13 January 2010
We woke on the golf course around dawn to the noise of the UN soldiers scurrying into position with little red flags, apparently to wave in a helicopter that didn't come until about eight hours later. Looking down at the city below, I was surprised to see that it didn't look *that* bad from up there, or at least not as bad as I had expected. There were buildings down, certainly, but there were a number that still seemed to be standing. As I have said before, PAP is not a particularly nice-looking city under the best of conditions; from our perspective up the hillside, it was a little difficult to pick out the new destruction from the pre-existing dilapidation.
About this time, a white guy in his 50s was seen coming onto the golf course from the club building, striding quickly over to the a UN officer who had apparently taken over operations at the course. It turned out that *this* was the manager of the club, *not* the guy who had welcomed us the night before. Apparently, the group that had been eating, drinking, and making less-miserable when we arrived consisted partially of some neighbors of the club, along with a few people wholly unknown to the manager. They had taken over the kitchen, the bar, and the premises with no real permission from him, as it seems he had decided to withdraw to his room immediately after the quake. He offered us water, beer, and soda (all that was left), and told us of how he had been standing on the course when the tremors started. The initial force of it knocked him to the ground and he recovered his footing in time to witness a panorama of collapse. Repeatedly squeezing his index finger to his thumb, he said, 'I just saw these three and four story buildings start going, "Poof, poof, poof..." all over town, and I thought, "I'm watching a million people die."'
Breakfast for me consisted of a handful of peanuts and some Skittles. Stephane's cousin Sarah had grabbed a bunch of Skittles and Starburst that were in her office and kept insisting that what we needed was sugar. I lacked the energy to argue this point with her, but tried to encourage everyone to have a bit of proteinacious sustenance, as well. Junior started his day with a beer. We helped clean up the club a bit -- although it was largely undamaged, one of the central beams in the restaurant area had fallen down, part of a staircase bannister had crumbled, and there was a thick coating of dust on all of the tables and chairs. I helped the manager check to be sure a piece of art he re-hung was straight. Most of the waiters and maintenance guys for the club straggled in, and in a rather comical moment, one of them asked us first if we were planning to order anything for lunch, and then for a list of what we had eaten the night before, as he would need to charge us for that. The manager overheard this and informed his employee that while he appreciated the man's diligence, now was not the time. A UN helicopter circled overhead for some time, but never managed to land, either changing its mind or missing our little nook.
The manager then revealed that he had satellite Internet running with a wireless connection and the next several hours were spent taking turns using the one computer to email family, friends, and Stephane's bosses to let them know that we were okay. Sometime in the morning, maybe around 9am, a small helicopter landed outside and we went down to see who it was, as it did not appear to be UN or anyone else for that matter. It turned out that this was a private helicopter, chartered for a neighbor's wife and three small children by his father-in-law, who apparently had connections with the Dominican Ambassador. We asked the co-pilot, who had emerged to look for his human cargo, if the helicopter could come back if we paid them, or if they had a larger helicopter they could send to us, but the answer was rather vague, something to the effect of, 'I'll radio back and see.' Throughout the morning, helicopters touched down and left, including the long-awaited UN chopper and two more private helicopters arrived to evacuate people who apparently knew other well-connected people. Stephane tasked me with doing an Internet search for Dominican helicopter companies and I spent a lot of time sending SOS messages to charter companies.
While I was chasing this long-shot chance of escape, Sarah and Alex decided to walk down to their house to see if they could salvage anything and to check if Alex's cousin and/or the maid were there. They were then going to walk to our house to grab some supplies and retrieve Alex's beaten up SUV, which they had left parked near our house the day before. I asked them to look for my cats while they were there, telling them where the carrier bag was and where they liked to hide. I know many people will scorn me for thinking about my cats, but I just could not abandon the two creatures I have cared for almost 10 years now, and whose personalities are to me as well-developed as most people I know. At least we as humans have some understanding of what is going on around us, even if it doesn't make sense; animals do not have that ability, but are able to feel fear and insecurity. At any rate, I knew that Alex doesn't really like animals *and* that cats are not a priority at times like this, so I hoped rather than believed that I would be reunited with my four-legged dependents.
Stephane and I tried again to get some information from the Ambassador's residence, but all we found was that the Ambassador was not there and that there were two Americans trying to find assistance. They were accompanied by a wiry French guy working as a pharmacist for Save the Children. These three had all spent the night at the same place, and the Frenchman had offered to walk with them from Pacot (near our house) up to the Ambassador's house on his way further up the mountain; he intended to get to work straight away, if possible, dispensing medication to victims. It was eventually confirmed that the Embassy was sending a vehicle for the two Americans, at which point the Frenchman took his leave. Stephane started to tell me that I should go w/the two Americans when the vehicle arrived, but I told him he may as well stop talking b/c I wasn't leaving. He was clearly tired, as he did not try to convince me further.
The two Americans -- both males, one around my age with a bandage on one of his hands/wrists, the other in his mid-40s -- had apparently been doing some research related to saving and spending (or more accurately, gambling) habits in Haiti and whether or not there was a way to use the gambling to increase savings (unsurprisingly, they don't think so). They had been on the fourth floor of a bank building meeting with some people when the quake started. As they tried to escape, they found that the door to the stairway was somehow locked or wouldn't open from their side, so the younger guy punched through a glass window to reach around and open it from the other side, a pretty heroic move that resulted in the bandage I had noticed earlier. They said that when they got to the stairwell, the stairs were swaying back and forth, as if they were part of a carnival funhouse. After debating whether or not to risk going down four flights of obviously unstable stairs, the whole group ran down as fast as they could and managed to get out alive. I sat for about an hour with these guys, waiting for the Embassy transport, which the guard had told me would also contain an Embassy staff member to whom I could speak. When the van came roaring up the road at an impressive speed, I saw that the Haitian driver was the only person inside of it, which pretty much put an end to my plans to gather information and ask about possible assistance with arranging a private charter for our group. I bid the guys goodbye and walked back over to Petionville Club.
I spent about three minutes trying to cry by myself in a shady corner next to the pool, which was not only intact, but incongruously beautiful, it sparkling turquoise water occasionally rippled by a breeze or aftershock, but generally creating a false image of tranquility wholly out of place under the circumstances.
Sarah, Alex, and Junior returned without the cats, but with their maid and several of my and Stephane's suitcases, all crammed with a rather puzzling assortment of clothing, food, and household items. Rather than limiting themselves to the many non-perishable items that were in the kitchen, including numerous cans of beans and lentils, as well as bags of pasta and rice, Sarah and Alex brought most of the contents of the refrigerator, including mayonnaise and blocks of cheese. Although they did take the pasta and rice, they left most of the beans. They brought Stephane's leather jacket and two of my coats, but neglected to take more than one of our t-shirts or pants, despite the fact that we were all quite dirty and would *all* need clothes. They took every electrical device in our living room, including my Vonage phone system and parts of the system for our outdoor Internet antenna that are useless without the antenna itself, but did not take the big bottles of soap that were sitting on the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Beyond that, all of the bags were extremely heavy; it would be impossible to walk with them like this and Alex's car is notoriously unreliable and had about two gallons of gas, which meant we wouldn't be going far on wheels. It all made no sense. I am still trying to convince myself that this was probably the result of stress and insufficient sleep, but I cannot help marveling at the lack of common sense that went into this.
Happily, Junior had managed to get a phone call from his sister while they were out and learned that she was alive, after which he began to return to something closer to his usual jocular self.
It became clear around 230 that none of the helicopter companies we contacted were going to come get us, which coincided with the discovery that we could not stay another night at the club. Just before this, a new group of UN soldiers came in to relieve the group that had been there since dawn, although the relief group had been working all night long, too, and seemed to be just as worn out as the ones they were replacing. As they were taking up their positions and inspecting the area, they discovered that there were thousands of residents gathering at the north end of the golf course. A large wall had fallen on that side, thus creating a breach through which tumbled person after person, creating an ever-encroaching mass of people who would normally not be allowed on the grounds of this exclusive club. The helicopters had attracted their notice and, believing that the choppers were delivering food and water that was not being distributed to them, the people decided to come find it themselves. While this is completely understandable given the situation, it is not a good feeling to find yourself facing a growing number of hungry, scared, desperate people. The UN soldiers were quite edgy and began to indicate that they might not stay the night. Even if they did, we did not feel that we could stay there and so began to decide where to go next.
This did not seem like such a hard task to me, only because we had so few options. No one had a house that was safe. There were no other large, open spaces in town that were not already given over to large groups like the one converging on our current position. Our trek the night before had confirmed that our neighborhood was one of the 'best' places to be in the city. To Stephane and me, it was clear that we should just go back to our house. Alex and Sarah resisted this idea, but had no other realistic alternatives to offer. They finally agreed to this and seven of us proceeded to pile into the already luggage-laden SUV. The clown car analogy does not do justice to this arrangement.
We wound our way back to the main road, where we were immediately greeted with a procession carrying a sheet-shrouded corpse down to the city. Once they passed, we turned on to the road and made fair progress for about half a mile, at which point traffic stopped and did not move more than six feet for a good ten minutes or more. Stephane and I got out of the car, initially just to see if we could determine what the problem was, but it became clear that we could walk faster than they could drive and so we continued. It turned out that the traffic snarl was partly caused by debris in the road that turned the two-lane road into one lane, partly by the massive UN medical tanks that were trying to get out of the unit we had passed the night before and into the city (or vice-versa), and partly by the dense foot traffic. Adding to the difficulties at the UN entrance was a woman who emerged from within on a stretcher who was clearly pregnant and bleeding, appearing barely conscious, maybe in labor, it was hard to tell.
The streets were filled with people, everyone looking for something -- loved ones, food, safety, medical treatment, etc. The side of the road that backs to the ravine was most heavily traversed by pedestrians, as it seemed that during the night, the UN had managed to clear most of the abandoned/mutilated vehicles out of the street and on to one side of the street. It was like walking through a macabre used car lot. Unfortunately, the land underneath the sidewalk on the ravine side had crumbled away in some places, but it was not always obvious that there was no terra firma underneath what appeared to be a perfectly intact sidewalk; I kept waiting anxiously for someone to step on one of these overhangs and have it give way. We passed the same crumpled houses we had passed in the night, only now there were bodies, usually covered, sometimes not, placed outside of the houses on the sidewalk. One house had what looked like an entire family laid in front of it. I sort of stopped looking anywhere but at the back of the person directly ahead of me; there was just too much awfulness on all sides. Unfortunately, this meant that more than once I nearly stepped on something that my peripheral vision initially interpreted as just another piece of the trash that is ubiquitous in PAP even on normal days, but in fact turned out to be a body laid out on the sidewalk, causing me to change step in mid-stride to avoid contact.
When we came to Stephane's lawyer's office, we paused for a moment. The building, which housed several more white-collar businesses, had been four or five stories and pretty good-looking, for a building in Haiti. It was now reduced to 10 ft-tall pancake, its stories so compressed that I initially thought I was looking at a different building, even though the sign proclaiming 'Moulins d'Haiti' was still standing next to it. I later learned that our chauffeur's daughter was likely crushed within that wreckage, as she had still been at work inside when the quake hit. The husband of one of Stephane's cousins also worked in there, but happened to have stepped out just before, a perfect illustration of the capriciousness of who died and who didn't.
Instead of going home, we ended up wandering down to Stephane's mother's house. When we turned onto her street, we passed numerous neighbors sitting outside on the street, the beginnings of a tarp-covered street camp emerging. We stopped at the house of an elderly woman, who was cooking on her porch, a tiny tabby kitten sitting at her feet. Stephane's mother and grandmother were not at their house when we arrived, but his aunt, who lives next door, informed us that they had gone to our house that morning after spending the night in the street outside with all of their neighbors. Titi began a long catalogue of who had died and who was injured, but neither Stephane nor I had the heart to listen too closely. I noticed that it looked as if her stairwell had collapsed in the middle, which meant that it would be difficult to get to the second floor of the house, where most of the actual living space was, and I can't imagine that the second story is particularly sound, even if you could reach it.
We left Titi after a few minutes and headed slightly back uphill toward our house. We passed in front of the hospital on our streetcorner, its entire front sheered off, the occasional lamp, bed, or heart monitor visible squeezing through the layers of concrete piled on top of each other. I honestly cannot adequately express the number of buildings laying in ruins, the level of destruction that surrounded us. Suffice it to say, the perspective that I had earlier up on the hill, that things maybe weren't so bad as I had thought -- that was deeply incorrect. Even the graphic pictures saturating television screens, newspapers, and magazines do not show you how bad it is.
Anyhow, we soon arrived back at our house, where we found Babeth and her mom, as well as Stephane's cousin Leitzia and her husband Steve. We lugged the suitcases back into the house from whence they had just come and I tried to put some of the less-hopeless refrigerator items back in the refrigerator, which was still being powered by our inverter. I also found my cats, who were hiding exactly where I thought they were, in the liner of the boxspring of our bed. Actually, Adrianna came creeping out when she heard my voice (those of you who know her are not surprised by this), making this funny croaking noise very unlike her usual incessant, sharp chatter. When I looked under the bed for Delilah, I saw a lump in the liner that indicated she was there, but when she did not move even after I poked her repeatedly and shook the liner, I started to fear the worst. Ripping away the liner, I found that she was not dead, just refusing to move, and now seemingly unfazed by big vibrations. I tried to give them some food and a quick pat before re-packing the shoulder bag I had taken to Petionville Club the night before, this time to include our passports, my laptop, some medications, and a couple of heirloom pieces of jewelry. Another aftershock sent me scurrying out of the house amidst the screeches of Stephane and his family calling for me.
We staked out a bit of space in the neighbor's courtyard, the one we had stood in during the first hours after the earthquake and started discussing options for the next morning. We still did not have a vehicle b/c during the quake, our chauffeur and Stephane's friend/employee Didie had been out in the city on an errand and we had not been able to find out where they were, although we did have the relief of at least knowing that they were alive, as Alphonse, our chauffeur, had gone to Titi's earlier that day. After our return journey through the city, Stephane was all for hopping on motorcycle taxis and heading to the Dominican Republic, but I think the thought of his elderly grandmother clinging to the back of a mototaxi convinced him a different plan was needed.
For dinner, Stephane and I each had four crackers and half a piece of cheese. I'm not sure if Babeth and her mom ate at all. Everyone else was eating as if we could go to the store tomorrow, prompting Stephane to ask them what the hell they were thinking. We also discovered that our landlady had apparently gone into our house while we were away and had taken a full 5gallon container of water (the last potable water we had), as well as a $40 bottle of wine that had been a Christmas present for me from Stephane, and Stephane's only pair of flip flops. Her taking the latter two items was just a bit offensive; the theft of the former item was quite serious, as we needed to have water for at least 11 people. Had she mentioned to us when we arrived that she had taken the water, we would have understood -- it is an emergency, after all -- but the fact that she cached it away and didn't feel compelled to tell us where until we asked was over the line. This is the same woman who keeps a shrine to the Virgin in our driveway, but who had not paid her own staff for more than two months prior to the earthquake even though she had the money (yes, we know she had the money). Lovely woman.
In the courtyard, there were about 20 people, some who lived in the house or were related to the people who lived in the house, some were like us, just neighbors with nowhere else to go. One woman had lost her young son. Several people were clearly injured, their arms in slings or bandages on their heads. As it became dark, everyone tried to settle in, but the murmurs and whispers that persisted showed that everyone was too keyed up to sleep. Somewhere between 8 and 10pm, the panic in the streets started. It was suddenly quite loud, like the whole city was screaming again, as they did after the quake, punctuated by the honks of car horns and the blaring of police sirens.
We all went outside to see what was happening, Stephane and Junior went down to the main street to ask people what was happening, and a tiny panic started rising in our own group. For myself, I found the whole idea of the sea swallowing PAP incredibly implausible and in my exhaustion I was rather annoyed that everyone else was even considering that this was a real possibility, let alone contemplating joining the heaving masses of people moving uphill. A tsunami was unlikely, there was no moon so the tides would not be as strong, and even if the part of the city that was built on man-made land gave way, we were far enough inland and uphill that it wouldn't matter. Joining in the panic was not going to help anything. I told Stephane I wasn't moving from where we were, which was a bit snappish of me, but I was supported by his cousin Leitzia, who also thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Steve was able to use the radio at a neighboring NGO's compound to contact his UN co-workers and eventually learn what had really happened (CAMEP's big blunder). Most people then returned to the courtyard and tried again to settle down, this time after singing a hymn together and saying a prayer.
Sleep was once again quite choppy, due to aftershocks, fear, and discomfort, but it did eventually come. Stephane started snoring so loudly I was worried he would wake those around us, and someone woke Leitzia up in the night to tell her that her snoring was keeping their children awake. I still had no idea what we were going to do the next day, but I thanked God for blessing us with the safety of so many of our family members, for that night at least.
Since my last posting, I have spoken to Stephane once again, who sounded tired but okay. He told me that he and Didie were able to get into their warehouse in Carrefour to retrieve some food items, which they left at the Mayor's office, who is supposedly in charge of conducting distributions in the area. Stephane said that they hired some local guys to take the stuff out and load it into the trucks, but that most of the men were so dehydrated and malnourished, several of them began to throw up or pass out after less than an hour of work. Those of you who have been to Haiti know how hard-working and tough Haitians really are; for these men to be unable to do an hour of work is a scary sign.
Stephane also said that his boss was supposed to be arriving today from the Dominican Republic with a van, in which she plans to evacuate everyone currently with Stephane who has an American visa or residence permit, first to the DR and then they will go to the US to family. This would be a huge relief for everyone involved, but I have not yet heard from Stephane today and cannot confirm that this has happened.
A friend of a friend is trying to set something up for me to talk to NPR, and I am looking into some other outreach/awareness/advocacy avenues. Suggestions are always appreciated, thanks for those that have already done so.
Please keep Haiti in your thoughts.
We woke on the golf course around dawn to the noise of the UN soldiers scurrying into position with little red flags, apparently to wave in a helicopter that didn't come until about eight hours later. Looking down at the city below, I was surprised to see that it didn't look *that* bad from up there, or at least not as bad as I had expected. There were buildings down, certainly, but there were a number that still seemed to be standing. As I have said before, PAP is not a particularly nice-looking city under the best of conditions; from our perspective up the hillside, it was a little difficult to pick out the new destruction from the pre-existing dilapidation.
About this time, a white guy in his 50s was seen coming onto the golf course from the club building, striding quickly over to the a UN officer who had apparently taken over operations at the course. It turned out that *this* was the manager of the club, *not* the guy who had welcomed us the night before. Apparently, the group that had been eating, drinking, and making less-miserable when we arrived consisted partially of some neighbors of the club, along with a few people wholly unknown to the manager. They had taken over the kitchen, the bar, and the premises with no real permission from him, as it seems he had decided to withdraw to his room immediately after the quake. He offered us water, beer, and soda (all that was left), and told us of how he had been standing on the course when the tremors started. The initial force of it knocked him to the ground and he recovered his footing in time to witness a panorama of collapse. Repeatedly squeezing his index finger to his thumb, he said, 'I just saw these three and four story buildings start going, "Poof, poof, poof..." all over town, and I thought, "I'm watching a million people die."'
Breakfast for me consisted of a handful of peanuts and some Skittles. Stephane's cousin Sarah had grabbed a bunch of Skittles and Starburst that were in her office and kept insisting that what we needed was sugar. I lacked the energy to argue this point with her, but tried to encourage everyone to have a bit of proteinacious sustenance, as well. Junior started his day with a beer. We helped clean up the club a bit -- although it was largely undamaged, one of the central beams in the restaurant area had fallen down, part of a staircase bannister had crumbled, and there was a thick coating of dust on all of the tables and chairs. I helped the manager check to be sure a piece of art he re-hung was straight. Most of the waiters and maintenance guys for the club straggled in, and in a rather comical moment, one of them asked us first if we were planning to order anything for lunch, and then for a list of what we had eaten the night before, as he would need to charge us for that. The manager overheard this and informed his employee that while he appreciated the man's diligence, now was not the time. A UN helicopter circled overhead for some time, but never managed to land, either changing its mind or missing our little nook.
The manager then revealed that he had satellite Internet running with a wireless connection and the next several hours were spent taking turns using the one computer to email family, friends, and Stephane's bosses to let them know that we were okay. Sometime in the morning, maybe around 9am, a small helicopter landed outside and we went down to see who it was, as it did not appear to be UN or anyone else for that matter. It turned out that this was a private helicopter, chartered for a neighbor's wife and three small children by his father-in-law, who apparently had connections with the Dominican Ambassador. We asked the co-pilot, who had emerged to look for his human cargo, if the helicopter could come back if we paid them, or if they had a larger helicopter they could send to us, but the answer was rather vague, something to the effect of, 'I'll radio back and see.' Throughout the morning, helicopters touched down and left, including the long-awaited UN chopper and two more private helicopters arrived to evacuate people who apparently knew other well-connected people. Stephane tasked me with doing an Internet search for Dominican helicopter companies and I spent a lot of time sending SOS messages to charter companies.
While I was chasing this long-shot chance of escape, Sarah and Alex decided to walk down to their house to see if they could salvage anything and to check if Alex's cousin and/or the maid were there. They were then going to walk to our house to grab some supplies and retrieve Alex's beaten up SUV, which they had left parked near our house the day before. I asked them to look for my cats while they were there, telling them where the carrier bag was and where they liked to hide. I know many people will scorn me for thinking about my cats, but I just could not abandon the two creatures I have cared for almost 10 years now, and whose personalities are to me as well-developed as most people I know. At least we as humans have some understanding of what is going on around us, even if it doesn't make sense; animals do not have that ability, but are able to feel fear and insecurity. At any rate, I knew that Alex doesn't really like animals *and* that cats are not a priority at times like this, so I hoped rather than believed that I would be reunited with my four-legged dependents.
Stephane and I tried again to get some information from the Ambassador's residence, but all we found was that the Ambassador was not there and that there were two Americans trying to find assistance. They were accompanied by a wiry French guy working as a pharmacist for Save the Children. These three had all spent the night at the same place, and the Frenchman had offered to walk with them from Pacot (near our house) up to the Ambassador's house on his way further up the mountain; he intended to get to work straight away, if possible, dispensing medication to victims. It was eventually confirmed that the Embassy was sending a vehicle for the two Americans, at which point the Frenchman took his leave. Stephane started to tell me that I should go w/the two Americans when the vehicle arrived, but I told him he may as well stop talking b/c I wasn't leaving. He was clearly tired, as he did not try to convince me further.
The two Americans -- both males, one around my age with a bandage on one of his hands/wrists, the other in his mid-40s -- had apparently been doing some research related to saving and spending (or more accurately, gambling) habits in Haiti and whether or not there was a way to use the gambling to increase savings (unsurprisingly, they don't think so). They had been on the fourth floor of a bank building meeting with some people when the quake started. As they tried to escape, they found that the door to the stairway was somehow locked or wouldn't open from their side, so the younger guy punched through a glass window to reach around and open it from the other side, a pretty heroic move that resulted in the bandage I had noticed earlier. They said that when they got to the stairwell, the stairs were swaying back and forth, as if they were part of a carnival funhouse. After debating whether or not to risk going down four flights of obviously unstable stairs, the whole group ran down as fast as they could and managed to get out alive. I sat for about an hour with these guys, waiting for the Embassy transport, which the guard had told me would also contain an Embassy staff member to whom I could speak. When the van came roaring up the road at an impressive speed, I saw that the Haitian driver was the only person inside of it, which pretty much put an end to my plans to gather information and ask about possible assistance with arranging a private charter for our group. I bid the guys goodbye and walked back over to Petionville Club.
I spent about three minutes trying to cry by myself in a shady corner next to the pool, which was not only intact, but incongruously beautiful, it sparkling turquoise water occasionally rippled by a breeze or aftershock, but generally creating a false image of tranquility wholly out of place under the circumstances.
Sarah, Alex, and Junior returned without the cats, but with their maid and several of my and Stephane's suitcases, all crammed with a rather puzzling assortment of clothing, food, and household items. Rather than limiting themselves to the many non-perishable items that were in the kitchen, including numerous cans of beans and lentils, as well as bags of pasta and rice, Sarah and Alex brought most of the contents of the refrigerator, including mayonnaise and blocks of cheese. Although they did take the pasta and rice, they left most of the beans. They brought Stephane's leather jacket and two of my coats, but neglected to take more than one of our t-shirts or pants, despite the fact that we were all quite dirty and would *all* need clothes. They took every electrical device in our living room, including my Vonage phone system and parts of the system for our outdoor Internet antenna that are useless without the antenna itself, but did not take the big bottles of soap that were sitting on the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Beyond that, all of the bags were extremely heavy; it would be impossible to walk with them like this and Alex's car is notoriously unreliable and had about two gallons of gas, which meant we wouldn't be going far on wheels. It all made no sense. I am still trying to convince myself that this was probably the result of stress and insufficient sleep, but I cannot help marveling at the lack of common sense that went into this.
Happily, Junior had managed to get a phone call from his sister while they were out and learned that she was alive, after which he began to return to something closer to his usual jocular self.
It became clear around 230 that none of the helicopter companies we contacted were going to come get us, which coincided with the discovery that we could not stay another night at the club. Just before this, a new group of UN soldiers came in to relieve the group that had been there since dawn, although the relief group had been working all night long, too, and seemed to be just as worn out as the ones they were replacing. As they were taking up their positions and inspecting the area, they discovered that there were thousands of residents gathering at the north end of the golf course. A large wall had fallen on that side, thus creating a breach through which tumbled person after person, creating an ever-encroaching mass of people who would normally not be allowed on the grounds of this exclusive club. The helicopters had attracted their notice and, believing that the choppers were delivering food and water that was not being distributed to them, the people decided to come find it themselves. While this is completely understandable given the situation, it is not a good feeling to find yourself facing a growing number of hungry, scared, desperate people. The UN soldiers were quite edgy and began to indicate that they might not stay the night. Even if they did, we did not feel that we could stay there and so began to decide where to go next.
This did not seem like such a hard task to me, only because we had so few options. No one had a house that was safe. There were no other large, open spaces in town that were not already given over to large groups like the one converging on our current position. Our trek the night before had confirmed that our neighborhood was one of the 'best' places to be in the city. To Stephane and me, it was clear that we should just go back to our house. Alex and Sarah resisted this idea, but had no other realistic alternatives to offer. They finally agreed to this and seven of us proceeded to pile into the already luggage-laden SUV. The clown car analogy does not do justice to this arrangement.
We wound our way back to the main road, where we were immediately greeted with a procession carrying a sheet-shrouded corpse down to the city. Once they passed, we turned on to the road and made fair progress for about half a mile, at which point traffic stopped and did not move more than six feet for a good ten minutes or more. Stephane and I got out of the car, initially just to see if we could determine what the problem was, but it became clear that we could walk faster than they could drive and so we continued. It turned out that the traffic snarl was partly caused by debris in the road that turned the two-lane road into one lane, partly by the massive UN medical tanks that were trying to get out of the unit we had passed the night before and into the city (or vice-versa), and partly by the dense foot traffic. Adding to the difficulties at the UN entrance was a woman who emerged from within on a stretcher who was clearly pregnant and bleeding, appearing barely conscious, maybe in labor, it was hard to tell.
The streets were filled with people, everyone looking for something -- loved ones, food, safety, medical treatment, etc. The side of the road that backs to the ravine was most heavily traversed by pedestrians, as it seemed that during the night, the UN had managed to clear most of the abandoned/mutilated vehicles out of the street and on to one side of the street. It was like walking through a macabre used car lot. Unfortunately, the land underneath the sidewalk on the ravine side had crumbled away in some places, but it was not always obvious that there was no terra firma underneath what appeared to be a perfectly intact sidewalk; I kept waiting anxiously for someone to step on one of these overhangs and have it give way. We passed the same crumpled houses we had passed in the night, only now there were bodies, usually covered, sometimes not, placed outside of the houses on the sidewalk. One house had what looked like an entire family laid in front of it. I sort of stopped looking anywhere but at the back of the person directly ahead of me; there was just too much awfulness on all sides. Unfortunately, this meant that more than once I nearly stepped on something that my peripheral vision initially interpreted as just another piece of the trash that is ubiquitous in PAP even on normal days, but in fact turned out to be a body laid out on the sidewalk, causing me to change step in mid-stride to avoid contact.
When we came to Stephane's lawyer's office, we paused for a moment. The building, which housed several more white-collar businesses, had been four or five stories and pretty good-looking, for a building in Haiti. It was now reduced to 10 ft-tall pancake, its stories so compressed that I initially thought I was looking at a different building, even though the sign proclaiming 'Moulins d'Haiti' was still standing next to it. I later learned that our chauffeur's daughter was likely crushed within that wreckage, as she had still been at work inside when the quake hit. The husband of one of Stephane's cousins also worked in there, but happened to have stepped out just before, a perfect illustration of the capriciousness of who died and who didn't.
Instead of going home, we ended up wandering down to Stephane's mother's house. When we turned onto her street, we passed numerous neighbors sitting outside on the street, the beginnings of a tarp-covered street camp emerging. We stopped at the house of an elderly woman, who was cooking on her porch, a tiny tabby kitten sitting at her feet. Stephane's mother and grandmother were not at their house when we arrived, but his aunt, who lives next door, informed us that they had gone to our house that morning after spending the night in the street outside with all of their neighbors. Titi began a long catalogue of who had died and who was injured, but neither Stephane nor I had the heart to listen too closely. I noticed that it looked as if her stairwell had collapsed in the middle, which meant that it would be difficult to get to the second floor of the house, where most of the actual living space was, and I can't imagine that the second story is particularly sound, even if you could reach it.
We left Titi after a few minutes and headed slightly back uphill toward our house. We passed in front of the hospital on our streetcorner, its entire front sheered off, the occasional lamp, bed, or heart monitor visible squeezing through the layers of concrete piled on top of each other. I honestly cannot adequately express the number of buildings laying in ruins, the level of destruction that surrounded us. Suffice it to say, the perspective that I had earlier up on the hill, that things maybe weren't so bad as I had thought -- that was deeply incorrect. Even the graphic pictures saturating television screens, newspapers, and magazines do not show you how bad it is.
Anyhow, we soon arrived back at our house, where we found Babeth and her mom, as well as Stephane's cousin Leitzia and her husband Steve. We lugged the suitcases back into the house from whence they had just come and I tried to put some of the less-hopeless refrigerator items back in the refrigerator, which was still being powered by our inverter. I also found my cats, who were hiding exactly where I thought they were, in the liner of the boxspring of our bed. Actually, Adrianna came creeping out when she heard my voice (those of you who know her are not surprised by this), making this funny croaking noise very unlike her usual incessant, sharp chatter. When I looked under the bed for Delilah, I saw a lump in the liner that indicated she was there, but when she did not move even after I poked her repeatedly and shook the liner, I started to fear the worst. Ripping away the liner, I found that she was not dead, just refusing to move, and now seemingly unfazed by big vibrations. I tried to give them some food and a quick pat before re-packing the shoulder bag I had taken to Petionville Club the night before, this time to include our passports, my laptop, some medications, and a couple of heirloom pieces of jewelry. Another aftershock sent me scurrying out of the house amidst the screeches of Stephane and his family calling for me.
We staked out a bit of space in the neighbor's courtyard, the one we had stood in during the first hours after the earthquake and started discussing options for the next morning. We still did not have a vehicle b/c during the quake, our chauffeur and Stephane's friend/employee Didie had been out in the city on an errand and we had not been able to find out where they were, although we did have the relief of at least knowing that they were alive, as Alphonse, our chauffeur, had gone to Titi's earlier that day. After our return journey through the city, Stephane was all for hopping on motorcycle taxis and heading to the Dominican Republic, but I think the thought of his elderly grandmother clinging to the back of a mototaxi convinced him a different plan was needed.
For dinner, Stephane and I each had four crackers and half a piece of cheese. I'm not sure if Babeth and her mom ate at all. Everyone else was eating as if we could go to the store tomorrow, prompting Stephane to ask them what the hell they were thinking. We also discovered that our landlady had apparently gone into our house while we were away and had taken a full 5gallon container of water (the last potable water we had), as well as a $40 bottle of wine that had been a Christmas present for me from Stephane, and Stephane's only pair of flip flops. Her taking the latter two items was just a bit offensive; the theft of the former item was quite serious, as we needed to have water for at least 11 people. Had she mentioned to us when we arrived that she had taken the water, we would have understood -- it is an emergency, after all -- but the fact that she cached it away and didn't feel compelled to tell us where until we asked was over the line. This is the same woman who keeps a shrine to the Virgin in our driveway, but who had not paid her own staff for more than two months prior to the earthquake even though she had the money (yes, we know she had the money). Lovely woman.
In the courtyard, there were about 20 people, some who lived in the house or were related to the people who lived in the house, some were like us, just neighbors with nowhere else to go. One woman had lost her young son. Several people were clearly injured, their arms in slings or bandages on their heads. As it became dark, everyone tried to settle in, but the murmurs and whispers that persisted showed that everyone was too keyed up to sleep. Somewhere between 8 and 10pm, the panic in the streets started. It was suddenly quite loud, like the whole city was screaming again, as they did after the quake, punctuated by the honks of car horns and the blaring of police sirens.
We all went outside to see what was happening, Stephane and Junior went down to the main street to ask people what was happening, and a tiny panic started rising in our own group. For myself, I found the whole idea of the sea swallowing PAP incredibly implausible and in my exhaustion I was rather annoyed that everyone else was even considering that this was a real possibility, let alone contemplating joining the heaving masses of people moving uphill. A tsunami was unlikely, there was no moon so the tides would not be as strong, and even if the part of the city that was built on man-made land gave way, we were far enough inland and uphill that it wouldn't matter. Joining in the panic was not going to help anything. I told Stephane I wasn't moving from where we were, which was a bit snappish of me, but I was supported by his cousin Leitzia, who also thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Steve was able to use the radio at a neighboring NGO's compound to contact his UN co-workers and eventually learn what had really happened (CAMEP's big blunder). Most people then returned to the courtyard and tried again to settle down, this time after singing a hymn together and saying a prayer.
Sleep was once again quite choppy, due to aftershocks, fear, and discomfort, but it did eventually come. Stephane started snoring so loudly I was worried he would wake those around us, and someone woke Leitzia up in the night to tell her that her snoring was keeping their children awake. I still had no idea what we were going to do the next day, but I thanked God for blessing us with the safety of so many of our family members, for that night at least.
Since my last posting, I have spoken to Stephane once again, who sounded tired but okay. He told me that he and Didie were able to get into their warehouse in Carrefour to retrieve some food items, which they left at the Mayor's office, who is supposedly in charge of conducting distributions in the area. Stephane said that they hired some local guys to take the stuff out and load it into the trucks, but that most of the men were so dehydrated and malnourished, several of them began to throw up or pass out after less than an hour of work. Those of you who have been to Haiti know how hard-working and tough Haitians really are; for these men to be unable to do an hour of work is a scary sign.
Stephane also said that his boss was supposed to be arriving today from the Dominican Republic with a van, in which she plans to evacuate everyone currently with Stephane who has an American visa or residence permit, first to the DR and then they will go to the US to family. This would be a huge relief for everyone involved, but I have not yet heard from Stephane today and cannot confirm that this has happened.
A friend of a friend is trying to set something up for me to talk to NPR, and I am looking into some other outreach/awareness/advocacy avenues. Suggestions are always appreciated, thanks for those that have already done so.
Please keep Haiti in your thoughts.
2 comments:
Amazing that you can remember all of these details of this nightmare. I cannot even imagine what your eyes have seen. Good that you're able to write it all down. I -- and everyone else I know who knows you wants to know where are you though.
...wow...
I am so glad you're writing about all this...for more reasons than one.
Lots of love,
Meem
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