*leaving home.
I write from the safety of a small, quaint hotel in the mountain town of Kenskoff. The air is cool and smells of pine. Solomon is drinking a bottle of milk and watching Curious George. Patrick is out getting word from people in the community, trying to locate supplies and find a more permanent/transitional place for us to stay. We lent our car to a friend (Veniel, guest house manager) to go retrieve other people stuck in the city without a place to stay.
I feel the need to put the events of the last 2 days in writing, brief and unemotional, to help process as we find time to momentarily rest.
Tuesday started like any other. Coffee in the morning, a clinic with what has become the normal list of complaints among my patients. Our group from Tennessee was taken by Patrick to visit some schools in City Solei and eat at one of our favorite haitian restaurants. They were kind enough to bring me back a take-out box. It was huge. I shared it with the janitor who lives behind the school and never has enough to eat. It would be my last meal in 36 hours. It was to be his last.
I had my first class after the holiday break with my second year nursing students. We talked about labor and delivery. It was a great class. I had brought in my computer and internet modem, so was able to show them some great visuals of the birthing process. We covered a lot of information. The students were stimulated and asking a million appropriate questions. It was a great day. Patrick at the same time was teaching the first year students English and they were laughing out loud at his antics. We left CONASPEH at 4pm with a couple of the staff who have class near our home. We joked and teased each other all the way to Delmas. I remember laughing so hard.
Solomon had just gotten up from a nap. Silvia had done laundry and it was hanging on the line. Patrick had just changed to go to the gym. I was standing on the balcony with Sylvia, Solomon and Patrick talking when we heard a groaning. Then the building started to tremble. My equilibrium told me that we were weaving. My first thought was that our landlord's truck was rumbling or exploding under the balcony, then that our building was collapsing. "Earthquake" never crossed my mind. We all clung to each other and huddled under a door jamn as our apartment pitched, shook and moaned. We watched the neighbors balcony seemingly rise up towards us. Anticipating. Waiting. Watching. Holding. Not breathing. Silvia immediately started praying out loud fervently. When the shaking stopped, all fell quiet in the house, but screams were heard on the street. I looked out to see our landlord, Amos, stumbling into the road, his face white with dust. We called out to him. I still didn't know if people were screaming over OUR house collapsing of if it was something bigger. We opened the door and called out. The stairway was blocked in rubble, but the neighbors on the second floor called back to us and said they were ok. Their apartment had held too. We escaped down one flight of stairs to their apartment. Everything in their apartment lay broken on the floor. The woman was crying in fear, but no one was hurt. We exited from their back balcony that used to be a story up, but now was inches off the ground. We all crawled over crumbling concrete through a hole, helping each other down through hand-holding. Sylvia was frantic, praying out loud that the world was ending. All I wanted was to get away from what looked like an immanent complete collapse. Careful, purposeful movement. Focus.
*from 3 stories to 2
We made it safely to the street and suddenly it was apparent that we were one of many. People streamed out of buildings, bloodied, crying out for their children, their friends, their neighbors. It wasn't just our house. It was everywhere. People I have only waved to or shared cordial pleasantries with were hugging me, grateful for a face. When Moulout--the boy that helps us in our house--showed up after running from his school, huge relief. The first floor of our building had entirely collapsed and no one was pinned or killed underneath. Miraculous. Even waa-waa the dog survived.
Our friends from CONASPEH came soon after. Their school had held sturdy, but on their dash out, they had seen such devastation. "Haiti has never had an earthquake." said my friend. Earthquake. We hugged grateful to see more faces ok and reeling from what we had just experienced, but their eyes were full of tears over worry about their family and friends across town. For all of us, it was the first time we'd felt the earth tremble under our feet. Disconcerting. Disorientating. Disturbing. I quickly went about looking at our injured neighbors, HATING that I had just unloaded all the medical supplies donated by our visiting group into CONASPEH the day before. I didn't have as much as a bandaid. No tylenol. Nothing. I examined people, tried to reassure. Several needed stitches, others needed x-rays and casting. I wanted people to stop calling me Doctor. I had no tools, no medicines, no tricks up my sleeve. Our car was undamaged amazingly since we had fortuitously parked it beside a wall instead of inside our house's gate. I loaded up the injured from our neighborhood with plans to take them to the hospital. Patrick took Solomon to Walls International guest house to check on our visitors that were staying there.
*stopped traffic
There is no way to accurately describe the streets of Port-au-Prince as I made my way to the hospital. People were streaming from homes, down sidewalks, flooding streets. The religious were praying out loud, giving thanks to God. Others were evangelizing, predicting this the beginning of the end of the world. Many were wailing, crying, desperately searching for loved ones. Others were quiet, stunned. I scanned the streets for injured, stopped when people looked horrible and their family loaded them into our truck with words of thanks. Soon the truck was packed with bleeding and battered women, men and children. No one cried. Silvia was still praying at the top of her lungs. The old woman beside me was telling me her body was going cold, stiff, that she was dying. With my one-handed exam, I could gently reassure her that her heart was beating strong, her skin warm... that fear was responsible for the cold. She seemed to acknowledge my reassurance and would quiet momentarily only to need reassurance in the next 5 minutes.
When we finally got to the hospital through inching traffic and streets flooded with people, the scene was heart breaking. Tap-taps full of injured were parked outside of locked gates, ambulances were lined up and blaring. A woman came to our window and said that the hospital had collapsed and they were trying to get some of the injured doctors out, that they couldn't see any patients, there was no need to stop. "People are only coming here to die." Inside the car, the anxiety increased. Everyone started shouting out names of hospitals all over the city. I chose the closest one, but only found more of the same. It was decision time. I was almost out of gas and desperately needing to see Patrick and Solomon again. I told them all that for tonight I was going to take them back to their families since there was nothing to do right now. Slowly but surely I got people back. I found Patrick at the house and he helped me find homes for the rest of the riders. A little boy with a broken arm and his mother got out where there family was congregating outside their demolished home. I had nothing to do for him but to kiss his head and tell him to hold strong. Everywhere we went, people were crying, sobbing, searching for family. When we brought a family member to them, they'd scream with relief and then scream with anguish at the state they were in. Wailing. I found myself yelling out first-aid instructions to people hovering over people with broken extremities. We inched through traffic. The last rider in the car was a man with a broken leg, horribly broken and crushed arm who endured the bumpy ride without so much as a moan. We left him outside the television station with his family after searching for material to make a basic sling.
*rescue attempts
Driving to the guest house, Patrick told me about his walk there, preparing me for what we were soon to witness together. Parking our car back at home, we walked with Moulout the 10 blocks to the guest house, past street vendors who had been crushed to death by the walls they were sitting by, past houses reduced to rock piles, past mobs and mobs of people, past a traffic jam 5 blocks long outside of the Doctors Without Borders hospital that was still reeling after it had partially collapsed and its staff was all trying to get in from their own pockets of rubble. People were congregating on sidewalks and streets, finding chairs and blocking off pieces of road to make a safe place to gather. Hymns were rising up all around us by groups of people singing praises in the streets, calming themselves with their faith, relying on spiritual strength to hold them up. It did not cover up the wailing. The sirens. I passed children with towels wrapped around heads, arms, legs without so much as a bandaid. I felt worthless. Helpless. Overwhelmed.
*The main building at Walls International Guest House
We made it to the guest house to find the main central building had collapsed and now stood like a layer of pancakes less than a story tall. Our group had gotten back late and therefore hadn't sat down for dinner, their tardiness saving their lives. Six people had been caught in the guest house... 4 visitors, 2 staff. The two cooks had crawled out of the rubble with mild head injuries. One of the groups staying at the guest house had just arrived that morning, a medical group who had packed enough supplies for a week-long mobile clinic in the country, but most of their bags were in the collapsed building. They had seen the cooks, bandaged them and given them tylenol. By this time it was dark and not safe to go back out in the streets. The guest house had pulled mattresses into the parking lot and everyone huddled on them, nervously talking amongst each other, recounting what each had seen, experienced. One woman had lost her husband in the collapse. Another group lost their friend. How helpless they must have felt to be so close to their bodies and not be able to touch them, to see them, to help in anyway. Haunting. Patrick had found a little lost girl in the streets who couldn't find her family. He brought her to the guest house where our group wrapped their arms around her, tucked her in, and reassured her to sleep that her family would be waiting when the sun rose.
We stayed there for the remainder of the night, trying to send out text messages, trying to make calls to no avail. All systems were down. The aftershocks were so disconcerting... happening every 5 minutes or so, some stronger than others... Sleeping on the ground, you felt every shake, and looked up to see if anything was going to fall. Solomon entertained the huddled people with his youthful oblivion to what was going on. He was a blessing, others told me, keeping their minds on something happy and hopeful. He allowed people to laugh.
There was no sleeping that night. Patrick was planning with Veniel--the guest house manager--how and where to take the visiting groups when sun broke. Veniel was planning several trips up the mountain to take his family to safety and to buy food and water for the people in the guest house. He and Patrick worked all night on plans for the next day. Finally at 2am Veniel left with his family. Patrick, Solomon and I laid down only after Solomon fell into sleep with a pee-soaked diaper and an empty tummy. But he never fussed.
The sky was full of stars that night. We could see Orion, Andromeda, Scorpio, the dippers, Mars. I've never seen a sky like that in Port-au-Prince. Hymns rose up all around us from groups gathered: How Great Thou Art. When the music subsided, the wailing resumed, then the music rose up again, as if to add comfort for those enduring such pain, such loss. Everyone in the guest house camp was taking care of each other, sharing water, divvying up snacks, taking turns sleeping or sitting on mattresses, offering a back rub or support. The night guard kept watch all night with rifle by his side, not leaving his job despite not being able to get in touch with his family, not knowing. He kept us company as Patrick and I paced most of the evening with a restless, uncomfortable baby boy.
I can't describe feelings because they were muted. Numbed. I've never ever been so present in a moment, purposeful, moving and doing what needed to be done, avoiding thoughts of what the daylight would reveal, what would come next.
At 5:45am the sun rose. On phones that hadn't worked all night, we were briefly able to get through the Patrick's mom. Then my mom and dad to let them know we were ok. I've never heard their voices sound like they way they sounded... frantic, flooding, tearful relief, anxt, panic. For a moment I broke down. They'd been up all night with me from their perch miles away, worrying, fielding calls, searching for news, fearing the worse, completely helpless. We cried together over the phone. I wanted to pass some of the calm that had stayed with me through the day and through the night to them. I wanted to reassure them. I have had to trust God for that.
Patrick returned the little girl to her family who cried and hugged her first, then Patrick. A beautiful reunion to start the day.
Veniel started packing groups into his vans and trucks, transporting them to the embassy. We lent him our car to help in the efforts. Patrick and I walked back home to survey the damage and attempt to get diapers and formula for Solomon.
*Walking through our neighborhood
Daylight revealed the destruction from the day before. Camps of people filled the streets, blocking off some small streets completely. The injured lay next to their friends and families. The dead lay under sheets. Groups of men covered piles of rubble, shouting out for any survivors, digging through to find bodies, yelling out for a flashlight or a hammer. The hospital had cleared some of the backed up traffic, we watched people being brought in on stretchers, the dead lined up outside on the sidewalk covered in sheets. We came home to see the apartment as we left it. It had held through the aftershocks. We risked it. We scaled the rubble, entered the apartment and moved quickly gathering the most important, the most necessary. It was only then that I saw what the earthquake had done. Books off shelves, mirrors fallen and broken, closets emptied, furniture moved. We tidied up a bit, locked doors, packed other non-essential essentials in case we could come back, and left within 15 minutes time, not risking any more time than necessary in an unstable building. I grabbed a first aid kit.
*leaving the apartment after our retrieval run
We encountered Francois in the street outside our house. She had walked across the city to our house to make sure we were ok, to check on the group. She looked exhausted, overwhelmed, and numb. She reported most of her family was ok, but that CONASPEH had collapsed completely with the nursing students and some of the staff within. She gave names of some of the people she knew to be dead. Friends. Students. Coworkers. The janitor in which I had shared a meal. Her foster son had been caught in the collapse, but had survived. They could hear his voice, they'd been working all day and all night to free him. He was still alive, but she was loosing hope. She headed back on foot to her family after hugs and words of encouragement.
*A once 4 story building now pancaked into one small pile
On the way back to the guest house, we passed out ibuprofen and tylenol to those who looked like they needed it. Our car was back at the guest house and one last group remained, small enough for us to ferry them in our car. We packed them in and headed out for the day. They had lost a member of their team in the collapse, and told us about her with eyes brimming with tears and love in their words. They were able to find her body pinned in the rubble and pray for her beautiful spirit. They retrieved her backpack to return to her family. We left them at the Canadian embassy with tears and hugs. People we had never before met had bonded with us under a shared traumatic time. Patrick and I then drove to CONASPEH, surveying the enormity of the damage around us. Schools, businesses, homes leaning, caved in, pancaked down, reduced to rock.
*partial collapse
Pulling up the drive to CONASPEH, we met familiar faces along the way, warning us of what we'd see, praying for our strength. When we arrived, three bodies awaited us under sheets, stiff and lifeless. Many others had already been claimed and removed by family. The 6 story building that had been our office, our school, our clinic, our headquarters was nothing more than one story of rock and rubble. The basketball hoop lay cockeyed on the ground. A crane was working to create an opening. A crowd of 100 or more were gathered round. Reunions. Hugs. Brief tears in the arms of another. Volunteer rescuers--men with big hearts and a hard work ethic--were tirelessly digging through rock and sand, bringing water into the man they'd been working hours to free. His legs were pinned. They could touch him, but were scared to free him. Oh good, a doctor was here. He needs anesthesia. I had none. He needs pain meds. I had none. Everything I had that could help in some miniscule way was buried under six stories worth of concrete. Helplessness. Patrick and Solomon left with a student at the school to find a saw that could cut through rock. I stayed with the mob of people to survey, to remove rock, to give instructions on first aid, but mostly to witness. Other volunteers had found voices on top of the rubble... 2 of my students had survived and their cries had finally been heard. A new effort began to break through layers of concrete to find them. Men with hammers commenced to break and carry away the chunks of concrete. No one had eaten. No one had water. But all worked relentlessly.
While I stood and waited, people came up to me hoping for word of their daughters, their sisters, their friends. They showed me pictures of faces I knew well, faces I had just taught antepartum care to, faces who had worked with me in clinics, helped me the day before unload supplies onto shelves that would later be buried. I could only honestly tell them that I didn't know, that yes, I had seen them yesterday in class but I hadn't seen who had been taken to the hospital yesterday. I didn't know. Families left pictures of their loved one on the mountains of rock as prayers for their departed souls. It was then that I cried, seeing the faces of my students, the picture of my top student, the one who had aced all my tests, volunteered the most in my clinics, brought half of her community in for evaluation looking up at me from a still shot on that pile.
Men around me started to break down crying, "I have no force, its too much, I can't find my sister." Mother's bravely stood, cradling their daughter's ID hoping despite the hopeless pile of evidence before them. We hugged, we held hands, we held each other up.
A few bodies were found while I stood there... still dressed in their school uniforms. I barely recognized faces in death. Life makes us who we are in so many ways.
G was finally able to be freed. We hailed a tap-tap and paid the driver to carry him to the nearest hospital as fast as possible. When all was ready, the team drug G free, both of his legs crushed and mangled to the bone, his face in shock but aware. He responded to my voice, the mob surrounded him, gently carried him to the tap-tap. I made a tournaquet above the bleeding, knowing there wasn't much time. I sent two men with him, men who seemed to know a little about first aid and trauma. They would only return an hour later to tell me he had died in route. They left his body at the hospital for the family to retrieve. Hours spent pulling him out. I only hope his in final minutes he breathed fresh air and felt cared for. We tried to call Patrick and Francois, but phones were still down. Patrick and I drove to the Villier's house to deliver the news only to find they weren't home. Surely they were checking up on other family and friends, trying to do what they could somewhere.
We then went to the embassy to leave word that we were ok. The group from Tennessee was still there, and a stream of American citizens were coming in, some battered, some in good shape, all shell-shocked. We found a missionary friend there who had been trapped for 7 hours in her home, but freed suffering only scratches. She was able to report that our other missionary friends were safe and accounted for. The embassy was working to get people out of Haiti via the Dominican since all commercial airlines had stopped flying into Haiti. From the DR, people could continue home. We trust that over the next two days, our group will be back on US soil.
After leaving our names at the embassy, we returned to the guest house to get Veniel. On route we found Frenaud who needed a ride to the hospital to find his brother who was gravely injured when their house collapsed. He reported his dad and sister had been at CONASEH when the earthquake hit. They had had no word from them and suspected the worse. F looked frantic. His usually cheerful disposition turned somber.
By the time we returned to the guesthouse, it was nightfall. The staff who had worked all day to free bodies from the rubble filled all the vehicles up with gas. We stopped by our apartment again to pack our car with the items we'd removed from the apartment: canned food, a few changes of clothes, diapers, our computers and a hand-held solar charged inverter that could grant us electricity if needed, chargers, a few toiletries. We then caravanned back up the mountain to deposit a body at the embassy, pick up a few hitchhikers along the way, making our way to a safe place to sleep for the night. The streets were brimming with people, huddled together, too scared to get back into their homes or go under any roof. The huge supermarkets had tumbled to the ground with everyone in them, Tanks of UN troops were roaming the streets with guns poised daring people to make trouble. Despite the mobs of people in the streets, it felt empty somehow. No one was selling anything. The street markets were empty. Some folks were handing out or selling sodas and water, but the familiar hustle and bustle of street commerce was eerily and tragically quiet. No water vendors selling their sachets of water, no used clothing for sale or fresh produce. A few fritay vendors had their pots bubbling to help feed the hordes of people camping in the streets. We passed parks teeming with people, tent cities erected on soccer fields and parks. We wonder about people we know, people we haven't yet seen. We wonder about Silvia and her family, wonder if her family is ok, if they are able to sleep in their home or if they are, too, taking to the streets.
Last night we took refuge in a hotel in the mountain town of Kenskoff. We ate our first meal after 36 hours, drank fresh water, showered and slept. The basics never felt so luxurious. We are safe, we are together, and that is more than we can say for millions all around the country.
We still feel numb. There are too many emotions to process.
Today we established internet access and our world opened up to all of you who have been waiting, worrying, praying, listening, watching for any news. I cannot tell you how much it has meant to us to swim through inboxes full of messages of love and prayers, pour over facebook postings of hope and relief. We know how horrible NOT knowing is, we understand your own pacing, your suffering, your helplessness as you watch coverage and hear piece reports of friends, partners and family that you have been worrying about. It wasn't until reading such outpouring of love and support that the tears started to fall, letting go of a little of all that we experienced in the last 36 hours, tears of the overwhelming love that surrounds us.
We are the lucky ones. And tonight we are safe. We have met a pastor and his family who have offered to take us in for a while. Veniel will meet up with us tonight to return our car, and we plan to head to the city tomorrow to find the Villier's and plan our next moves from there.
So many have asked "what can we do?" To this I say, keep praying. Write your congressman, your senators advocating for emergency visas and refugee status for Haitians fleeing this crisis. Give money to relief organization or to Global Ministries for the crisis has only begun. The sea-ports were badly damaged and thus all the supplies shipped are having a hard time docking, the airport is struggling to receive planes because the island has no fuel. Food stores are quickly diminishing, clean water is getting harder to find, hospitals and medical services are overwhelmed with their own tumbled walls and overwhelmed staff. We already have word of mobs tearing through the remains of tumbled markets in search of food. We hear of help and emergency on the way, but as of yet, we have not seen it.
For those who want to come, I say wait. We have so much to do right now, simple things like finding a more permanent place to stay for a while, finding the Villier's, figuring out what step is next. We'll keep you informed as it all unfolds and as we are able the goings on and how you can help.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your love and prayers. We love you and feel enormously, undeservedly blessed to have health, our families and such an incredible network of people willing to fund raise, write, call and e-mail their congressmen, pray and send help. It is this that gives us hope. People helping people, loving people. It is this that will deliver Haiti from ruins. It is this that gives us the calm, the strength, the will to keep going.
*we're okay
We love you.
*plane arrived
*Supply Run
*Fox News Reporting
*Valancia
*Salvation Army Medics
*cup on the guest house rubble
*Veniel's new office
*face
