haiti update - january 28, 2010

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3-10

This update focuses on the destruction caused by the earthquake in terms of buildings and human lives. One of the people who have taken refuge in our yard told me that his house was destroyed in about 5 seconds. In our running around we were confronted by destroyed buildings and death everywhere we went. The only thing to do in the beginning was to ignore it. The next couple of days people were trying to figure out what to do with bodies. When bodies were removed from buildings they were put nearby for families to find who were searching. It quickly became apparent that there were many bodies and something had to be done with them. Government wasn’t functioning and no vehicles came by to pick up bodies. After a few days bodies were still on sidewalks and open spaces near streets. One vehicle we followed behind had a stack of at least 30 bodies in the back of his “canter” and when we got stuck in heavy traffic on Ave. Martin Luther King the driver and another guy got out and took the bodies out and stacked them on the sidewalk. These bodies were of children, men, women and elderly. They joined the many other bodies we saw lying along the roadway. The smell of death is a terrible smell and after a couple of days in the sun the smell is very powerful. We would talk with people and ask them to contact the mayor’s people and they would come back and say that the mayor’s department didn’t have the resources to do this. We encouraged the people in our neighborhood to bury bodies on government land areas near the road. I told them that we would contact UN and other authorities later when things settled down to remove them and rebury them. This is what many people did throughout the city. Fuel was rare in the beginning. If we could have we would have hauled the bodies in our area to the morgue to join the stack of bodies there. There was one young woman whose father had died in the rubble of her house and his body was on the side of the street for a couple of days. The men in the area encouraged her to allow them to put her father’s body into a “temporary” grave. Reluctantly she did so, but I think now she is feeling better about the decision. So many bodies were dumped into mass graves and she knows where her father is (even if he is at the side of the street in a shallow grave). Jeff saw a body that was dumped in a manhole. Other bodies were disposed of by burning them on the street. All this was done out of necessity by the people.
When we brought Tanya, Marlene and Teresa to the airport on Tuesday a couple of Canadian rescue workers asked us if we could drive them over to the Hotel Montana site. If you would like to read about their efforts follow the link to www.internationalrescue.ca
They told me about how frustrated they were at the Caribbean Supermarket site on Monday. Heavy machinery was brought in to work and they were not done the rescue search yet. They couldn’t support what was being done and walked away from the site. They decided to go help out at the Hotel Montana site on Tuesday. This same team had pulled out some of the UN members killed on prior search days in the beginning. The one team worker had been to 11 earthquake disasters in his career and he said that the Haiti earthquake was the worst one he had ever been to. The next closest earthquake disaster was the one in Iran. Pray for all the rescue teams that came from all over the world to help out searching for trapped people. The Haitian government announced on Wednesday the official end to the search. Now the clean up phase begins where heavy equipment and bulldozers go to work.
According to a UN estimate, 1 million children and adolescents are either orphans or have lost at least 1 parent as a result of the earthquake. Some children as young as 3 years old are on the streets of Port-au-Prince. At the clinics that were held 2 people came and asked for help because the mother was killed in the earthquake. In both cases the child was an infant of 3 months old. Dorothy of Faith, Hope, Love Infant Rescue is going to help both these babies until they are able to return to their extended families. In both these cases the families don’t want to give up these babies for adoption but want a helping hand.
We went to the GOC University site, which is located on Ave. Martin Luther King yesterday. This is the university where 2 people of the Coram Deo family, Samuel Marcelin and Jackenmy Milien lost their lives. Their bodies are still not found. We don’t know if they have been hauled away with the other bodies and dumped into mass graves or if they are still in the rubble of the school building. At the site we found 3 bodies lying on the rubble as well as human bones along the site. Many students lost their lives at this site. We know where Samuel and Jackenmy were at the time of the earthquake. They were studying in a room with friends. When the earthquake hit they raced out to the stairwell to run down the stairs. The female student that was with them couldn’t move because of the shaking building and she then layed on the classroom floor. The building collapsed with her but she wasn’t killed. She kept in contact with her family by cell phone and the rescuers removed her from the rubble alive. This student told the others here at Coram Deo what happened to Milien and Samuel.
A friend of Marie’s, who comes here often to Coram Deo, lost 4 family members at her collapsed home. Almost every Haitian person I talk with tells me that they have lost their home. Pray for the people of Port-au-Prince. It is going to take a lot of work to reconstruct the city.
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo