Haiti - The Love of Home

Haiti - The Love of Home - 11 April 2010

After 35 days in country, I arrived home from Haiti to the warm, open arms of my loving wife Christy and three of the four best kids in the world; Jonas, William, and Lauren Thursday night. Ironically, my return to Oregon 08 April 10, was the 24th birthday of Number One of four, Ricky, who welcomed me home in spirit from Rockland, Maine where he is a fisher of lob-sta’.

It is very, very good to be home – to a welcoming house with cats and a dog, a soft bed, and the sweet, sweet sounds of family; Jonas singing songs of KISS, William whistling, Lauren reading aloud, Christy calling my name – not in vain of course!

After makin’ up for some of the lost 35 days away, my first order of business Friday was to eat, eat, eat – first a breakfast of fresh eggs, home fries, toast along with brewed coffee; next came lunch, a large Greek salad tossed crisp with real feta, followed by Mexican for dinner. In between meals was Starbucks – Oh thank you Starbucks!!!

Also on my return menu was a blustery weekend of baseball and softball; Jonas played Friday and Saturday night; Saturday morning was softball with Lauren, while William played his team from last year – The Red Sox – Saturday afternoon.

Then it was Saturday date night with my lovely wife Christy – to the St. Ignatius School Benefit Auction – where my companion shined, the food was wonderful, and lots and lots of money was spent by people who just move decimals in life.

Sunday was lazy, sunny day with nothing to do but snuggle with Christy and the kids – and of course eat some more!

It’s been a grand homecoming. Lots of love, good cheer, and warm wishes from friends and family alike. It is indeed very, very good to be home – until when next I leave – as it is these memories that will carry me home yet again.

NOTE - Additional Haiti blog entries about such subjects as KITES and SOCCER BALLS for Haiti’s kids, The UN, Friends, The Way Forward, as well as My Return, will be posted in the coming days. Thanks to all for your love and support.

It is an amazing sight

Haiti, Day XXXII, 04 April 2010 – Easter Day

It is an amazing sight, witnessing how the seeming simple and benign can bring such immense pleasure and profound moments of peace. For the children of Haiti, that to which I speak is kites.

Kiting in Haiti is as engrained into the Haitian culture of youth as is political upheaval to adult Haitian society. Given this country’s tumultuous earthbound history of foreign intervention, internal corruption, natural disasters, poverty, disease, and blight, is it any wonder Haitian children take to the skies to find freedom and joy?

To “go fly a kite” Haitian style, it all begins first on the ground as these simple toys are for the most part home-made. First, children gather sticks, usually from under a nearby mango tree. The sticks are sized, then tied together with whatever twine can be found. With the frame complete, next comes its sail and tail, made out of whatever plastic can be found, usually a discarded shopping bag. Finally, after the kite is complete, string is gathered to maintain “operational control” and the kite is tossed windward for flight.

Once crafted, these youthful kite makers dance their way through open fields, cramped camp paths, or dodge electric lines above rubble-filled streets in search of flight. Upon their success of flight, burdens of daily Haitian existence become lost and pure momentary joy beams from an infectious ear-to-ear smile.

However, in this complicated land of extremes, nothing, not even kiting is as simple and innocent as it seems as among some, the flying of kites is serious competitive social sport. Is this any surprise to a land where cock fighting rules street gambling, kids compete for aerial dominance?

Similar to kiting culture in Pakistan, Afghanistan, these kites have a dirty little secret. As do their cock-fighting counterparts, these kites use razor-embedded tails and lines glued with glass turning these aerial dances into a dog-fight where only the most skillful and strongest survive. In essence, much like Haiti itself.

Hoping to bring more smiles to Haiti’s children, a small group attached to Operation Unified Response, Joint Task Force Haiti has reached back home asking for donations of Kites.

Known as K.I.T.E.S. for Haiti’s Kids, volunteers from the US Army Corps of Engineers and Naval Facility Engineering Command to date have received and distributed more than 200 kites and await shipment of the more than 500 pledged.

This international grass-root effort, according to one organizer, is simply to “Put a smile on as many young Haitian faces as possible. It’s a simple, easy way to solve problems, if only for a moment in time – Candy and Kites from Americans who care.”

HAITI Photo Galery:

PHOTOS by: Rick Benoit

(Please cut and paste to view):




Pictures from 24 March 10

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=215477169308:273852303

Below is the link to my 21 March 2010 photos.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=802016759308:1474399531

Photos from 18 March 2010

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=184757359308:2031150874

Photos from 17 March 2010

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=285235259308:1814330610

K.I.T.E.S.
For Haiti’s Kids

Members of US Joint Task Force HAITI deployed to Port au Prince are collecting Kites for Haiti’s Kids.

Simple traditional Kites are being collected as gifts to children throughout Haiti and Port au Prince for the upcoming Haitian “Kiting” season beginning in April. If you, your family or organization would like to collect kites & kite string, please follow these simple steps:

1. Bundle kites and string in packages no heavier than 25 pounds;
2. Mail bundles to:

Kites for Haiti’s Kids
JTF HAITI J-7 JFO
APO AA 34066

Members of JTF Haiti and our Haitian friends Thank You

As the new work week begins

Haiti, Day V, VI, VII, 9 Mar 2010

As the new work week begins, Monday proved to be a marathon at 17 hours, while today will close after a 0600 to 2200 (16 hours). However, my days are still shorter than the average Haitian's daily struggle.

Now, it's down to the more mundane tasks of emergency response & recovery. However this being Haiti, nothing is boring. Spent the day checking work sites & debating contract specifics with Army and Navy officers, UN administrators, and Government officials.

Contract's are for clearing up to eight open sewer canals of debris that are up to 15 feet deep and about 30 feet wide. This in essence is the Port au Prince infrastructure for sewer disposal. P-U!!!

We are finalizing site surveys to relocate up to 200,000 "Indigenous Displaced Persons" within the next couple of weeks. I do not anticipate this being an easy on a number of different levels. Also, a land pier north of Port au Prince is being created out of the concrete debris and rubble created by collapsed homes and buildings. Finally, plans will be implemented next week to begin clearing demolished structures in the Trugeau neighborhood og Port au Prince.

An interesting couple of days to say the least. Photo's below. Stay well

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=941078149308%3A1899488878 (cut and paste)


Haiti, Day IV - 08 March 10: Today was spent walking ankle-deep in sewer sludge. Haiti in the best of times has minimal infra-structure. Post-hurricane Haiti, especially its capital Port au Prince, indoor plumbing is nearly non-existent (Seeing folks stand and squat in the street is common). More than 2-million resident...s in 15 square miles - that's a lot of "stuff running downhill in open sidewalk trenches! Photos below.

Stay well.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=829408049308 (cut and paste)

Ad Vitam ... Rick

Something to think about.

Kids here love kites. They may not have food, clothes, or family to care for them; but they love flying kites. This would be a great family / school / church project.

So, be ready to begin collecting and sending kites to me. More information and instructions to follow.

Haiti is a country

Haiti, Day III - 07 March 10

of contrasts and contradictions, of pollution and gentle beauty, and as I wrote yesterday of utter poverty and vibrant commerce. Haiti is simply a country without hope, without political benevolence, without smiles. It is, however, the inner strength of its people that keeps Haitian society alive.

Today's awareness tour of Port au Prince again brought me to its seaport where issues of land security and squatter rights were discussed and debated with the MINUSTAH (a UN member Peacekeeping force from India), the slum Cite Soleil where we site surveyed profound environmental degradation, the neighborhood of Turgeau, Sacred Heart Church and the National Cathedral of Notre Dame to determine demolition removal.

Historically, this island nation floats on an ocean of waste and debris. There are open street sewers which people use in full view of ambivalent crowds. There are smoldering piles of street garbage where shoulder-to-shoulder pigs fatten and children find food. Main-street vendors sell slaughtered goats from wheel barrels, hang sides of beef from trees while live squawking chickens hang from nearby walls. The stench of rotting food and exhaust fumes causes nausea, headaches, burning eyes and sore throat to the unaccustomed.

Seemingly cursed by history, generations of Haitians endure to this day living in pestilent shanty towns, walking among open pools of human waste, eating from piles of rotting food, as well the suffering from the cruelty of Mother Nature's hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. None of this seemed to matter, as today, Haiti's mostly Christian population spent this Sunday as they have for years before filling what churches remained until overflowing to celebrate faith in what possibly is the last remaining belief they hold.

For today's pictures - titled 07 Mar 10 - please click the below link.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/photoPicker/albums.jsp?collid=150222939308

Nothing like six hours sleep

Haiti, Day II - Saturday, 06 March 10

Nothing like six hours sleep on an Army cot in a tent with 12 guys and copious mosquitoes to refresh for a 12-hour work day. However, any complaints I might have had were immediately purged as I left the Embassy compound this morning for my area familiarization tour of Port au Prince and surrounding areas. Any image of devastation you may have of Haiti, compound it by a factor of 10, with one exception - the resilience and resolve of the Haitian people; compound those attributes by 20. I was absolutely amazed by the amount of energy put into, what would be considered by US standards, a pathetic and hopeless existence. Throughout the day, I watched as people worked together scavenging barefoot among earthquake rubble for scrap to sell while animated sidewalk commerce thrived with the selling of everything from live chickens, fruits, and vegetables, to used tires, oil, and clothing. There was no sense of entitlement, only an apparent drive to help themselves as best they knew. It was a heart-warming sight given Haiti's historical hardships and current tragedy. Today's trip took me to the destroyed Port au Prince neighborhoods of Petionville, Turgeau, and the infamous slum of Cite Soleil with its estimated 1-million residents. Also viewed was the collapsed mountainside resort Hotel Montana (where former President Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got married as well as honeymooned), the demolished National Palace and its neighboring tent city of 100,000 people, and the Mass Grave Site containing more than 150,000 victims in the Sources Puantes area. In all, today was an exceptionally humbling experience, one where I bowed my head in thanks for the life I; we, have been allowed to live.

Finally on the Ground

Haiti, Day I - Friday, March 05

Finally on the Ground in Haiti. Landed about 1300 Friday at chaotic Port au Prince International Airport after a couple of shaky low-flying airport fly-bys. However, I was able to get a wide view from the air of the extensive structural earthquake damage. Crumbled building (in the hundreds of thousands) as far as one could see. Tent cities and shanty towns built atop the rubble.

Once on the ground, the destruction was magnified, permeated by a stench unlike any I have experienced. I have to tell you, TV and the print media can't begin to describe the extent of this country's massive losses.

The five-mile drive from Haiti's airport to our US Embassy was lined with kids chasing our Haitian-driven Land Rover begging for money, adults selling everything from motor oil to food, cigars, VooDoo Tiki's and themselves. Moreover, the drive over a torturous unpaved road passing crumbled homes and shops as well as dead animals was more like a demolition derby among cars, scooters, and pedestrians. Kind of made me think of Boston at rush-hour - it was every car and person for themselves.

Tonight I get to sleep in a 12-person tent with a bunch of un-showered guys under mosquito netting in a sleeping bag on the Embassy's back lot. No matter, even after eating my MRE (field-ready military food) of Chile and Beans, I will still be in a much better place than most Haitians as we sleep tonight.

Tomorrow I will tour the city. Lots of work ahead.

A difficult day kicking off ...

Haiti, Day IVX - 18 March 2010:

A challenging street clearing contract in the PaP neighborhood of Trugeau. A 0700 start became 0930, equipment broke & a dump manager wanted his "cut."

Business in Haiti is not unlike other places in the works. However, historically its government and other public officials are known to "misuse" their office and "misappropriate" public funds. I witnessed this today, as a manager of a government-run landfill (which would be a superfund site in the States) wanted money from us to use what was otherwise a free site! Needless to say our bi-lingual discussions were spirited and somewhat tense as a crowd gathered around us from the local squatter's camp at the dump. We won that round and a good project began.

A major difficulty is our expected continual discovery of human remains. Twice today became somber moments of reflection as we discovered that which once lived still trapped by rubble in the January 12 earthquake's death grip. With respect and deference, remains are recovered and processed by military Mortuary Affairs personnel or the volunteer non-governmental organization (NGO) White Helmets of Argentina. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Helmets Sadly, we have been told to expect more than 50,000 sets of human remains in rubble which will need be bagged and tagged. All of this in addition to the already estimated 250,000 dead.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=184757359308:2031150874 (cut and paste)

(CAUTION: Pictures contain human remains)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Haiti, Day XIII - 17 March 2010:

Happy St. Patrick's Day. My favorite "fun" holiday usually spent with family eating Corned Beef and at times sippin' a wee bit of Irish joy. This year the only thing Irish was the Army-Green packaging of my MRE (Meals Ready to Eat). Tonight's green-foiled vacuumed-packed selection was Roast Beef & Vegetables with powered Orange drink. Yummmmm - Erin Go Bragh

Pictures

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=285235259308:1814330610 (cut and paste)

Erin Go Bragh

Some came from homes ...

Haiti, Day XXVII – 01 April 2010

Some came from homes of concrete and brick; others came from shanties of tin and wood. Most traveled from crumbled neighborhoods and devastated towns to places like Terrian Golf / Delmas 48 as a result of the massive January 12 earthquake. By some estimates, more than 1.2-million men, women, and children found their way from among the rubble where once stood proud and neat homes, to displacement camps filled with multi-colored tarps, tent, and cloth.

These Individual Displaced Person (IDP) camps are called home by as few as 20 to as many as 60,000 homeless Haitians at any one site from places like Carrefore, Petionville, and Leagone. Camps sit along side dusty dirt roads, on the medium strip of exhausted-filled highways, at putrid landfills, among banana groves, in city parks, next to methane-bubbling sewer trenches, and even on a golf course.

In most cases, what awaits this wandering band of uprooted Haitian society are overpowering stench of open sewers and piles of rotting garbage, sometimes rotting flesh, as well as unclean water and dust, smog-filled air. Camp residents live in cramped squalled conditions, side-by-side in huts made of frayed blue tarps and bed sheets, open tents sleeping hillside on hard-packed dirt floors. There is little privacy; bathing and toileting are done in full view of all nearby.

Crime is high, especially against women and children. Services are stretched thin as social and medical care depends on Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s) like Doctor’s Without Boarders (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/). Delivery of food and clean water is sparse, dependent on private non-profit groups such as the Jenkins – Penn Haitian Relief Organization (http://www.jphrodonate.org/), sponsor of the Terrian Golf / Delmas 48 IDP Camp in Port au Prince. All depend on donations.

But for it all, there is a rhythm to life in the camps. Cooks selling foods of fried plantains or rice, craftsmen bartering hand-carved tikis squat along dirt paths outside their tents. Kids, when not begging for money or food, play soccer with duct-taped balls or fly homemade kites. Women gather water and wash cloths, men clean ditches or help frame a soon-to-be erected tarp tent. All the while babies and tots play naked in the dirt.

Hopeless and desperate as their situation appears, to a stranger children offer wide, beaming smiles and ask for high fives while chattering in Creole. Women and men nod, locking eyes when greeting with “Bonjou” in Creole or “Hello” in broken English. And although begging is a way for life for some, others will offer to share. And even though NO is common to both languages, a friendly “Orevwa” is given as strangers walk away.

Today was an engineering ...

Haiti, Day XXV - 29 March 10

Today was an engineering, or should I say reverse-engineering day as we knocked down 10-foot high retaining walls that were threatening about 100 people at the Terrian Golf / Delmas 48 shanty town, the camp Sean Penn advocates for. (http://jphrodonate.org/) It was quite a scene, us Americans directing Haitian workers with my broken french and hand signals in front of a large and amused crowd of homeless people displaced by the 12 January 10 earthquake. However, smashing thru dirt, dust, and the humid 95-degree air, we got it done, brick by brick, reverse-engineering a warped and weakened 100-foot crumbling wall.

However, as the final brink hit the hard dirt ground of the former gold course, Part II of our project kicked in. Many of our on-lookers began scavenging thru the debris looking for anything usable, which was about everything, for their tarp or tent home. It was controlled chaos to claim even the smallest bit of rubble, a broken brick, twisted rebar, barbed wire, for use in their shanties. I never saw so many people so happy to receive a gift so often discarded by Americans, broken concrete blocks.

This encampment began spontaneously almost immediately after the earth shook as more than 60,000 people sought the safety of this former nine-hole golf course and tennis club. About a week after the quake, Sean Penn arrived and almost immediately began advocating for the camp with both his celebrity and money; $1-million worth.

Made up on homes built with two tarps and four poles, as well as camping tents, nearly all are situated on slopes and will be subject to flooding once the rain season begins in April. Thus the flurry of activity with USACE, Navy Sea-Bees, and 82nd Airborne as well as sense of urgency by the Jenkins Penn Relief Organization to meditate potential hazards.

Now, as if the day were not eventful enough, on our way out of the camp, a boy about 10 years old collapsed right in front of our vehicle. Nearly 50 people stood about saying he had suffered a seizure (in Haitian of course!). Of slight build, the child was peddling .25 liter bags of water, carrying about 20 pounds worth on his head on this 95-degree humid day. With no family or friends nearby, he was found with barely a pulse, shallow breathing and unconscious; a seizure was unlikely.

It was heat stroke (not exhaustion) that felled him. Alex, as we later learned his name to be, was carried to a near-by clinic where he was being treated. I believe he will be OK as when he awoke, the first thing he wanted was his water and money.

This is a very powerful, overwhelming place! Thanks for letting me share this ongoing story.

Today's Pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=585142869308&ownerId=36658952208

Pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=971505279308&ownerId=36658952208

Friday was a good day ...

Haiti, Day XXI, Friday, 26 March 10

Friday was a good day, far above most good days thus far spent in Haiti. It was indeed a very good day in Bolosse, a hilltop neighborhood built into the slopes overlooking Port au Prince, its people, its slums, its desperate streets and waterfront below.

After an immersion in utter human misery and squallier, the afternoon at Bolosse was brief relief from scenes of complete destruction, cries of hunger, as well as the ever-present stench of death and decay. Found in Bolosse, was a lesser middle class neighborhood of neat two and three story homes surprisingly unscathed by the 12 January earthquake. Now, middle class by Haitian standards fall well below that expected in the United States. Middle class Haitian means having a home built of brick and concrete rather than a tent or tarp, heeding nature’s call in an in-home pit rather than a bucket, cooking indoors not outdoors, sitting on a porch not a sidewalk.

Not unlike other parts of Port au Prince, the steep narrow street of Rue Bolosse #3, was filled with busted up vehicles, trash and open sewers running down hill. However this 95-degree hot and humid day saw babies rolling butt naked on dusty front yard dirt, children impishly playing peek-a-boo with visitors from a foreign land, teens contesting an animated game of sidewalk checkers under a shade tarp, men fixing busted vehicles beneath an mango tree, women working their road-side stands.

It was a neighborhood where etched among the pained expressions of daily life, the air was just a bit cleaner; the laughter a little bit louder; the cooked aroma of yesterday’s pet goat and chicken tantalizing. It was a magical place among desperate places for a brief moment in time.

Friday 26 March pictures

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=416531469308:717234688

A Day in a life ...

Haiti, Day IXX - 24 March 10 - A Day in a life:

Nineteen days into this Haitian Vacation, somewhat of a daily routine has begun. With the neighborhood rooster’s 4 a.m. wake-up filling our 10-person tent, I roll from my cot to steal one of the five cold showers shared by several hundred. A shower, a shave, a quick work out before walking thru muggy, stinky air to the office by 0530. Once seated in my executive cubicle, The Day begins. Cold instant coffee (Taster’s Choice and bottled water - No Starbucks or Dunkies), and a gourmet selection of Pop Tarts, Breakfast Bars, and / or powered eggs out of a foil bag – yummy!

Our 14-hour-plus days begin with e-mails, Visits, phone calls, Visits, meetings, and more Visits. We share office space at the walled, armed-guarded and bullet-proof US Embassy with US-AID, the diplomatic / humanitarian State Department arm of the US government. As you can imagine, the Embassy is a bee-hive of activity, especially with hundreds of additional personnel assisting this multi-faceted earthquake relief effort.

After picking up our SUV, driver, and armed escort, we hit the streets of Haiti around 0800. Yes, I said “Armed” escort, usually an Army officer carrying a 9-mm handgun. This is more of a precaution due to Haiti’s history of political instability and Port au Prince’s extremely high crime rate (4th in the world). Besides, if I carried, I’d end up being responsible for toppling a government! Only armed with a snack bag for street urchins and a four-star lunch selection of pre-cooked pepper steak in hand, we are off to visit / inspect a broken neighborhood, a dump or sewer, and / or a refugee camp. Essentially we will spend road time coordinating a pick-up of human remains, mediating an issue regarding camp conditions, accessing damage to a home or other structure, scout out property to relocate refugees or place a landfill.

Driving about Haiti is like few places in the world; cars zoom past each other in five lanes on roads built for two; smog is so thick you can taste it, vehicles billowing clouds of black smoke, garbage burns in open road-side fires where pigs, goats and cows wander and eat, people are everywhere, walking, talking, cooking, buying, selling, begging, peeing or pooping for all the world to see. And the backdrop for our work is the utter and total devastation of this country; not only from the earthquake but from itself.

No matter what is attempted, there are many, many, many layers of organizational procedures that must be traveled; first thru the Navy, then to the Army, then to a sub-committee, then to Minustah (UN). Finally, after many hours of debate and investigation by an exceptional group of public servants and volunteers, policy and remediation is forwarded to the Government of Haiti where it becomes lost in a rat maze of bureaucratic and political skullduggery! No wonder Haiti remains a fifth world country.

Our day ends usually by 2200 when the mad scramble begins to find an open cell phone circuit to call home or report in on line. If not held up by an end-of-day brief, we throw our bodies under mosquito, flop on our cot and are asleep by 2300 thinking of loved ones and appreciating just how good life is back home.

Pictures from 24 March 10

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=215477169308:273852303

Today I cried ...

Haiti, Day XVII - 21 March 2010

Today I cried for Haiti. I have been here 17 days and it is only today that I cry. More than two weeks bearing witness to an earthquake’s aftermath, the devastation of families whose loved ones are anonymously buried in mass graves, the destruction of homes and property crumbled on to streets, hungry children begging for food morning to night. Yet it was only today that my eyes filled with tears for Haiti and her people.

For nearly three weeks I assimilated and acclimated standing where neighborhoods lay crumbled and stealing pictures of heartache from a refugee’s face. I have been living and breathing the filth and poverty that is and always has been Haiti.

However, today I visited a church, the Church of the Sacred Heart. A magnificent structure in its simple wooden and brick design, this church lays in ruin, its sides collapsed, stained glass broken, pews and alter crushed, its statues buried in rubble. Although this historic building is weakened beyond repair, the faith of its devastated faithful remains unshaken and strong. For them, I cried, to acknowledge their pain and suffering, to honor their strength and courage.

Mass now is celebrated in a cleared dusty lot behind a crumbled rear wall exposing the backside of a damaged but standing 20-foot crucifix. Outside, a table stands where an alter would. Members sit on salvaged pews. Both are shaded from the persistent sun by a canvas tarps. On a recent weekday visit, Mass was being celebrated under a 95-degree sun to a standing-room gathering loudly praising thru prayer and song. Warmly invited, I attended as one of few foreigners among many Haitians. It was an inspiring yet heart-wrenching moment.

A return visit Sunday found moments of deafening reflection and sorrow. In one pew was a grieving father waving arms skyward crying outwardly on the death of his wife and three daughters. At another sat a brother and sister, both younger than 10, sobbing for their parents to come home. At a nearby grotto, more than 20 people kneeled, sat, or lay on the ground before the Mother Mary seemingly in a perpetual daze from losses on more than two months ago. All had lost a home; all had lost a child, a spouse, a family member or friend beneath the crushing debris of moving earth which forever crushed their world. It is for them, it is for us, it is for me that today I cried for Haiti and her people.

Some came from homes ...

Haiti, Day XXVII – 01 April 2010

Some came from homes of concrete and brick; others came from shanties of tin and wood. Most traveled from crumbled neighborhoods and devastated towns to places like Terrian Golf / Delmas 48 as a result of the massive January 12 earthquake. By some estimates, more than 1.2-million men, women, and children found their way from among the rubble where once stood proud and neat homes, to displacement camps filled with multi-colored tarps, tent, and cloth.

These Individual Displaced Person (IDP) camps are called home by as few as 20 to as many as 60,000 homeless Haitians at any one site from places like Carrefore, Petionville, and Leagone. Camps sit along side dusty dirt roads, on the medium strip of exhausted-filled highways, at putrid landfills, among banana groves, in city parks, next to methane-bubbling sewer trenches, and even on a golf course.

In most cases, what awaits this wandering band of uprooted Haitian society are overpowering stench of open sewers and piles of rotting garbage, sometimes rotting flesh, as well as unclean water and dust, smog-filled air. Camp residents live in cramped squalled conditions, side-by-side in huts made of frayed blue tarps and bed sheets, open tents sleeping hillside on hard-packed dirt floors. There is little privacy; bathing and toileting are done in full view of all nearby.

Crime is high, especially against women and children. Services are stretched thin as social and medical care depends on Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s) like Doctor’s Without Boarders (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/). Delivery of food and clean water is sparse, dependent on private non-profit groups such as the Jenkins – Penn Haitian Relief Organization (http://www.jphrodonate.org/), sponsor of the Terrian Golf / Delmas 48 IDP Camp in Port au Prince. All depend on donations.

But for it all, there is a rhythm to life in the camps. Cooks selling foods of fried plantains or rice, craftsmen bartering hand-carved tikis squat along dirt paths outside their tents. Kids, when not begging for money or food, play soccer with duct-taped balls or fly homemade kites. Women gather water and wash cloths, men clean ditches or help frame a soon-to-be erected tarp tent. All the while babies and tots play naked in the dirt.

Hopeless and desperate as their situation appears, to a stranger children offer wide, beaming smiles and ask for high fives while chattering in Creole. Women and men nod, locking eyes when greeting with “Bonjou” in Creole or “Hello” in broken English. And although begging is a way for life for some, others will offer to share. And even though NO is common to both languages, a friendly “Orevwa” is given as strangers walk away.