ORE Haiti Earthquake Relief

http://www.oreworld.org/

Camp-Perrin, 27 January 2010

Dear Friends,

First of all, thank you for your generous support and the concern you have expressed during the past 10 days. Thank you also for your patience waiting for news from Haiti.

I can feel your love, and believe me this is as a great a help as your donations. It is difficult to put in words what is going on… so I’ll start with the bare facts of the funding status.

This is where we stand today in regards to the total amount of donations:

Network for Good	$ 18,898.35
Paypal	$25,729.20
Other	$7,380
Direct Bank wire transfer:	$14,563.16
Total:	$66,570.71

This is what has been done so far thanks to you:

After organizing the first evacuation on January 16^th, bringing back 130 people, four more trips were organized between the 17th and the 20^th January. A total of 726 people were evacuated from Port-au-Prince – though this figure is still an estimate, as babies and toddlers were not counted, so we are now collecting the final number which will be higher.

Each trip was an odyssey. The team going into the stricken capital, Daniel, Ploma, Wilson, Ruben, Willio, Manes, Edoine, all came back recounting their horror and disbelief at what they had seen. First on the road driving in as soon as they came to Morne Tapion, a mountain pass, they saw that whole sections of the road had crumbled away and deep holes had been ripped in the asphalt, with trenches along the sides. They were the first to report the devastation of the towns of Petit-Goave and Leogane, on the road to Port-au-Prince. They kept repeating ‘Leogane is no more, it has been flattened!’ We later learnt that the epicenter of the earthquake was indeed at Leogane.

Their stories of driving through Port-au-Prince were all tales of devastation and death. The smell of it, the bodies lining the streets, and later bodies being piled up. Always the smell, telling of bodies decomposing under the crushed houses. Even when the dead had been removed from the streets, the ones trapped inside the collapsed buildings made their presence known. Among our team of ‘rescuers’ there were some who just couldn’t bear to return…

But, by the 18^th, new stories were being told… about the resilience of the people. They had set-up their camps, the ‘tent cities’. Everyone was collecting all the scraps they could find to erect some kind of a ‘home’, a place to live with a minimum of decency, to protect their privacy… Bed sheets, any piece of material became a wall, a roof, to make a separation. Solidarity and sharing became the rule of law.

The role of our team was to search for family members of anxious parents, relatives, about whom they had had no news, and to bring them back to Camp Perrin. Also to invite survivors from various neighborhoods to leave Port-au-Prince and join their families and friends in the countryside. The news about the evacuation program rapidly spread by word of mouth: homeless people congregated and waited patiently for the next ride. We set up a meeting point and the trucks and buses stopped there, collecting and bringing back an average of 120 people per trip. By the 18^th, we had three vehicles involved, because so many persons had been expressing their wishes to leave Port-au-Prince.

Reaching Camp-Perrin, the drivers would stop at the request of the passengers at our gates (at O.R.E.),  announcing their arrival with loud ‘klaxon’ (horn beeping), often dropping of a few people, but above all just stopping by to say thank you… cheering and clapping! Then they were greeted by ecstatic relatives, kissing, hugging, each other, crying together.

They told us their tales, that same evening, the next day and the day after… All the displaced people showed the signs of trauma, all hesitating to enter a house, first checking to see if it was made of concrete. If it was, they wouldn’t go further than the porch, and that was where they slept during the first few nights, and for some that is still where they sleep, a week later. After oversleeping well into late morning, a rare feast for them… then they began to have a different look on their faces, realizing that they were miraculously alive, feeling so grateful and thankful to God. Often they become thoughtful, remembering their losses, the sisters, brothers, cousins, friends.

Many had returned to their families, and their families welcomed in their friends and neighbors from Port-au-Prince. No one wanted to join a refugee camp. The traditional hospitality was in place and no one refused to accommodate a guest!

However, the situation of people still staying in Port-au-Prince is very critical for many – especially those who are not on the main aid circuits, and are not receiving the help they need. We were directly solicited for help through Makil, our ‘messenger’ for O.R.E. in Port-au-Prince: to help three camps in the badly hit in neighborhood of Turgeau, which is close by his base (his former home).

There is a real urgency to help people in Port-au-Prince find food. Food is still available in Camp-Perrin although prices have increased dramatically. But it is available fairly abundantly, specially the local staple foods. So a plan was formed to help those communities who were isolated and desperate in Port-au-Prince. This effort is starting with our first delivery tomorrow. The last four days we’ve been busy preparing the corn grit and corn flour; buying and packaging the rice, locally grown beans, selecting yams and avocados.

Among the workers involved with this, are many faces from the Port-au-Prince exodus, who are already integrated in the work force, lending a hand to help the ones left behind in the capital. The food will be sent to 160 families (based on an average of 5 persons per family). The rations sent should last two weeks. They consist of 7.5 kg of rice, 2.5 kg of corn grits, 2,5 kg of beans, together with a quantity of  yams and avocados.

In Camp-Perrin we are offering food to the following groups: to the hospital of St Anne, to 26 kids who are all survivors from a orphanage which was destroyed in Port-au-Prince who were evacuated and are now staying in a church in Camp-Perrin – because the supplies they came with have run out and there is no support yet from their parish. Also a latest group of 11 refugees whose friends in Camp-Perrin could not host them as they already have 10 relatives recently returned from Port-au-Prince staying in their house.

Our relief program is in fact part of a larger combined effort, involving the community and many other entities. So far, all together we’ve been able to do the following:

-          A total of some 1,500 people were evacuated from Port-au-Prince by other institutions: the local community bank (CAPOSAC), an agricultural mechanization workshop (AECP) and individual business initiatives.

-          We have also secured the collaboration of the Ministry of Health through services provided at the small hospital in Camp-Perrin, Sainte Anne – with a capacity of 20 beds, a laboratory for basic tests, and with dressing facilities. A requisition for emergency supplies from the regional general hospital in Les Cayes was processed the same day it was submitted. (Les Cayes is the regional capital, 20 km from Camp-Perrin). To date, 4 patients were hospitalized, one was transferred to Cayes for further treatment and one died, and about 35 were treated for minor wounds.

-          The Les Cayes Rotary Club is also providing medicine as well as clothing. This is great boon as most refugees came with only the clothes they were wearing on the day of the earthquake.

-          The Minustah, UN mission in Haiti, is still in the planning stages as their coordination is on a very large scale. But we have submitted a request for tents and lodging infrastructures if we have to set-up camps later, as the flow of refugees coming into the area grows.

All the survivors have a story to tell and I marvel at their resilience. And I want to share with you their expressions of gratitude. They have experienced such relief, being helped to escape… to escape the weight of the horror, the discomfort, having to sleeping outside, with no access to basic necessities, fearing every noise, terrified again and again by each of the repeated aftershocks.

The last group to arrive in Camp-Perrin had no ties to anywhere in Haiti apart from Port-au-Prince. But Port-au-Prince was utterly unbearable, so they called a friend, Smith, in Camp-Perrin and told him ‘we are coming!’ They set out walking, and eventually got a ride on a truck only to have it break down on the way. It was getting dark and they were stuck in the countryside. They had no idea where they were, and even the name of the village didn’t mean anything to them. As they said, ‘we had no idea what to expect from the provinces.’ But they found hospitality, they were welcomed in to spend that night at a nuns’ home. Food and beds were provided for all 13 of them. But they were determined to reach Camp-Perrin. With no more money, they called their friend again. Smith could not offer them a place to stay, as he himself had escaped Port-au-Prince with 5 of his siblings, returning to his own family, now all living their small very overcrowded home. So when we received his request for help, we sent for them – and arranged for them to be guests at the EFACAP school… and one tiny four-month old baby, Anne Coralie, has such a beautiful smile that she has already conquered the hearts of neighboring well-wishers.

Their thanks are all for you… who have made this relief possible, who are making it possible for more relief to be offered during this uncertain period, lifting from their minds the worry of the basic necessities: health, food, shelter, clothing.

A special thanks to you from Yves-Lyze and her 3 kids (1, 4 and 6 years old) who survived against all odds, their home at the second floor crumbling around them and under their feet, escaping through their bathroom window to the roof of the next door house. She is mourning the loss of her sister-in-law who lived a floor below. Thanks from a fragile Ludgie who had gone to live with her aunt, who had 4 daughters and a son, to attend business school; sadly, Ludgie is now the sole survivor of that household.

Thanks also from Joane who had to search for her 5 year-old in the rubble, pulling out many bodies who looked the same age as her son, digging with her bare hands, going through every pile of bodies in her street, until she finally discovered him alive. Now, one day after arriving in Camp Perrin, they are sleeping soundly, despite their recent memories. Joane said: ‘We, the survivors all became strong in an instant, we ignored the horror we were seeing, we were filled with a sudden surge of energy, looking for our loved ones. I never knew I had that strength inside me.’

Thanks from Marie Michele, Josie, Mirline, Melissa, Kenley, Osner, Sherline, Tatoune, Viviane, Magalie, Astride, Dieuseul, Islande, Claudine, Patricia, Samantha, Jonel, Sedene, Valencia, Nadine, Sergo, Carole, Schecania, Emeraude, Rita, Alourdes, Odette, Romual, Jordany, Manoucheka… and so many more…

Thank you all and God bless!

Dr Mousson Pierre Finnigan

Directeur Général ORE

(509) 3758 7565

mail@oreworld.org

http://www.oreworld.org/

click here to download a pdf version of this letter

Dear Friends,

This is what is happening thanks to you!

First, a short account of what we experienced:

Camp-Perrin, January 12th, 2010, 4:53 pm:

Four of us from ORE still working at the office compound, looked at each other, trying to understand what was happening. I was on the phone with a visiting associate from MIT university. The floor was undulating under my chair, was rocking me back and forth… I looked at Eliassaint sitting across the table, to check and see if he was feeling what I was experiencing, and the realization came to both of us exactly the same moment: tremblement de terre! (it’s an earth quake!) I immediately got up and run outside as I heard the person on the phone saying ‘the earth is shaking!’ and the line went dead.

I was followed out by Eliassaint, and we both called Faubert and Benoit to come out. The undulating movement continued for several more seconds. When it stopped, we were all four standing there, looking at the building, still not knowing what to do next. Eventually we went back inside, and Ben went around looking for cracks. We described to each other what we felt, then we went back to doing whatever we had been doing before.

Meanwhile we could hear people in the vicinity talking loudly, everyone asking ‘what was that’?

Few minutes later, it started again. No hesitation this time to immediately run outside!

Outside I started to feel my legs trembling, as if I had been running or overexerting myself. I just felt scared. Felt completely vulnerable, at the mercy of a force obeying its own will. And the words, my spiritual mantra, came by themselves rolling on in my head.

The second quake lasted less time than the first. Then we all became restless. Suddenly we began to wonder how everyone else was, if it was only a local thing. At that point I got a call from Patrick in Les Cayes, the closest town. He was asking: ‘did you feel that, what is happening’? He said that he’d heard of one house  destroyed in Les Cayes, and that there was serious damage in Port-au-Prince. So I immediately started to call people in Port-au-Prince, but none of the calls went through… Then I noticed on my laptop that the earthquake was a news item on Yahoo, just describing the magnitude and location of the epicenter. I couldn’t believe that we had felt it so strongly when the center was in Port-au-Prince, 190 kms away!

I went to my house, which is just a short distance from the office compound. Only then did I realize that I hadn’t thought to worry about my mother, who is bedridden, but who was in fact fine. After a while Benoit and Eliassaint came to look at the house and decided it was safe, no cracks from the quake.

I remembered that I could watch the news on CNN, and then it became clear that Port-au-Prince was very badly hit. We became frantic to reach anyone in Port-au-Prince, Eliassaint has all his kids there. No calls were going through.

At 10:58 pm (as recorded by cell phone) I received a call from Makil in Port-au-Prince: his words just made me grow cold. The house where I stay in Port-au-Prince, our office in Port-au-Prince, was down! He had just rushed out when the walls started to crumble, as he heard the crash of the neighbor’s walls in our back yard. The houses to the left and right were down. An old lady was trapped in one of them, and her son (who had been standing outside) was being helped by neighbors to try and reach her.

Makil, an ORE messenger, a faithful collaborator and friend, was out in the street where he intended to just stay for the night. He spoke of the destruction he had witnessed, telling me how many of the city’s landmark buildings were destroyed: the Presidential Palace, the Sacré Coeur church, the Tax building, the local supermarket. These, he and his son, had seen with their own eyes. I could hear the sadness and the incomprehension in his voice. I wanted desperately to find out about all the people I know in Port-au-Prince. I felt helpless and frustrated. Then I got a call from my sister, Micky, who lives in Paris. She had just heard about it on the radio. I told her to watch it on TV, then she would understand. I reassured her that Camp-Perrin had been spared, explained Makil’s plight.

During the next 24 hours I was just numb, in shock, searching for news, waiting to hear from friends, relatives. Then suddenly, realizing that we needed to be doing something to help. We were safe, we live in an area that had been spared! We have Internet and electricity and all around everyone was worried sick, trying to get news of their loved ones.

The plan for rescue started to take form: the idea of setting up a refugee camp, to try and get people out of the nightmare in Port-au-Prince. As we started planning, offers of help started flooding my email box, and it became clear that money would be available to provide the necessary logistics (tents, food, hygiene kits, water, clothing). Discussing it with the ORE team and other local groups, we realized that the first priority was to evacuate as many people as possible from Port-au-Prince, to get people originally from Camp-Perrin out of the city.

Every day now we have buses with more than a hundred evacuees. As the numbers of homeless people, without means and in need of medical assistance keeps rising, we are beginning the longer-term phase of providing shelter in available buildings, and when that is full we will be setting up a camp for vulnerable survivors who have no family and nowhere else to go to.  While the evacuation process continues, we are using the funds which have been so generously provided to give homes and basic necessities to the homeless.

This is where we stand today – Donations to date (18 January 2010):

Network for Good & Facebook:	$11,969
Paypal:	$6,264
Bank wire transfer:	$10,000
Other (various)	$2,150
Total:	$30,383

Some were kids from Camp Perrin who were in schools in Port-au-Prince, other folks from Port-au-Prince with no where else to go. Everybody has been living in the streets since the quake. Their gratitude was incredible. I have never seen Haitians so exuberant, hugging and hugging me. All day long the next day, people, school kids, are stopping by to thank us.”

 

All your support is making such a difference to the lives of those helped. It is hard to imagine the happiness and relief of finally being helped to leave a nightmare of such enormous proportions.

Dr Mousson Pierre Finnigan

Directeur Général ORE

(509) 3758 7565

mail@oreworld.org

http://www.oreworld.org/