First day of work

Yesterday was Sunday, not a working day in Haiti. We spent the day playing with the kids from the slum next to our property and organizing ourselves for the week of work.

4:30am everyone wakes up to what we later learned to be a 4.7 magnitude earthquake. I woke up but did not feel the shaking. I, however, was the only one....

The day started out well. I had a great breakfast and met up with the rest of our staff and operations manager, Antonio Kebreau. After discussing a plan of action, I visited our tent clinic on the property.

At 9:30 I left the HHH property to drive to a meeting with our insurance company and got my first glimpse of the city. The city is back in full swing with people selling on every open part of the street. Tent cities are located in every crevice of open space. Although it was quite a scene, nothing prepared me for my afternoon. An aftershock hit at 10:15am as we were climbing the stairs to our meeting. Again, I felt nothing (neither did Antonio).

The meeting at the insurance agency was productive and we went back to the property for a bit. Conference call with HHH staff in Canada and other planning then Antonio and I were off again to visit the future site for the joint Healing Hands for Haiti and Handicap International Prosthetic and Orthotic shop. It is located in downtown Port-au-Prince and in a new construction from before the earthquake. It was built to be a grocery store. It is a very large space.

Instead of heading straight back to the property, Antonio took me for a drive around Downtown. This is where the shock and awe set in. The first site is miles and miles of tent cities/slums assembled everywhere. The next is building after building reduced to literal rubble. Many have no sign that a building existed. I could stand next to a pile and Antonio would tell me that that used to be a six story building. It looked like the center has been bombed. On my earlier drive, it was maybe one out of every 5 houses were down. This drive, almost EVERY building is destroyed. Antonio pointed out hospitals, schools, ministry buildings and commercial sectors completely gone. He pointed out his school, his children's school, the building where his first job was located. All gone.

He showed me the Nursing School where 20 students were pulled dead out of the rubble. He showed me the collapsed/destroyed Engineering School (ironic much?). What these people have survived....I really cannot put it into words. I asked Antonio how he has been holding up so well and he answered, I have stopped asking why God chose to save me and started wondering what plan there is for me. He also said that he wonders if he will live to see the Port-au-Prince that he knows and loves again. I said, I hope you will not just see that PAP but a better one than before after all the work is done.

Tonight I spoke with our HHH driver Noel who told us the story of his 8 year old daughter and niece getting trapped in the market. He slept on the concrete and continually yelled out to her. 3 days later when she was pulled from the rubble with small injuries she reached up to her dad and hugged him and told him she was thirsty. He rushed her to the hospital! I had read his story in an e-mail from a colleague but had not heard it from his mouth. It was the first tears I have shed in Haiti.

What these people have been through and what they have seen...