Prince. Last month I visited the northwestern province of Artibonite, which has absorbed more than 160,000 newcomers. Many of the host families were already struggling even before the quake to grow enough food. CARE is seeking funding to distribute tools – such as hoes, machetes and shovels – so they can increase their yield.
And there’s work to be done, on our part, to raise the funds still needed to ramp up the recovery effort. The world has been extremely generous with support for the immediate relief phase. But I fear that finding money for longer-term reconstruction will be harder, as Haiti fades from the headlines and attention turns elsewhere.
Sometimes I get discouraged, when I see all around me Haiti’s deep poverty, so tragically worsened two months ago. But I also feel a spark of hope for the future, above all when I spend time with my dedicated Haitian colleagues – working so hard for the sake of their country.
To quote Winston Churchill, at the height of World War II: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
07/04/2010 - Testimony of a rape survivor
by Mildrède Béliard, Press Officer, CARE Haiti
Tania* is a beautiful 17-year-old girl. She’s in the third year of secondary school, and thinks of herself as romantic -- an artist. She loves to sing, dance and listen to music, as well as write. Her dream is to become a famous singer like Rihanna or Ciara.
She lives far from the bustle of Port-au-Prince. A quiet neighborhood where an unfamiliar face is noticed right away. But since the earthquake on January 12, many people have left their homes to set up camp in the remote countryside near her house. People from far away -- and familiar faces like that of the boyfriend of one of her friends.
Since the earthquake, there’s been no running water here. Tania, the oldest of four children, is responsible for fetching water, which means a half-kilometer walk along a wooded and little-used road.
This past February 7, between 5:30 and 6 p.m., she was returning from the well when she felt a cold blade against her neck. She turned around and smiled, thinking it was a joke, when she recognized the man who was threatening her as her friend’s boyfriend. She greeted him and was surprised to see him keep his threatening posture and his machete pressed against her. “You move, you scream, and I’ll cut you into pieces,” he said to her.
Shocked, she looked once more at the young man, who many times had given her a ride home on his motorcycle taxi, wondering what could be going on in his mind. “I want to do it and I want to do it with you. You let me or I’ll kill you!” She looked around but there was no one to come to her aid.
“He took off my skirt and tied my wrists with it. He didn’t stop hitting me with the flat of his machete and its point. Until I collapsed.” She stopped for a moment, her eyes filled with tears. Her lips trembled and she lifted her head to try to stop them.
“I don’t remember what happened after that. I don’t want to remember. But it didn’t stop with that. After he got up, he untied the knots and, still under the threat of his machete, he ordered me to walk. All around me it was dark, so I made a leap to escape. Finally I could yell and scream for help.”
Tania’s mother, not seeing her return, had gone looking for her. “I fell into my mother’s arms and I told her what happened.” Right away, went to the police station to file a complaint.
“The station chief told me several times not to lie, that I had to be sure that the guy had raped me. After taking my deposition, he advised me not to wash myself and to go, early the next morning, to the closest hospital to have tests that are essential in order to prosecute. He congratulated me effusively for having filed a complaint against my attacker.
“Then I had to return home, ashamed, to confront the anger of my parents, who were surprised not to find blood in my underwear. My father started shouting at me and accusing me of losing my virginity before my rape. That was all that mattered to him at the moment.
“That night was a real nightmare. Along with unceasingly reliving the horror I’d just experienced, I was rejected by the very people who should have supported me during such an ordeal. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the bite of the blade on my neck, the hot breath of my attacker and the weight of his body on mine.
“I wanted to kill myself. I felt so guilty! Why did I use that road? Why did I respond to his greetings? I should have seen him for what he really was and ignored him. Maybe I encouraged him by being polite.”
Tania did not close her eyes that night. Neither did her parents. Later, they realized that their attitude wouldn’t help their daughter to survive this ordeal. It took time for her mother to put herself in Tania’s place and understand what she was going through -- this suffering she couldn’t express.
They both accompanied her, first to the hospital, and then to the magistrate to press charges. “The doctor, the nurses, everyone was very nice to me. But the medicines! That was a different matter.”
For a month, Tania had to take medicines against a potential pregnancy and any sexually transmitted infection she could have contracted from the attacker. She had nausea and dizzy spells, but she made it through.
The hardest thing was the visit of the rapist’s parents. They came to offer her money and anything she wanted, in return for asking the judge to be lenient with their son, “too young for prison.” “They went so far as to tell me to tell the judge that it wasn’t his fault,” she said with bitter irony.
“It took me time and the support of my parents to understand that I bore no responsibility for what happened. I thought mine was an isolated case but there were a lot of girls at the clinic for the same reasons as me. Some even younger than me, and some grown women.
“It was then that I understood why the policeman insisted that I press charges. I felt a sort of anger toward other women who were victims before me but kept quiet. Because of them, I could have lost my life. Because of them, a part of my youth and innocence were stolen from me.
“I will press charges and I will go to court in order to ensure that no other girl will ever be a victim of this guy. As for the money his parents offered me? Well, let them use it to turn back the clock so that this never happened.
“Every time a woman who is raped remains silent or lets herself be intimidated, she is condemning a sister, a cousin, a friend – me -- to undergo the same fate. She is letting a monster roam the streets free. I want my testimony to help them understand that they aren’t alone and they are leaving themselves more in danger by remaining silent than by speaking up.”
Tania is part of a cultural club that, since January 12, has turned itself into a microenterprise. She has found a small job there and earns enough to help her family out a bit. Since her attacker was arrested, she feels freed from the fear that made her tremble every time she was alone. Meanwhile, she hasn’t broken off contact with her male classmates and friends.
During the first half of 2009, the group SOFA (Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn - Haitian Women’s Solidarity) reported 136 cases of rape in four departments (West, Southeast, Artibonite, Grande’Anse), including 68 cases of rape against minors, three resulting in pregnancy, four repeat offenders, 17 gang rapes, and five attempted rapes.
*The survivor’s name has been modified for the sake of confidentiality.
08/03/2010 - A midwife's tale
by Sabine Wilke, CARE Deutschland Luxemburg
Her first life was that of a teacher at a nurse’s training school in Port-au-Prince, teaching skills to make sure that women have a healthy delivery. Today, Carline Morney spends her days in and around the earthquake-stricken capital of Haiti, helping expecting and young mothers to cope with the difficult situation. She is one of more than 70 new CARE staff members who have been hired in addition to the existing team to ensure a timely and efficient emergency response.
You can tell Carline, 29, is a born leader by the way she handles a conversation and how she manages her schedule. A strong leader in the best sense – Carline takes her job very seriously and she does not easily give up. This early Sunday morning, she spends half an hour on the phone with her counterpart in the local mayor’s office to make sure that her visit to Carrefour will not be in vain.
The camp site is called “mon repos”, which means “my rest, my peace”. Needless to say, the agglomeration of bed sheets and tarps on the muddy soil is everything but a peaceful place to rest. Carline is immediately surrounded by a group of mothers, all holding small babies in their arms. She talks to the women who are about to deliver and those with new babies. Depending on their situation, the women receive a so-called safe delivery kit or a newborn kit. Those contain a handful of necessary items such as sanitary gloves, razor blades, soap and napkins. A small relief in these dire circumstances, when many women do not even have a clean surface to lie down once they go into labour. And there are many of them here: Women like Auguste Rosemanette, who has just given birth three weeks ago. Luckily she made it to the hospital for the early delivery. Now she’s back in the camp, holding her tiny baby boy close to her heart. And there is Jacqueline Pierre-André, who gave birth on the day of the earthquake. “I made it out of the hospital, but then I fell and was hurt. We have nothing left. We need everything.” Carline listens to their stories, asks about their needs and then hands out the kits. She explains their content and use, insisting on basic hygiene rules and making sure every woman knows where to get help.
What is the most difficult part of her work? “There are always needs that we cannot respond to immediately. That’s something I find hard to handle”, she says. But then again, there are special needs we can take care of quite well, she explains with a grin on her face: “Despite the earthquake, of course people will still make love. That’s why we also distribute condoms and talk about family planning.”
But where does Carline get help for herself? The earthquake has affected the whole population, regardless their wealth, age and status. As most CARE staff, Carline is a helper and a victim at the same time. “I had already left the school when the earthquake happened”, she remembers. It took me two hours to walk home, passing dead bodies and car wrecks left and right. It was a scene out of a horror movie.” Her school has collapsed, killing many colleagues and dear friends who simply weren’t lucky enough to have left the building early that day. Carline’s close family also suffered a severe loss: Her cousin was about to graduate from university the next month, now his body is buried underneath the faculty building. He was only 22 years old. “The worst thing is that my aunt cannot start mourning as long as we have not retrieved his body. She is desperately waiting for news about him although we know that there is little hope.”
Carline herself received two mattresses, a tent and a kitchen set from CARE. “Last night we could not sleep because of the heavy rain. Tonight, my sisters will be very pleased. At least we will stay dry.” Their house is not entirely destroyed, so the family can at least go in there to take showers with buckets of water they get from a nearby hospital. “But of course we always do it as quickly as possible, I am constantly worried the building might still collapse while I am in the bathroom”, says Carline.
It’s hard to imagine, but are there moments of happiness, even now that her world is shattered to pieces? Carline contemplates the question. “Every night, my nephew comes running at me and gives me the sweetest welcome hug. I thank God that he is alive. That to me is the greatest joy right now.”
And what is the most gratifying experience about her job? Carline smiles and looks around her in the office. “It’s you, all of you. It’s being with this truly international team and seeing how everyone wants to make a difference for Haiti. For me personally, it’s important to feel that I am not just a victim. I can also help and do something to improve the situation.”
07/03/2010 - Not again!
by Rick Perera, CARE's Emergency Media Officer in Haiti
We’re watching from Haiti with shock and sadness as the news comes from Chile: another merciless earthquake, more powerful than ever. So soon after the devastation here in and around Port-au-Prince. (Was that only a few weeks ago? It feels like an eternity.)
Haitians understand all too well what the people of Chile are enduring. The desperate search for missing loved ones… sleepless nights in the street outside unstable houses… lack of communication to the outside world… the fear of what the future holds. The terror does not subside easily.
And yet, there’s an additional heartache for Haiti in hearing this news. Why was it so much worse here? Chile’s quake registered at 8.8, about 500 times more powerful than Haiti’s. But the numbers of Haitian dead have already surpassed 220,000 – close to the horrendous toll of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Chile’s dead, at last report, number some 700 – a tragic loss, but orders of magnitude fewer than Haiti’s. What explains this deadly disparity?
The answer lies partly in bad luck, but largely in poverty and human frailty. Where Chile had strict building codes, Haiti suffered from haphazard construction. Poor, rural people had for years flooded into the capital, living in precariously built shantytowns. Lack of enforcement, corruption and weak governance all contributed to grossly magnify the proportions of the catastrophe. It’s easy enough to see the exceptions here, which might have been the rule if earthquake-resistant building codes had been enforced: a few solid structures still tower above the rubble – scarred and cracked, to be sure, but standing all the same.
The news media have refocused their attention on Chile now, leaving Haiti behind for the most part. I don’t blame them -- they’re doing their jobs. But I worry that, as so many times in the past, Haiti will quickly fade from public consciousness, once the world’s TV screens are no longer broadcasting terrifying pictures from Port-au-Prince.
All the more important that those of us who are working hand in hand with the Haitian people maintain our commitment for the long term, not just with material support but with the determination to rebuild safely and prudently. We can help provide the know-how. The Haitians will supply the courage and integrity.
(Just now, we felt another aftershock. A rude reminder that the crisis is not over yet for Haiti, not for a long time.)
02/03/2010 - A day in the "Cité de CARE"
by Sabine Wilke, CARE Deutschland Luxemburg
Place St. Pierre is a meagre two minute walk from the CARE office. In what was once a quiet residential neighbourhood of middle-class Haitians and expatriates, there are now around 1,200 families living out in the open, barely protected from the sun and dirt of the city life around them. After the devastating earthquake of January 12, they settled on the square, squatting between the police station, a hotel, a church and a supermarket. A surreal surrounding for this enormous agglomeration of stranded souls. Several aid organisations support the families with food, fresh water, medical supplies and other relief items.
On February 19, CARE organised a distribution of plastic sheeting, mattresses and kitchen supplies. “Since then, we call this camp Cité de CARE”, explains Anita, the president of the local committee who helped organise the distribution. The day before, CARE staff went to the site to assess the number of families living in the camp and to hand out coupons for the distribution. As early as 5 o’clock the next morning, people started lining up in front of the police station. As has become standard procedure for CARE, items were distributed to women only, a strategy that has proven successful over the course of the last weeks.
Walking around the newly baptised Cité de CARE, we meet 26-year-old Prunes. He shows us a map he has drawn of the site, breaking down the square into different sections, with numbers allocated to each tent. With his whole city dissolved into nothing but rubble and chaos, it seems like this plan gives him some small form of orientation and order. Here’s the face of inner turmoil and resilience.
We stop by someone’s temporary home. There are 14 people to the shelter made out of plastic tarps. It might get a bit crowded, but at least they will all stay dry when the heavy rains start in a couple of weeks. Three mattresses lie on the floor and some kitchen supplies are stored in the back. Yverna Milie watches her 10-month-old daughter Jenny as she dances around on the tarp floor. She makes everyone laugh with her funny facial expressions and her curiosity. How did they experience the earthquake? Yverna laughs and makes gestures to show how she reacted to the shock. “I went left, I went right, I screamed…” Here’s the face of trauma and coping with it.
Gynal Syné is 14 and on his lap sits his 15 months-old sister Lycile. He feeds her some bananas. What does he like to do? “School,” he quietly says. When it’s time for them to have their picture taken, he gets up and grabs a t-shirt for his younger brother Farenal to cover up his naked chest. Here’s the face of dignity and responsibility.
Sitting on a shaky wooden chair with her broken feet placed on a stool, 34-year-old Marie Francel Jean-Louis watches another day in the Cité de CARE come to an end. She used to work for an insurance company after returning from the US where her husband still lives. So she now stays with her mother, son and two sisters underneath the tarps not far from her old office. When the earthquake hit, they were in their home and luckily managed to escape before the whole building collapsed. However, Marie Francel broke her foot and cut her head severely. When she finally received medical treatment six days later, the wound had already got infected. Her head is shaved along the scar and she makes jokes about this unusual hair style.
When asked what she has eaten today, Marie smiles yet again. “Bulgur,” she replies, a local grain. It goes without saying that this has been the only meal for the day. What can one wish for in this situation? “I want a scholarship for my boy so that he can go to school and become a doctor,” Marie says firmly. And when she looks at the pictures taken of her, she laughs with a cackling voice. “Despite of all the problems, they are quite beautiful,” she says. Here is the face of true beauty inside and out.
Before leaving the Cité de CARE, we ask the committee whether they have anything more to say or ask. “Yes”, says Israel. “What does CARE mean exactly?” Well, for now and for today, CARE means a dry spot to sleep at night. Let’s hope that in the near future, CARE will manage to mean even more to these people.
20/02/2010 - Dormir à la belle étoile
by Anne Larrass, CARE Haiti
Where I’m from, sleeping under the stars elicits feelings of happiness and poetic romance. It reminds of me of countless summers camping in the wilderness with my family, and experiencing a unique sense of freedom. Here in Haïti, however, sleeping under the stars means the opposite these days: sadness, desperation, fear, and a feeling of deep loss is entrenched in people’s faces wherever you go, and sleeping outside is not a choice but the only option for many.
Suze Chery, a mother of three and grandmother of four, lost everything she owned when her house collapsed on January 12th. All she has left are the clothes she wore when the quake struck. The house that had been her family’s home since 2001 is now nothing but rubble.
“What makes you smile?” I ask carefully. A long pause follows my question. And then she slowly shakes her head. “I don’t believe in that, I don’t believe in that,” she responds. “But the most important thing is that I’m alive,” she says. And starting today, her life will become a little easier now that she has a tent and other important supplies for her family. She might not have her house back, but at least she will be protected from the rain that has started to fall now that we’re nearing the wet season.
Geralda Octave, mother of two and seven months pregnant with her third, has also been spending the nights outside – dans la savanne – with her family. She and her husband had nearly completed their house when the earthquake struck. “My life has completely changed,” she says and gazes into the distance. “I was a teacher before, but the school is destroyed now. I feel sad.” And like many women who are about to give life, she worries about the Haïti her child – a boy she thinks – will grow up in.
But at least, she too, won’t have to spend another night outside. The tent she received today is big enough for five, and it will resist the rain. She also received two mattresses and a hygiene kit that will last her for a couple of weeks.
After the CARE team and the local volunteers have finished distributing 775 tents, mattresses, hygiene kits and 1550 jerry cans to the families that had been lining up, we ask Suze if there was anything she wished for her country and her people.
“I really hope that the people of Haïti will take this opportunity to reconcile, and that this time it’s open and real. We have to work together. And then we’ll see.”
16/02/2010 - “Mèsi Bondye paske ou bann lavi ankò”
By Anne Larrass, CARE Haiti
It is 6 p.m. and the sun has just set, leaving behind a gentle trail of pink and orange. We are on our way back to the office, driving on a road that takes us past the now very common picture of broken homes and mountains of rubble of Port-au-Prince.
Today is the last day of three days of official mourning, which explains the thousands of Haïtians we’ve encountered on the streets chanting hymns and calling out slogans of hope and gratitude.
Gratitude towards their survival and towards the second chance, they say, God has given them to life. “Thank you God for giving us life again,” they sing in multiple harmonies, walking solemnly yet joyfully along the road while large speakers mounted on the front of a transport truck blast religious hymns. Even the children are singing and waving their little hands, their faces showing a mixture of deep trauma and excitement.
These are the survivors or Haïti’s worst disaster in history. They have just lost not only their homes, but also many of their families and friends. How could they be singing about hope? And more astoundingly, how could they be thanking God for their survival?
“Je suis contente parce que Dieu nous a redonné la vie,” says 28-year-old Macline who lost many of her friends, her cousin and her house in the earthquake. “Si nous sommes là, c’est par la grâce de Dieu. Nous devons remercier Dieu.”
Translation:
[I’m happy because God has given us life again. We are here because God is merciful. We need to thank God.]
For the rest of the way home, I think about how I would have reacted, and while it is difficult for me to put myself in their place, I find it hard to imagine that in a situation like theirs, I would sense gratitude. While the world has come together to help Haïtians, it might be good to stop for a moment and remind ourselves that these wonderful people, too, have something to give and teach us in return.
15/02/2010 - The earthquake destroyed our future
By Melanie Brooks, CARE Haiti
While professional rescue teams used heavy equipment to pull people from the rubble, Jacques Wylens’ father, Jacques Wilkens, used a sledgehammer and his bare hands in a desperate effort to free his son from the coffin of what was once their home. Next to where two-year-old Jacques lie trapped and crying under the rubble were his dead grandparents.
“I could hear him crying – you have no idea the agony, to see your house collapse with your son inside, and then hear him crying, ‘Papa, papa,” said Jacques’ father.
Today, the ruins of their home – three concrete slabs sandwiched one on top of the other, what used to be the floors – sits as a solemn reminder of everything they have lost in the earthquake Jan. 12. Jacques and his parents live with five other people in a shack made of salvaged bits of wood and tin. Holes in the ceiling cast pinpricks of dusty beams of light onto the dirty mattresses below. It has rained twice since the quake, sending steady streams of water onto Jacques and his family.
There are 1.2 million others like them, squatting outside their ruined homes, packed into squalid camps on patches of open space in the city centre, camped out in the middle of streets hastily blocked off with bits of rubble. A ‘shelter’ often consists of a faded floral bed sheet strung between poles – hardly enough to block out the fierce Caribbean sun, and useless against the coming rainy season in March.
Today, CARE distributed another 200 shelter kits in Jacques’ village of Mellier, in Léogâne. Each shelter kit contains a heavy plastic sheet, poles, rope, a water container, blankets, a kitchen kit with bowls, plates, pots and pans, and a hygiene kit with the basics such as shampoo, toothpaste, towels, and sanitary napkins – minimum household needs for people who have lost everything.
“Before this, we didn’t have money to buy anything. Everything you see here, we pulled from the rubble,” said Jacques’ father, casting his arm across a small pile of dented metal bowls and dust-covered blankets. “Everything else is trapped in the house. At least with this, we have things to use to cook with, to wash. We can stay dry.”
They plan to use the tarp to make the shelter waterproof, so they can survive the rainy season that looms in March. Already, they have pushed bits of rubble, chunks of cement and sand against their shelter to create a kind of dam against the rains, and nearby, people are digging ditches along the roads.
“We need the ditches to funnel the water,” said Beliotte Louissaint, a member of the community council who is helping CARE organize distributions of aid in his village. “Before, if it rained and there was water flooding in the streets, it didn’t matter. We could just go inside our homes. Now, our homes are in the street.”
Between 80-90 percent of the houses in Léogâne, near the epicentre of the quake, were completely destroyed.
“The coming month will be all about the rain. We need to get these people waterproof shelter,” said Lizzie Babister, Senior Shelter Advisor for CARE in Haiti. “It’s going to be a real push to get this done in time for the rainy season.”
CARE is providing 10,000 families with tents or shelter kits, enough for 50,000 people, and will be working with the people of Haiti in the long-term to help them rebuild. So far, aid groups have reached 272,000 with some kind of shelter, but much more needs to be done. And emergency shelter is just the first hurdle; with tens of thousands of homes and buildings completely destroyed, the need for a clear reconstruction plan, along with the resources to implement it, is becoming an increasingly painful reality.
“My son is alive, but what now?” asked Jacques’ mother, Jean Mondy. “The schools are destroyed. We have nothing. Our house was our future. The earthquake destroyed our future.”
13/02/2010 - Rice and shine!
By Anne Larrass, CARE Haïti
“Ne bloquez pas, ne bloquez pas!” a CARE distribution coordinator calls out to the giggling crowd of women and girls who have been lining up since 5:30 a.m. to receive their rice.
With no easy way to carry the 50kg bags, women and girls are dropping them every few steps, laughing and shaking their heads at the comedy of the situation.
“Don’t block the path, don’t block the path!” the coordinator shouts, but the more he hurries the women, the more bags drop and the more laughter fills the air.
By 8 a.m., the CARE team has managed to distribute all 800 bags of rice, which, once divided into two, will be able to feed 1,600 families in Delmas, a community within Port-au-Prince, for two weeks.
Aid agencies began distributing food to people immediately after the disaster. However, the desperate instinct to survive in these dire times ended up marginalizing the weak. Men regularly jumped the lines, pushing women and the elderly to the back.
To ensure all populations are reached, CARE now only distributes to women as the representatives of their families. While most women are expected to carry their own bags, CARE workers help pregnant women and the elderly reach the edge of the wall-protected distribution area before they are met by male relatives who then help them carry the bags home.
Home these days means a tent or a tarp-covered area, often next to mountains of rubble and complete destruction. These families have lost everything. And while they already had little before January 12th, they now have even less.
It has been one month now since the earthquake decimated pockets of Haïti, killing more than 200,000 people and displacing 1,200,000. But when looking at these women’s faces that morning, it could have been just any other day. Smiling and giggling and wearing colourful clothes, they waited excitedly in line for their bags, holding hands with each other.
Since the earthquake hit, CARE has reached more than 100,000 people through food distributions. In other areas, CARE is distributing shelter kits, newborn kits, hygiene kits, blankets, and building latrines, reaching more than 200,000 people in total.
09/02/2010 - Bad spirits
By Melanie Brooks, CARE Haiti
Night falls, and one by one, the candles flicker on in the camps – tiny pinpricks of light in a city clad in darkness. As the sun retreats, the muffled cries begin. And the women creep deeper into their flimsy shelters of bed sheets and plastic tarps, praying for the morning to come.
The women here talk of ‘mauvais esprits’ (bad spirits) stalking the survivors of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people in Haiti Jan. 12. Stories of rape are spreading like wildfire through the camps, where hundreds of thousands of people are huddled together under flimsy shelters, sleeping cheek by jowl.
“It happens at night,” said Hannah , a nurse who sleeps in a makeshift tent in a crowded camp in Pacot, one of the most dangerous spontaneous camps that has sprung up in the city of Port-au-Prince after the quake. She speaks softly, tilting her head so as not to be overheard.
“Young men come with weapons, and rape the women. They haven’t reported it, because the services don’t exist anymore. The hospitals, the police – everything was destroyed in the earthquake.”
Cases of rape and sexual violence were high even before the earthquake, and rates of violence have increased after previous disasters. Darkened streets due to lack of electricity, crowded makeshift camps and unprotected bathing and toilet areas leave women and girls particularly vulnerable to harassment and sexual violence. Husbands and brothers try to provide protection, and women pass whispered warnings to each other.
But every night as darkness falls, the terror starts anew.
“We cry. We sleep. But it is a half-sleep; we are always waiting for something to happen,” said Hannah. “In my family, there is always someone keeping watch outside while the others sleep. I have a five-year-old daughter, and I’m terrified for her. They have no pity. There are men who rape girls as young as six months old in Haiti.”
In the rural areas around Léogâne, women talk of the added fear of escaped convicts from the collapsed prison roaming the countryside.
“At night, we are afraid. We hear stories of rapes in the camp next to ours,” said 23-year-old Rachelle, casting a furtive look over her shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do. There’s no protection. Men have started following us to the street to watch us bathe. We are afraid they will come back at night.”
The women have simple requests: tents to be safe, bathing facilities for women in a well-lit area, separate toilets for men and women. CARE is working to meet those needs, but it is a long-term solution to the plague of sexual violence in Haiti that is crucial.
“In the short-term, we need to make confidential clinical services available to treat survivors of rape including psychosocial support and security. Women need to know where they can get these services. At the same time we must do all we can to prevent it. Sexual violence was a problem in Haiti before the earthquake and we know it increases in these types of situations,” said Janet Meyers, Senior Advisor for Sexual and Reproductive Health in Emergencies. “After the earthquake, everyone is sleeping in camps. They have enough problems, without this fear as well.”
CARE is working to re-establish reporting procedures, and ensuring confidential, quality services, including clinical management of rape, emergency contraception and psychosocial support, are available to treat survivors of rape and sexual violence.
But for women like Hannah and Rachelle, the time needed to make those changes are measured in the slow passing of each dark Haiti night, waiting for the mauvais esprits to pass by their tent.
09/02/2010 - A day in Haiti
By Lizzie Babister, CARE International Senior Shelter Advisor
In the mornings, as the little tent circle of staff in the garden of CARE’s office wakes up our most precious items here the small padlocks for locking the tents. A token gesture towards security since anyone could cut through the fabric, but with the garden busy with CARE staff this would be noticed immediately. We are relieved from the inconvenience of staying with our possessions while I work. Many of the camps in the city are congested with people, strangers to each other situated in the same place by necessity because open land is so scarce. There are no locks or fences between families. CARE will be supporting community leaders to organise committees in order to empower families to work for their recovery as community.
A truck rumbles by as the first distribution teams head for the field. The security guard opens the gate for it, parting the crowd of hopeful men waiting there, looking for work.
We slept well last night on a mattresses for the tents. There’s a short window at night when it is cool enough to sleep, but without the mattress the cold had woken us regularly. Many displaced families have a makeshift shelter the same size as my one man dome tent made from tree branches, bed sheets and found materials. Mattresses are one item in CARE’s distribution of household items. Although they are a headache to transport because they are bulky, they can prevent fatal respiratory infections in vulnerable people like pneumonia by lifting them at night from the cold ground.
The hour’s journey to airport where the coordination meetings are held provides a rare period of relative calm. Some CARE drivers are ex-taxi drivers which comes in very useful when we need to avoid rubble, queues for distributions or protests.
We pass a settlement on the way to and from the airport where around one hundred families that have settled on the central reservation of a dual carriageway. It is about two metres wide and the line of shelters stretches along the road for about two hundred metres. Many shelters contain children playing just a few inches from the moving cars. Some families have set up small market stalls on the other side of the road and they dodge the traffic to reach their new places of work. Nearby there is an empty field and our guess that it is privately owned and that families have been refused access. CARE is advocating for safe site selection as the top priority with other NGOs, the UN and the government.
The coordination meetings bring home the scale of this emergency. So many people attend the meeting we are at that we all sit on the floor of the meeting tent because there is no room for chairs. Every fifteen minutes we pause our discussion as planes take off and voices disappear into the jet engine roar. CARE was luckier than some agencies who lost many staff when their offices collapsed. CARE has seconded two staff to the shelter cluster coordination team to support the process.
On the return journey we see black pigs munching on garbage in the drainage canals. We pass buildings with their front walls missing, revealing the rooms inside like giant dolls houses.
Back at the office the internet goes down. It works again. It goes down again. Luckily lunch is then served, giving the internet time to make its mind up. Lunch in the office is simple but delicious prepared in the garden by two friendly cooks. We’re providing food twice a day to staff because they have lost their homes, everything. News that food is ready spreads through the office in seconds and a long queue suddenly forms. Everyone from the smart office workers to the dusty distribution teams appears. Outside CARE is taking part in the mass WFP food distribution of rice. The distributions have been calm and orderly, as CARE has good relationships with local authorities who can arrange the process. However tensions can run high towards the end of these distributions when people start to worry that food will run out.
After lunch I call my husband before he goes to bed in the UK. We talk about quotes for dog insurance and the phone bill. I tell him about the camp in the middle of the road. Suddenly I need to change the subject and shut the door on the emotion this triggers. I ask him about the weather.
The afternoon brings satisfaction when we receive the quote we have been waiting for to order plastic sheeting, one of our most critical and most expensive relief items. I enjoy the necessary calculation involving weight of material and airfreight cost. It focuses my range of emotions on a practical task. Things get even better when we receive news that another aid agency may donate some sheets to us. As decisions are made at a pace we follow up both possibilities. CARE will distribute plastic sheeting for families to improve their shelters making them bigger, waterproof, durable and private. It will also be used for constructing latrines. Rainy season is coming in March, so we need to be prepared.
07/02/2010 - Stoic
by Rick Perera, CARE's Emergency Media Officer in Haiti
This will be my last blog entry from Haiti – but certainly not the last about Haiti, a country that has worked its way into my heart. I leave tomorrow on a special charter flight for aid workers.
I first visited Haiti just over five years ago, in the aftermath of the devastating Tropical Storm Jeanne. It was an unkind introduction to a country, and I'd hate to think I'm one of those people who only notice Haiti when it is struck by catastrophe.
But it's worth noticing Haiti, even now. Because when things are at their worst – and it's hard to imagine anything worse than the great earthquake of 2010 – the Haitians show a level of courage and resilience that is nothing short of inspiring.
To say the people of Port-au-Prince are stoic would be an understatement. They are incredibly strong. Though virtually all have lost close loved ones, they have put aside the business of grieving in order to deal with more pressing matters: how to feed their children, remain safe in dark and dangerous corners of a ruined city, and brace themselves for the inevitable mud bath of the coming rainy season.
It can be jarring to discuss the matter of personal loss with a Haitian. Shoulders are shrugged; work goes on uninterrupted. One frequently hears the phrase, "It's God's will," equal parts faith and resignation. Some Haitians even seem to feel responsible for the disaster than has befallen them. At open-air religious services across the capital, worshippers repent for the nation's sins and seek divine forgiveness.
One feels intense sorrow and sympathy for those who have lost so much, who bear their pain with such dignity. But mostly I feel admiration. Haitians are intelligent and patriotic. Most – especially women – are amazingly hard workers. They've borne more suffering in three weeks that anyone should endure in a lifetime, and kept their heads high. The Haitian diaspora is renewing its commitment to the homeland – returning to lend a hand, or digging deeper into hard-earned funds to support those left behind.
By rights these gifted, diligent people ought to be as rich as anyone on the planet. But they've been saddled with intractable problems – from weak government, to poor health care, to disastrously bad stewardship of the environment. Until those challenges are addressed, any kind of recovery is unthinkable.
None of these, of course, could have prevented an earthquake, but they most certainly could have limited damage and fatalities. On any block you can see well-constructed buildings that suffered little visible damage, side by side with the rubble of shoddily-built dwellings. Corruption and lack of building code enforcement are as responsible for the death toll as are tectonic shifts.
Things will never be the same here – and they shouldn't. The impetus for a reinvented Haiti will have to come from Haitians themselves, but the rest of the world must firmly commit to stand by these lovely, long-suffering people for as long as it takes.
I've written before of a "new calendar," denominated in B.C. and A.C. – Before and After the Catastrophe. Haiti needs a new clock, too. It's zero hour.
07/02/2010 - Mixed blessing
Haitians fleeing quake zone flood home to native villages
Woose Gammanuel Ulysse wipes his runny nose, as he hides behind his mother’s skirts. The five-year-old has been wheezing and coughing since the terrible events of January 12, when his world collapsed around him. The boy was trapped for an hour an a half under the rubble of his uncle’s house in Port au Prince, says mother Tulia.
Woose lived with six older siblings – three girls and three boys – who had moved to the capital from the district of Gros-Morne, in northwestern Haiti. Like many rural Haitians, Tulia and her husband had sent their children to live with relatives in the city, in search of a better life, educational and work opportunities they could not find at home.
Francoeur Jean-Joseph, Project Manager in CARE’s Gros-Morne office, greets the family and follows them up a steep, winding path from a dirt road to the high bluff where their home stands. The trail is of dusty, exposed limestone, the hillside bare of trees – evidence of the deforestation that has decimated much of Haiti’s once fertile farmland.
Atop the hill, the sun is just setting over the banana and sugarcane plantations and dry scrub vegetation of this spectacular valley, known as “Les Trois Rivières” – the three streams. The sounds of a country evening – roosters crowing, birdsongs, insects, the occasional motorbike or truck motor – filter up from below. Houses of stone, mud and sticks, and cement cluster in the hamlet of Cressac, while a patchwork of small family farms spreads to the horizon, climbing up the hillsides to the farthest plots hacked from precarious slopes.
Woose, Tulia, and nine-year-old Rooby lead the way to their four-room stucco house, its porch crowded with newly arrived friends and relatives. Twenty people are packed in where five normally live. The seven Ulysse children fled Port au Prince for their native Gros-Morne along with a dozen others, including neighbours who had nowhere else to go.
Woose’s older sister Patricia stands in a doorway, a charming gap-toothed smile flickering briefly across her pretty face. But sadness returns when she remembers the day of the disaster. “When we were crushed, it was very hard,” she recalls. “I threw up, and couldn’t breathe.”
The 19-year-old is relieved to be safe. “The good part is that my whole family has come back – if anyone had died we would have been very sad. A lot of people we know died.”
But coming back to Gros-Morne is a disappointment. In Port au Prince, she was completing 12th grade, and looked forward to attending university, like many of her friends. She dreams of becoming a doctor.
“There’s nothing here for me,” says Patricia. “I want to go back to Port au Prince – not the way it is, but if school starts again. I’m scared, but I have to.”
Tulia has other worries. With 15 extra mouths to feed, the family’s modest income – they run a small grocery-and-hardware shop on the road below their house -- is stretched to the limit. She dishes out rice and beans from a big pot in the storage room of the shop, where nearly a dozen people eat, standing, from battered metal bowls. How will she afford their next meal, and the one after that?
Francoeur says CARE is keenly aware of the stresses facing host families in this part of Haiti. Already battered by several killer hurricanes and tropical storms in recent years, the coastal city of Gonaïves is now struggling with an influx of some 30,000 displaced people. Gros-Morne, with a normal population of 122,000, has taken in about 14,000, and more arrive daily.
“We’re moving as quickly as we can to bring food in. In two days CARE and the mayor’s office will distribute food for 15,000 people provided by Catholic Relief Services,” he says. “Each family will receive 17 kilos (37 pounds) of rice, as well as portions of wheat, corn and lentils.” Much more is needed, though – and with roads in poor condition, trucks in short supply, and much of the relief effort focusing on Port au Prince itself, getting in aid shipments will take time.
The mayor of Gros-Morne, Rodner Antoine Dameus, echoes worries about his town’s ability to absorb so many returnees. “Of course we’re happy to have them back. They live better here than in Port au Prince: they have land, animals, a river to wash in – in Port au Prince you have to buy water. But there’s not enough food. Everything has become much more expensive since the earthquake.”
CARE has long worked to strengthen the local government, and has an office in the town hall. Long before the quake, CARE helped citizens here, as in many other Haitian towns, organize a Civil Protection Committee to prepare for future disasters. They swung into action to help Gros-Morne natives trapped in the capital, says committee member Georges Rigaud, 37.
“After the earthquake we deployed various tactics to evacuate people. We hired two buses which made five or seven trips, each bringing about 80 people back,” Georges explains. “Even the mayor is supporting some survivors with his own money, but our committee has no resources – we need support to help reach survivors in difficult circumstances.”
CARE is continuing its long-term development work, addressing chronic food insecurity in the Northwest, says Francoeur. Its objectives include helping rural households set up small businesses raising chickens and goats, providing seeds and agricultural training. It will be all the more urgent to ramp up those activities, he says, now that local households are supporting so many more people.
“We have to get more food here, and fast,” he says.
05/02/2010 - Healing hands
Traditional medicine and the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake
by Rick Perera, CARE Haiti Communications Coordinator
In earthquake-ravaged Haiti, where broken bones and open wounds far outnumber doctors, people have grown accustomed to long waits for medical attention. But many who turn up at Saurel Saintie’s mud-brick home have waited longer than most. These patients have traveled five hours or more along a rutted, dirt road -- aboard battered old buses, in backs of trucks or perched by threes and fours on motorbikes – to escape the ruined capital, Port-au-Prince. Many have gone weeks without having their injuries attended to.
Once they arrive in the rural northwestern Haitian district of Gros-Morne, their first stop is to see the “bush doctor.”
The patients line up to enter Saurel’s dark but tidy two-room house, where a narrow mattress lies on the floor beside a shelf full of delicate china figurines. The traditional healer uses homemade braces, plasters and massage techniques to treat some of the injuries inflicted by countless collapsing buildings.
“I’ll put a cast on him for a month, and we’ll do physical therapy every three days,” Saurel says, gently touching a protruding bump on Fidelien Joseph’s shoulder. The 34-year-old construction worker was at his home in Port-au-Prince when it collapsed, sending concrete blocks toppling onto him. He can’t lift his arm. “He should be OK after a few weeks,” says the medicine man.
Many of the rural migrants who populated crowded, precariously built neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince found themselves suddenly homeless when the quake hit. Those who survived, some with serious injuries, took the first opportunity to leave the city. Tens of thousands have streamed back to their native farms and villages.
CARE, which has been working in Haiti since Hurricane Hazel hit in 1954, has identified practitioners of traditional medicine as key partners in its community-based approach to emergency response. “Traditional healers are an important part of the health care network here,” says Francoeur Jean-Joseph, Program Manager for CARE’s Gros-Morne office. “People tend to make a first point of contact with them, and we work to educate them how to refer cases that need more urgent care.” He adds that practitioners like Saurel take some of the burden off the local health facility, 20-bed Hôpital Alma-Mater – which has already treated and discharged nearly 90 earthquake survivors.
The 50-year-old Saurel learned his craft from his father – in a family tradition that stretches back generations. He specializes in orthopedics, treating simple sprains and fractures; more complex cases, including open wounds or internal injuries, are referred to Alma-Mater.
Saurel is aware of the limits of his practice. He regularly sends patients with HIV and AIDS to the doctors at Alma-Mater for antiretroviral treatment. But he is also confident in his ability to help.
Those rural places were poor to begin with – that’s why so many of their residents, especially young people, left for the city. Coping with a flood of displaced people is taxing limited resources to the limit. Along with food and shelter, medical care is in short supply.
Like most permanent residents of Gros-Morne, Saurel looks tired but less stressed than the new arrivals from the earthquake zone. He is working harder than usual and helping support his own relatives who have taken refuge here.
He turns to 16-year-old Jocelyne Philoma, who, like so many others, had gone to the capital to get an education. When her aunt’s house collapsed, she suffered bruises and broken bones – but is relieved to be alive. “I’m happy to be here, because I’ve returned to health after my fractures, she says solemnly. “They are better now since the doctor treated them.”
Saurel smiles, and moves on to his next patient.
02/02/2010 - Returning home
Rick Perera, CARE Haiti Communications Coordinator
I've just returned from one of the most heartbreaking visits of my two weeks here: to meet the family of Dr. Franck Geneus, CARE's gentle, dedicated health programme director. Their homes destroyed, his extended family of 30 is packed into Franck's brother's tiny house and yard -- from the littlest niece, five-month-old Joelle, to grandmother Inosie, who says she's 94.
Franck's father Ovanier, 64, and mother, Marie, 61, sit idly in the yard, restless and frustrated. Hardworking, middle-class Haitians, they've lost not only their home but their livelihoods: the grocery store on the ground floor run by Marie; upstairs, the private school where Ovanier employed eight teachers and taught 100 pupils.
Franck takes us to see the modest, tidy, pink-stucco villa, its three stories hanging precariously over the crushed basement, on the verge of crashing into the rubble-choked lane.
He was born in this house, grew up here, was married here. He intended to move his young family in when he returned to Haiti, full of hope at the prospect of running CARE's efforts to improve the country's struggling health care system. That was just two weeks before January 12. We all know what came next.
"It's my first time back here since the earthquake," Franck says, shaking his head. "I'm in shock."
He points through a huge gash in the facade that's spilling the guts of the house, including a large, wooden cabinet, battered and coated with dust. "My father and I built that cupboard, ten years ago," he says, his voice trailing off.
Funny how such small details can catch the heart of someone whose life has been forever changed by disaster.
And yet Franck is not destroyed. He is plunging into his work, readying CARE's strategy to manage camps for displaced people, address the threat of violence against women and sexual assault, and take on the daunting challenge of meeting the health needs of women and infants.
This unassuming man, just 37, is not only a Haitian. He is first and foremost a healer, deeply devoted to his family, his country, and his people. CARE is so fortunate to have him.
02/02/2010 - Breathing easy
Rick Perera, CARE Haiti Communications Coordinator
We’re all starting to feel a little safer, and more relaxed – though that’s a relative term, of course. We’ve noticed that there hasn’t been aftershocks in a week or so. The mass distribution of rice that got underway yesterday has gone smoothly so far – a huge relief since many survivors have had nothing to eat since the quake. Of course it will take a long time to reach everyone in need, but the system is working well so far.
Just now structural engineers declared our three staff apartments, even those on the fourth floor, safe for occupancy, so we will have more room to spread out for the night. Some will remain on mattresses on the floor, of course, but I don’t mind for a few more days – a slumber party is just one more bonding experience with these people who have become closer than family during the past two weeks.
Sophie Perez, our amazingly dedicated country director, has gone on a much-deserved week’s leave, to take her children to stay with family in France. They all need a break from a stressful environment.
With some flights resuming from Port-au-Prince, it’s getting easier for staff to get in and out, without arduous trips by land or nail-biting waits for unpredictable aid flights. Many of the first wave of emergency staff are starting to be replaced with new models. Team Leader David Gazashvili (unmistakable in his dirty CARE T-shirt, Frankenstein boots, and surgical mask) left last week to resume charge of the emergency unit at HQ. Our IT hero Astor Chirinos, who took us from text-message-only to full-scale satellite Web access in a few days, has returned home to his wife (in Atlanta and in contractions). He seemed sad to leave, and unfazed by the new-father role (it’s a sequel).
My own “relief,” the indefatigable Melanie Brooks, CARE International’s media and communications coordinator, who is scheduled to depart Geneva tomorrow, overlapping for a couple of days so I can hand off media operations here. It will be awfully nice to see her! She’s planning to stay on for two or three weeks after I leave, and then we’ll decide how to proceed.
The media onslaught has slowed somewhat but is still pretty ferocious. Last night, I appeared on the “Tagesschau,” the premiere evening news of Germany, to the surprise of many friends (I used to live in Berlin), and was the subject of a story in the Berkshire Eagle, my hometown newspaper. I’d like to thank my high school French teacher, Mrs. Krause, as well as my agent, my producer, my family, my cats, best boy, gaffer, key grip… (cue get-off-the-stage music).
I finally managed to copy all my journalist contacts scrawled in notebooks over the past two weeks into an Excel spreadsheet: 136 (and counting). There were days during the first week when I actually did 15 interviews in a single day. Seems like years ago.
It isn’t over yet, of course. Tomorrow, my photographer colleague Evelyn Hockstein and I will leave at 8:00 a.m. for an excursion to the city of Gros-Marne, in northwest Haiti, to see where displaced people who have fled Port-au-Prince are camping, and how CARE plans to help them and their host communities. We’ve invited journalists to come along but, being creatures of deadline, they have yet to confirm.
On Wednesday, from “the field,” I’ll speak to David Lewis, an old CNN friend and current star of WMLB radio in Atlanta. On Thursday, the hills are alive with the sound of an interview with Radio Bavaria. And on Friday… well, no doubt we’ll find that out soon enough.
Then, blessed Saturday. If all goes according to plan (and that’s always a big “if”), I’ll be in Miami, passed out by my friend John’s pool, on the causeway that leads to the beach. And then… well.
26/01/2010 - I pledge allegiance
Rick Perera, CARE Haiti Communications Coordinator
You can handle a lot if you keep busy, but watch out when you get a chance to stop and think. On a long drive last night I had a talk with an exhausted CARE driver, and felt for a moment what it must be like to be Haitian.
He spoke with wounded affection for his country, so beautiful and so tragic. “We have a sweet climate. We have smart, hardworking people. We could be every bit as successful as America or France.” The man punctuated his sentences with the phrases “Avant la Catastrophe” and “Après la Catastrophe” – Before the Catastrophe, After the Catastrophe. One can almost imagine a new calendar taking root here: B.C. and A.C.
It reminded me of my first visit back to the U.S. from Germany, where I was living, in November 2001. At any restaurant in New York you could clearly hear “Nine-eleven, nine-eleven, nine-eleven” emerging from the regular rumble.
I remember how I felt on that horrible day, when I saw the Twin Towers collapse live on my computer screen as I sat, powerless, at my desk in Berlin. I walked to the US Embassy, a few blocks away. Germans were lined up for blocks to lay flowers at the end of the sandbag-blocked street. Most of my friends sent me text messages. “Dear America, you were there for us in our hour of need – now we’re there for you,” wrote Berliners.
Now, when I ride by the ruins of the graceful Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince – not so different from the White House – my heart breaks again. When I hear the passionate love songs to Haiti and Port-au-Prince playing on the radio, I feel the wounded patriotism of this lovely people. When I see the collapsed police stations with the beautiful Haitian flag at half-staff, tears come to my eyes again.
24/01/2010 - Scout's honour part 2 : Profile in courage
Rick Perera, CARE Haiti Communications Coordinator
“I can’t describe how frightened I was,” recalls Joanie Estin, remembering that terrible day barely a week ago when her world fell apart. “We’ve lived through a lot in Haiti, but this is the first time anything like this ever happened.”
But Joanie doesn’t look scared. Sad, yes – but resolute, confident, and committed. Every inch the Girl Scout. “I always keep a cool head, because otherwise you won’t be able to help other people,” she says calmly.
The 22-year-old wears her uniform with pride, the sky-blue kerchief of the Ste. Rose de Lima Scouts of Léogane tied neatly over her beige dress. Today that uniform means more to her than most people can imagine.
Joanie was enjoying the early evening socialisng with neighbours outside, as was the custom on the Rue de la Liberté in Léogane, when the unthinkable happened.
Her father was the only one inside the house when it collapsed. They never saw him again. The surviving family members – Joanie, her mother, and six siblings – have been living at a local school, the Écôle des Frères, ever since.
“I was so overwhelmed at first. My mother and I stood still in the middle of the road for about 15 minutes, until the earth calmed. Then we went home, and our house had been completely destroyed.”
Joanie coped the way she always has: by getting down to work. As soon as she could, she found her way back to Ste. Rose de Lima and, with some 50 boys and girls who had survived the earthquake, started rallying.
As many of the local Scouts and Girl Guides who could find each other in the aftermath – 94 in all – began volunteering their services to humanitarian groups, including CARE, that bring critical supplies to survivors in central Léogane.
“We try to advise the people on how to stay calm, and we help the international agencies with the distributions. For me, it’s a good deed. It helps me feel better.”
On Wednesday a group of Scouts served as security and emotional support as CARE delivered soap, sanitary napkins, and other hygiene supplies to the women of Léogane. The boys stood guard to help control the anxious throngs outside the site – a telecommunications office laid idle by the quake. The girls provided gentle guidance, walking alongside the tired and frightened women as they braved the crowds and noonday heat.
“These young people are the future of Haiti. They are the ones who are going to pick up the pieces and help rebuild this country,” said Sophie Perez, CARE Haiti country director. “It gives me great hope to see that they have already started that task.”
For Joanie, there was really no other choice. It’s who she is.
When the dust settled on the ruins of her house, Joanie was able to crawl in a back door to retrieve a few things. “I don’t know what came over me – I just did it,” she says. She managed to save just a few clothes, a cosmetics case – and one more thing, the most important of all.
Her uniform.
22/01/2010 - Scout's Honour
Rick Perera, CARE Haiti Communications Coordinator
You might expect to see Wilner Ulysse helping a little old lady cross the street. That’s the classic image of a dutiful Scout. But Wilner, age 23, has a much more important good deed for today.
He is one of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Girl Guides of Léogane, a hard-hit town near the epicenter of last week’s deadly earthquake. Their town was all but destroyed -- most people here have lost homes or family members, and funerals have become a tragically frequent occurrence. But despite their own trauma and loss, the young people of Léogane are rallying to the aid of their fellow citizens.
On Wednesday, Wilner and his fellow Scouts joined the CARE team delivering urgent help near the center of Léogane. The telecommunications office, idle since phone service was knocked out by the quake, is serving as a temporary town hall and humanitarian aid center. Here, the CARE staff set up operations to deliver vital aid to the traumatized survivors, above all women.
The job of the Scouts is to provide security and comfort. The boys, tall and brave, stand guard at the entrance of the compound. The girls walk side-by-side with the women, softly touching the occasional arm or shoulder, as they walk to the distribution point. The women look exhausted, but a few smiles break out as they receive a precious gift – hygiene kits including soap, toothpaste, towels, and sanitary napkins, all packed in a five-gallon bucket that can be used to collect and purify water. Still, the faces at the CARE truck are tired, lined, and sweaty.
The bright young Scouts look serious – most have suffered grievous losses of their own – but their faces are full of compassion for the mothers and grandmothers they gently guide.
“We can only imagine how traumatized and heartbroken these women feel,” said Sophie Perez, CARE Haiti country director. “As much as material aid, they need to know that the world cares about them, and that they are not alone. To have these lovely young people literally standing by their side is a great comfort at this terrible time.”
Many of the women at Wednesday’s distribution have lost their homes and are living in the open, in tents makeshift shelters. Even those whose houses were left standing are often afraid to go inside, because of a series of terrifying aftershocks.
“To lose one’s home, loved ones, and then still to feel constantly afraid – it’s more than anyone should have to bear,” says Sophie. “We are committed to work very hard so that they do not continue to suffer needlessly.”
And so is Wilner. In seven years as a Scout, it’s certainly the most important thing he’s accomplished.
Is there an Earthquake Merit Badge?
22/01/2010 - Life Hanging by a Thread
Loetitia Raymond, CARE International, Port-au-Prince
At the fragile moment in time when a life enters the world, when a child leaves the warm, protective cocoon of her mother's womb, one gesture can change everything. It can transform what could have been a happy occasion into the saddest of all.
Wadneicia may never know how lucky she was to open her eyes on January 20 in Saint Pierre Square, on the ground, lying on old packing boxes. It was 9:00 am when Joane Kerez, 20 years old, gave birth to her first child under a cloth tarpaulin with only her mother assisting her. All around, people went about their business. Curious onlookers crowded around the small space just two metres square in size, making it hard for the young pregnant woman to breathe.
"There were people all around watching me. I would have rather been somewhere else, in a cleaner place without all those people looking at my body," she says, embarrassed at the lack of modesty. At least 6000 people "live" in this crowded square where every square inch of land is occupied by earthquake victims. Children play amidst the garbage and wash themselves in street ditches; women cook in pestilential stench since everyone urinates right in the camp due to the lack of toilet facilities. Joane's mother cut the umbilical cord with a non-sterile razor blade. The only water available was a tank that CARE had installed the day before. Five thousand litres of water was supplied to help meet the victims' needs.
"Thankfully CARE had installed the tank, otherwise I would have to have used water that comes out of the pipe at the end of the road."
No soap, no clean towel, no disinfectant, no doctor, not even minimal medical equipment in case of complications. No western woman could imagine even for an instant giving birth in conditions like these! And yet Joane's childbirth story is not extraordinary. Since January 13, hundreds of other Haitian women have given birth among garbage cans in the streets of Port-au-Prince.
To improve living conditions for the homeless, CARE has begun to distribute wheelbarrows, shovels and brooms so people can start to clear away the garbage. "Removing garbage is the absolute minimal requirement for limiting risks of disease," explains Franck Géneus, CARE's Health Director in Port-au-Prince. "We are going to set up a network of volunteers among the people living in the area to transmit hygiene awareness-raising messages. We can limit the risks considerably by providing everyone with information about this crucial and fundamental issue."
Saluka Francia's child was born a month ago in a hospital. But since the family has had to move to this camp, the little boy’s health has deteriorated. "His tummy hurts, he has diarrhea and has caught a cold," his mother explaines to me. I look at the abnormally small infant and can only worry because of the sad and sickly face that looks back at me. The baby winces and his appearance betrays his precarious health. When I ask the mother if he has been examined by a doctor, or if he is under medical care, I already know the answer: "No."
Viergemène Jean who is beginning her 8th month of pregnancy has not seen a doctor since the beginning of December, even though she complains of fatigue. "I feel tired, during the day I'm too hot, at night I am cold because we don't have anything to cover up with and I am discouraged."
For good reason - like Joane, she doesn't know how she is going to give birth and she is worried. "The hospitals have been destroyed, there are many people who are injured, I know there isn't enough place for everyone." Thus, the birth of a child, which should be a source of joy, is rather a time of worry and fear for these women.
Beside her, her friend Marie-Michel Blanc, 32 years old, is expecting her 3rd child. We would imagine she would be more confident since she has already given birth. But her apprehension is not any less, and for good reason: her second childbirth didn't go well and she had to undergo a caesarean section. Marie-Michel knows that option won't be available to her if she experiences complications this time. "My stomach hurts and I feel something is wrong, I don't know what is happening," she says in a worried tone. I am not a doctor... but I am a woman. So I put my hands on her abdomen, I touch the warm ball in which the child is growing. I quickly understand that the child that is due in less than 15 days is breech. What should I do? Worry her more even though I know there is no doctor that could help her? I encourage her to find a midwife in the camp, I tell her there are women who know what to do, who can assist her and maybe turn the baby around. Maybe...
Everyone complains of the lack of space and the suffocating heat that burns the little ones' skin when the sun is at its zenith. So they wrap up the babies in cloth and towels to protect them. The children are certainly too hot, and we know that when there is no water, dehydration is a real threat. Thankfully, our teams have distributed water purification tablets.
Life is also made up of miracles, like the arrival of little Sarah who was born the morning of the catastrophe. Mother and child were in a hospital that was partially destroyed, however they both escaped unscathed. "Everything was shaking, my bed was moving. I was very afraid. I heard noise and then people started to scream. I hugged Sarah tightly in my arms, I was sure we were going to die."
As she holds Sarah, her third child, Emy Merci has a blissful smile. Her face shows her gratitude for being alive. She talks of the same difficulties that the others have, but seems to be ready to endure it all because she has her baby by her side. Emy is even more thankful because today CARE gave her a hygiene kit with soap, toilet paper, tooth brushes, toothpaste, laundry soap, sanitary napkins and other products that will ensure better hygiene. "Thanks to this, I will be able to wash Sarah and wash her diaper. I didn't have any laundry soap and her clothes weren't clean. This will change everything," she says. Joane, Saluka, Marie-Michel and one thousand other women received the same products and express the same gratitude.
In a situation this difficult, pregnant women and infants are even more vulnerable. In seeing these women, life seems more fragile than ever, hanging by a thread that could break any second. Sometimes just the infinitely small things make it easier for mothers and children. That is why we will continue to distribute these basic goods and help strengthen the thread of life during the women's childbirth and the children's first steps.
21/01/2010 - A flawless distribution today in Pétionville
by Patrick Solomon, CARE USA SVP, Global Support Services
Yesterday, the CARE staff went to the Place Saint Pierre in Pétionville, extremely close to the CARE office to do pre-work for today's distribution of hygiene kits. The team did an assessment and registration process to identify pregnant and elderly women to make sure they were recipients of the distribution. Today, the team ensured that these women were given priority in the distribution process.
The distribution was a joint effort between the local police, the municipality and CARE. It went flawless. The process was ordered and the recipients were so glad to receive the kits. This was especially gratifying not only because CARE was able to deliver, but the fact that needs were being met.
There was a woman, who gave birth the day of the earthquake, and came this morning with her newborn in hand to receive a hygiene kit. Another woman, who gave birth two days ago and, thus, could not be registered yesterday received the kit directly from CARE staff instead of having to stand in line.
As a footnote, we just felt another aftershock today. People ran out of the building – and it took many of them a long time before they came back in.
21/01/2010 - Wednesday's distributions were a mixed success
by Patrick Solomon, CARE USA SVP, Global Support Services
Distribution of mattresses at one of our main sites today did not go as smooth and had to be cancelled.
Obviously, there is tension as aid has not always flowed in a timely fashion. Other agencies experienced similar problems at the same site.
Undaunted, CARE and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will meet tomorrow with the United Nations, military and municipal authorities to discuss the best way forward so that aid can be provided quickly to those most in need.
On the plus side, we were able to install the three water bladders in Léogâne, and we will put water in them tomorrow. Each holds 5,000 litres. There is a local committee of three women and three men in the town, who will be responsible for the maintenance and refilling of the bladders.
At this time, no one has knowledge of looting in the areas where we're working. We asked partners about the problem, and the good news is that it does not seem to be widespread. We will learn more tomorrow at our meeting.
At one of our main in town distribution sites, Pétionville, staff completely the preparatory work to begin distribution of hygiene kits today.
The CARE team has been working tirelessly to make sure that distributions happen to help the Haitian people. They have brainstormed good ideas on improving the process: choice of distribution location, the time of day we distribute, how much security is needed, having clear criteria as to when to shut down distributions and making sure planning is carried out beforehand.
20/01/2010 - Working hand in hand with authorities and local communities
by Loetitia Raymond, CARE International, Port-au-Prince
Only a few days ago, Saint-Pierre square was famous for its amateur painters displaying their hundreds of colourful frames all over the place. All this has now disappeared and left a faded tableau of sad colours instead, those of thousands of homeless people crammed within a few hundreds of square metres.
Tents, makeshift cardboard mattresses, clothes drying in the trees, children, teenagers, youngsters, and the elderly, 6,000 people altogether have gathered in the square. Although 3,000 homeless on the site was a first rough estimate, hundreds more keep coming in everyday.
Claire Lydie Parent, mayor of Pétionville, whom we are meeting this morning to offer our support, explains the situation: “People are scared, they hear tsunami rumours, they fear another earthquake, making those who still have a home run away at times.”
CARE emergency workers Audrée Montpetit and Gary Philoctète came to help this community, which has demonstrated a real determination to help meet to their own needs. We are aiming to implement solutions in coordination with local authorities who have already started to clear away the garbage piles. Evacuating the waste is our top priority, in order to avoid any sanitary risk.
“We also need tools to work properly, especially masks and shovels. We could have all the good intentions in the world, but bare hands alone won’t be enough,” says Ms. Lydie Parent.
We will also need to train teams of volunteers living on the site to implement the work. We are also training hygiene awareness teams to prevent diseases caused by ling in such conditions. Involving the people affecting by the quake is crucial as they drop their status of victim to taking charge and being involved in their own recovery. From this perspective, Ms. Lydie Parent stresses the importance of psychological support as most people do not realise what happened, what an earthquake means, and how everyone needs to rationalise what took place to avoid frenzied crowd situations.
We have then agreed to start distributing wheelbarrows, brooms and shovels. We will also install a water tank as, like all city dwellers, they lack water. When?
Our meeting has lasted less than 30 minutes, enough to allow us all to identify needs. Equipment will be delivered tomorrow and work will start right away!
20/01/2010 - Distribution has started in Leogane
Update from Patrick Solomon, Senior Vice-President, Global Support Services CARE USA
Distribution has started in Leogane. It is working in an orderly fashion primarily because of the pre work done by CARE staff to engage the mayor and others in the community. This morning we had lengthy discussions with the community's leadership and then the logistics committee. They wanted to be very involved and came up with their own plan for distribution.
The distribution took place in the driveway of a telecom building that is now being occupied by the municipal authorities because their building was destroyed. There was great collaboration between the community (including girl and boy scouts) and CARE.
The community leaders delivered chits to the participants in camps. When ready, the people from the camps came to the building and were escorted to the truck by the scouts where the distribution took place. They gave the chits to the CARE staff working with the community team including the scouts. The chit was then marked with whatever item they received so they couldn't get duplicate items. When they received the items, they were escorted to an exit away from the entrance which helped with crowd control.
The people who received the items for their households did not appear malnourished or severely hurt but they were some people who needed extra support to walk by the scouts. The people who came were the representatives from the households. Several people who came had some type of cream around their noses to most likely prevent them from smelling the stench.
They all seemed very appreciative of the support they were receiving from CARE. This was an excellent example of CARE partnering with the community. Today we started distributing 1,500 jerry cans and 1,200 hygiene kits. We also solidified plans to install three water bladders tomorrow. We plan to continue to focus on this community and also increase our distribution of items there.
On the way to Leogane this morning, we saw dead bodies that were not there when we passed yesterday. This was a harsh reminder of the tragic outcome of the earthquake and the fact that so many people have not yet been recovered. Just before our distribution, I visited the distribution nearby by another organization. Unlike ours, they were using armed UN peacekeepers to keep order. That said, while the tensions were slightly elevated, I didn't see any problems.
20/01/2010 - A companion at the end
by Rick Perera, CARE International, 5 p.m.
Its name, Hôpital La Paix, means Peace — but this massively overflowing hospital is anything but peaceful. The largest medical facility still standing in devastated Port au Prince, La Paix is beyond overflowing with critically injured people.
The parking lot in front of the two-story concrete building is packed with the wounded, lying on mattresses or bed frames (no one gets both), on blankets, on the sparse grass, even on the bare sidewalk, under a brutally hot sun. A handful have someone leaning over them, offering at least some comfort, maybe holding up an IV drip bag. But many lie alone. Virtually everyone in this beleaguered city lost someone – some have lost their whole families.
Those who can walk, mass at the front door, waiting their turn as two volunteers hold a rope to control who enters. The doormen step aside automatically when they see a foreign face: anyone who might help somehow is welcome here. Stretcher bearers push their way past, shouting, "Excusez! Excusez!" Two men carry a grimacing woman, shoving a desk as a makeshift gurney. The line parts to allow a body bag through.
Emergency staff, from Cuban doctors to Catalonion EMTs, cluster inside the door. Most are doing what they can to alleviate suffering, but with little overall coordination. Some who've just arrived are sitting and chatting while they await instructions; a group of French firefighters poses for a photo. After an immediate assessment, patients wait, propped against the walls and lying on the floors, for treatment. Some have notes with a brief diagnosis, scribbled on notebook paper in Spanish, taped onto their chests.
CARE's director of health programming, Dr. Franck Geneus, makes his way to the hospital's administrative office. He speaks briefly with a nun who knows something of the situation there – but no one is really in charge. Our mission here, to provide chemicals to make water safe to drink, will have to wait: if we distribute the materials now, they will most likely simply be lost in the chaos. We must focus our efforts where they will be effective.
Deeper inside the gloomy, unlit hospital, beds line the hallways around a courtyard. Most of the patients, some of them half naked, lie silent, too exhausted to moan. The stench of death is all around. "You never get that out of your clothes. You have to throw them away," says my colleague Evelyn, a photographer who has worked with CARE from Darfur to the Democratic Republic of Congo. She gives a wry shrug.
But Evelyn is not a hardened cynic. A few minutes later she emerges from the makeshift ward, her eyes filled with tears. She has watched an elderly Spanish nun giving last rites to a man who can't speak. He can move a leg, and when the good sister asks him tenderly if he understands he is going to die, he signals yes. As Evelyn recounts the story, we look back to where the man still lies. A blue sheet has been pulled up over his head.
He had massive internal injuries and had lost so much blood, she tells us in a gentle voice. There was no way he could survive. "Estaba listo. Estaba en paz." He was ready. He was at peace.
18/01/2010 - Safe water
Blondine Jean-Baptiste wielded a large kitchen spoon like a magic wand. And indeed, it was magic – the filthy, brown water was turning sparkling clear before her, as the sludge gathered into a clump at the bottom of the white, 20-litre plastic bucket. Her colleague Edline Cothière read aloud a simple instructions from an information sheet, in Haitian Creole.
The two nurses are volunteering at the ruins of the Adventist Auditorium in central Port-au-Prince, where some 600 homeless and injured people have gathered. The local Community Civil Protection Committee is doing its best to see to their needs.
A crowd, mostly women, watched – relieved at the prospect that the limited supply of water in a cistern on the ground would be safe to drink.
Dr. Franck Geneus, CARE Haiti’s health program coordinator, watched the women working. Minutes before, he had given them a crash course in water purification, using the very simple method promoted by CARE: small packets of powder, each of which can purify 10 litres of water.
“CARE staff train local volunteers, so they in turn can teach others and distribute the packets according to a careful inventory of families at the site – to be sure it reaches those most in need,” he explained. “It’s the quickest way to reach the most people.”
Safe water is crucial for every survivor of the horrific quake Jan. 12– but especially for pregnant women, new mothers, and small children, he said. “We are concerned that women may stop breastfeeding because they do not have enough food or water themselves. That poses a huge risk to newborns.”
Even in the best of times, expectant mothers in Haiti are at huge risk – 670 of 100,000 die in the course of pregnancy and childbirth, more than 60 times the rate in industrialized countries like the United States . Now, with urgent treatment of trauma cases taking top priority, prenatal care, and even safe delivery, is a luxury that few women here can find.
17/01/2010 - Desperation at our gates
by Rick Perera, CARE International, 11:30 pm
If charity begins at home, CARE is in the right place. Just outside our Haiti headquarters, many hundreds, perhaps thousands – no one has counted them – of newly homeless people are camped out in the main square of Pétionville, a near suburb of Port au Prince. They wait patiently in the hot sun, but their desperation grows by the hour. At night, groups of people can be heard clapping and chanting. Some have hung banners, painted on bedsheets, with messages like “We need help!” in English and Creole.
As CARE Haiti Country Director Sophie Perez and I walk by, we pass many pedestrians with handkerchiefs tied around their noses and mouths against the overwhelming stench. Waste of all kinds is piling up in the streets around the square. An overflowing garbage truck stands idle. The gutters are clogged with plastic bags, bottles, and objects beyond description. Perez shakes her head when she sees the growing piles. “We urgently need to address the waste disposal issue,” she says. “If that garbage keeps accumulating it will certainly spread disease.”
Over the past few days CARE has been focusing on distributing water purification packets, containing a powder called Pur. It’s highly effective, and can make almost any water safe to drink. But to use it requires two five-gallon (about 20 L) containers – one for dirty water, the other for clean – and the worst-off here don’t even have a bucket to their name. So for many, the magic powder isn’t enough.
“We will distribute the Pur along with hygiene kits in the coming days, packed into large buckets that people can use,” says Sophie. The kits will also contain crucial items, from soap to sanitary napkins, to help survivors stay healthy under these appalling conditions.
In the meantime, CARE is working to arrange for a tanker truck to bring water to the square outside our gates, and a huge rubber “bladder” to store it. There’s so much to do everywhere in this city, but we won’t forget to serve our neighbours in need.
16/01/2010 - CARE convoy heads through streets of Port au Prince to distribute water purification supplies
by Rick Perera, CARE International
I’m with a convoy of three CARE vehicles carrying water purification supplies form the airport to three different points of distribution. In order to avoid the risk of mobs trying to take materials, we’re using ordinary SUVs -- Toyota Land Cruisers -- and piling the materials low enough so they can be covered and out of view from the windows.
The water mains are broken in some places and people are washing their clothes in the gutters. I can only imagine people are also drinking that water, which is really dangerous.
We have enough purification packets with us right now to provide 75,000 people with 3 liters of clean water a day for 10 days. The powder comes in ketchup-like packets. You add the powder to containers of water, let it stand for five minutes and then use a filter to strain the solids out. Any piece of cloth will do.
Shortly we’ll be distributing them at the La Paix Hospital, the General Hospital and a medical facility whose French name translates as “Little Brothers and Sisters.” It might take up to three hours to do the distribution. Other agencies are giving out supplies at these locations, too. We have heard that it’s an orderly situation, as there are multinational U.N. troops providing security for the distributions.
15/01/2010 - "People are desperate for help"
by Hauke Hoops, Regional Emergency Coordinator, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 9 a.m. local time
This is one of the biggest disasters I’ve ever seen, and it is a huge logistical challenge. Everything has to come in by plane or boat, but the port is destroyed. The airport is overstretched, overcrowded with flights.
Security is a huge concern. The jail collapsed, and there are 5,000 inmates on the loose. This has caused a lot of fear. It is very dangerous, with repeated aftershocks, and the escaped people from the jail. There are rising tensions. We need to distribute as quickly as possible, but this is a difficult situation to guarantee safety and organize distribution. People have been without food for two days now, and they are starting to get desperate. In this situation, people will do anything to get food and water for their families.
We have 133 staff already working in Haiti, but our staff in Port-au-Prince lost everything – their houses, their families, everything. Staff are totally traumatized. They’re trying to help, but we need to bring in additional staff from across the country and international teams. We’ve seen this before, where staff have lost family members, they are trying to control their own emotions, take care of their families, and at the same time, respond to a massive disaster. You can imagine how difficult this is, if you’ve lost your children, but there is so much work to do and everyone needs help. It’s a nightmare.
There are lots of people in the streets trying to find relief. There is rubble everywhere. Buildings collapsed like a house of cards. I see many people trying to find people in the rubble, underneath the buildings. There are many search and rescue teams coming in, but it’s not enough. The people are doing a lot of the rescue by themselves, pulling at the rubble with their bare hands or with shovels. They are listening to see if they can hear people yelling for help. There are fewer people yelling for help now. There are so many places to look, so many houses collapsed, but the search and rescue teams can’t be everywhere at once.
There are bodies on the street, bodies everywhere. I passed by bodies in the streets. People are walking by them, it’s as if they are sleeping. It’s scary. There are dead bodies lined up in rows. Our main priority now is to clear the bodies. There is a fear of outbreak of disease because of the open wounds being left untreated, and lack of sanitation. There is rubbish everywhere.
People need clean drinking water. The water system wasn’t completely destroyed. Pipes were broken in the earthquake, but there is some water coming out. People are lining up at the areas where water is coming out. So there is some access but it’s not clean water, the pipes have been contaminated. Water purification tablets are very important. CARE has a shipment of water purification tablets that arrived last night, and we need to distribute these right away. We need more water purification tablets.
There is still production of electricity, but they can’t turn the power back on because the power lines are down, there are electrical wires in the streets, and people are stepping over them. If they turn the electricity back on now, people might be electrocuted or injured.
There is an issue of access. We can’t reach all areas by road. It is difficult to get any trucks; either they are without fuel because the gas stations are empty. There is nothing available here.
There is a huge amount of people in need, but my fear is now how we’re going to get to them all. Also we have to do this quickly, to organize with other aid agencies and the government to reach people faster. People are desperate for help, for food, for water.
15/01/2010 - "Crossing borders"
by Rick Perera, CARE International, 7 a.m. local time
We’re crossing the border at Jimeni, between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Things are moving fairly quickly at least on the Dominican Republic side. We’re seeing supplies crossing the border including search and explore teams with dogs, many large tanker trucks with water, backhoes and other construction equipment, mobile kitchens from the Dominican Republic, and many journalists.
We still have cell phone access on the Dominican Republic side, but once inside Haiti I’m told we may be able to send only text messages. We will try to get the sat phone going. I’ve received endless messages from friends and family expressing deep concern for the Haitian people and wanting to help in any way, but with the communications being so bad, I guess those messages will stop soon.
We stayed overnight in Barahona, a resort town on the coast in Dominican Republic. It was quite surreal staying in a resort hotel with a swimming pool and signs that say ‘Remember to ask for your beach towel ticket’.
We’re not seeing anyone coming out of Haiti, but the Dominican Republic guards are operating a gate, and the border is clearly secured. The road was fairly clear up until we hit the border crossing itself. There are about 20-25 trucks waiting. It took about 10 hours to get here to the border, which is a lot longer than we expected. We’re told it’s only 60 km from here to Port-au-Prince. Our driver is just telling us now that it’s not a long distance, but it may take a long time because of the damage heading into the city.
Last night we spoke to a group of firefighters from the Dominican Republic who were going in with excavation equipment. They were young, dedicated, eager to help – an example of the kind of experts from around the world coming into Haiti to help.
We’re also hearing stories about what to expect when we cross over into Haiti. When I was last in Port-au-Prince five years ago, I stayed at the Hotel Villa Creole near the CARE office. From what I hear now it’s overrun with desperate people, aid workers and countless journalists packed six to a room, with more people sleeping on the lawn. But the hotel is staying open, doing whatever they can to help the people affected by the disaster.
14/01/2010 - "Like going from Heaven to Hell"
by Rick Perera, CARE International
A group of CARE staff and journalists -- 12 of us in all, landed in the city of Puerto Plata in the northern coast of the Dominican Republic early this afternoon. We were welcomed as tourists by a steel drum band, scantily clad dancers and free cocktails. It was a surreal experience.
Shortly, we all boarded a bus, which is taking us on the first leg of our eight hour journey over land to reach the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. By all accounts, the scene will change dramatically once we cross the border. The lush green hills and gentle rain we see through our windows will give way to the harsh, deforested landscape of Haiti.
Even before the earthquake, Haitians lived in desperately poor circumstances; 80 percent of Haitians survive on less than $2 a day. I can scarcely imagine what it will be like now.
One of the ironies in this disaster is that CARE’s offices in Gonaïves are serving as an information hub because the conditions are so much better there than in the capital. Gonaïves was a wasteland in the aftermath of the Tropical Storm Jeanne. That was 2004, which also was the last time I visited Haiti and, now, it is a comparative oasis of calm and order -- proof that cities can be reborn and that places of disaster can become home to people once again. One of my companions on the bus said, “When we cross the border, it will be like going from heaven to hell.”
Communication is so difficult that the only contact with our colleagues in Port-au-Prince has been through text messages. The needs of survivors are overwhelming. Most immediately clean water, food and medical care.
Our Haitian colleagues are working around the clock because of the enormous task of meeting these needs. I can only hope that whatever small help I can offer will at least bring some hope.
14/01/2010 - "I don't know what I'm going to find"
Hauke Hoops, CARE’s Regional Emergency Coordinator, flew from Panama to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, just after midnight Jan. 13. We reached him at the airport in Santo Domingo Jan. 13 at 6 a.m. local time, as he was preparing to board a humanitarian flight to Port-au-Prince.
“I arrived this morning in Santo Domingo, just after midnight. I haven’t slept all night. I stayed a few hours in a hotel that was fully booked with aid workers. The airport was full of aid workers, rescue teams. A lot of different aid agencies are coming into Santo Domingo and trying to get into Port-au-Prince.
“The airport in Santo Domingo is organized, very under control. It’s still on the quiet side, because we are some of the first aid workers to fly in through Santo Domingo. It will start to get busier today as more aid workers fly in. It is turning into the humanitarian hub. The government of Dominican Republic is charging ahead at full speed to help. This is a big tourist country, so they have the infrastructure in place to handle so many flights and people coming in.
“At the airport, I met with many other agencies, and we are discussing how to get humanitarian supplies into Port-au-Prince. I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get to Port-au-Prince. I haven’t been able to reach our staff there by phone today, so I don’t know if anyone knows when I arrive. It’s far from the airport to CARE’s office, and it will not be easy to find transport. Roads are blocked, and fuel will be hard to come by. Electricity is a real problem.
“I brought a hammock and sleeping bag and I am prepared to sleep outside. I don’t know where I will be staying because hotels have been destroyed. The houses of our colleagues have been destroyed.
“Reports are that there is no water or food in Port-au-Prince. I’m bringing some water and food, but luggage is limited. That will be CARE’s first priority for the emergency response, and I am working with other agencies to find options to procure food and water for the people affected. Maybe from Gonaives, maybe from Dominican Republic. I will know more when I arrive what is available and what is not.”
13/01/2010 - "Everything is urgent"
by Sophie Perez, CARE Country Director in Haiti. She was in the CARE office in Port-au-Prince when the earthquake hit at about 5 p.m. local time Jan. 12, 2010. We reached her by phone at 6.30 a.m. local time Jan. 13.
“It was terrifying. The quake lasted for more than a minute. We were at the office when it happened, and the whole office was shaking really hard. People were screaming, crying, running. Everything was moving. I saw a building of nine floors completely collapse right in front of me. A bank collapsed. Even if a building isn’t totally destroyed, you can’t access the area because of the danger.
“Our staff who were with me in the office are safe, but most of their houses are collapsed. I’ve heard other aid workers from other agencies are still missing. Everyone is trying to find their families. It seems the whole city was affected – to the north, south, everywhere. It was difficult to get through the streets. Buildings have collapsed everywhere, and there is rubble blocking the roads. Many areas you can’t go by car. You can only get through by foot, because there is so much debris.
“Last night, people were sleeping outside because they were afraid to go back inside their homes. Many of the houses are destroyed anyway. There were eight aftershocks last night. Thousands of people were sleeping in the streets.
“We’re particularly worried about the children, because so many schools seem to have collapsed. In Haiti, children go to school in the afternoon. Children were still in school when the earthquake hit, so there are many children trapped. It’s horrifying. The slums on the hills have also completely collapsed. We’ve heard of landslides, with entire communities being wiped out.
“I’ve been here for many years, and I’ve experienced a few small earthquakes. But I’ve never been through anything this strong. My house is okay, but I spent the night outside by the gate with my children. There were eight aftershocks during the night, and we woke up every time. My children are terrified. Everyone is terrified.
“It is just morning here now, and I can hear helicopters working on the search and rescue. The immediate need is to rescue people trapped in the rubble, then to get people food and water. Everything is urgent.”
CARE has launched an international appeal for funds for Haiti, and has allocated an initial €100,000 (US $145,000) to immediately start emergency operations. CARE plans to start food distributions using stocks of high-protein biscuits from our warehouses in Haiti. CARE is coordinating with other UN agencies and aid organizations in the joint assessment to gather more detailed information about the damage and the needs on the ground and will rapidly scale up our response. CARE has 133 personnel already on the ground, with extensive experience responding to disasters.