18 November 2010

Today is a National Holiday in Haiti. On this day in 1803 the slaves fought their last battle against the French army of Napoleon. Jean Jacques Dessalines, still today a National hero, led the battle against Fort Brèda, Vertières in the north of Haiti. This was the last place still in the hands of the French army. This day is referred to as The battle of Vertières. In haitian kreyol Batay Vètyè The Battle of Vertières marked the first time in the history of mankind that a slave army led a successful revolution for their freedom Dessalines proclaimed the independent Republic of Haiti on 1 January 1804 Therefor January 1st is Haiti’s independence day.

Coincidental, or maybe it is not a coincident at all, today is also my birthday. And because of everything that has happened in my life sofar this year this birthday marks a very special one for me. I am so lucky to be able to celebrate my birthday after all. We organized a fun party in the afternoon with the kids. Ofcourse there was cake, and decorations and we played lots of games together. Youseline, Melinda and Estania had made me some beautiful birthday drawings for presents. And ofcourse all kids sang happy birthday to me many times in a row.

It was a great birthday!!! Bon Fèt!

Now that electricity is back on and the internet signal back in the air,I can send you all a sign of life from Jakmel, Haiti.

We have been extremely lucky that TOMAS changed it’s course and passed us much more to the west. At first the prediction was that he would come straight over Jakmel.

What we got was a lot, a lot of rain, a wall of water came over us, and quite some heavy winds, but of course it could have been much worse had it been the 80 miles/h winds closer to the eye of the hurricane.  Thursday morning we moved all the kids and all our belongings into next door Hotel Leviya, a lot of work, but luckily Dave Bird from Calvary Chapel with some volunteers came to help move the most heavy things for us. The rest we did ourselves. And just in time, because the rains started at around noon and did not let off until saturday morning. Saturday afternoon it was all over and the sun came back, but it wasn’t till sunday afternoon that we could move back into our campsite, since it needed quite some time to dry, especially the floors.

TOMAS did punch a hole in our monthly budget, because obviously we did have to pay to spend 3 nights in the hotel, but hey the kids were safe and dry, and they spend a fun time inside with great sleep.

The cholera epidemic is spreading rapidly. Two days ago a person from Lavoud, a little town not to far from Jakmel came to the local Hospital St Michel, and he tested positive for cholera. He is being kept in isolation. All of the hospitals in Port-au-Prince are overflowing with patients. People in towns and villages around Gonaïves, in the north, are burying victims in mass graves, according to aid workers and photographers, and suspected cases have been detected in the south and in the Dominican Republic, which shares this Caribbean island with Haiti. One hospital in Gonaïves has closed its doors completely to cholera patients, out of fear for infecting their other patients. People are being left in the streets, in front of hospitals and churches in hope that some one will take care of them, which does not always happen and so they die right there in the street. Very, very sad.

Of course we are taking all precautions to protect ourselves and follow very strict hygiene rules. Which is something we already always do since day 1 at Kay Angel. All staff and kids are washing their hands all the time with disinfecting soap. We bathe the kids with filtered water, we cook with filtered water, we do the dishes with filtered water with some bleach in it, and clean all our fruits and vegetables the same way.

The oral vaccine that exists is not recommended by the WHO, and is also not available to us. All of this does add stress to our already stressful existence since the earthquake. Soo much extra worrying. In Haiti you go from one problem to the next all the time, there is never any time to just relax ;-(

“Lakay se lakay” is Kreyol for “Home Sweet Home.”
It is such a wonderful feeling to be home again after 2 months.
Traveling this distance has been somewhat a challenge.
Since I cannot walk fast or far yet I received wheel chair assistance to wheel me in and out
of the plane. The 8 hours sitting in the plane between Amsterdam and New York were not exactly
pleasant, but half way during the flight I got moved up to business class.
“This will make it easier to get you in your wheel chair once we arrive in New York” was the friendly explanation.
Of course I was thrilled to suddenly sit in such a luxury chair, as was my belly and my scar.
I still keep my jeans open since the pressure on the scar is too much if it would be closed.

After having spend 2 nice resting-up days at a friend’s house in NYC I flew back to Haiti last Sunday.
It was great to be greeted by Youseline, Estania and Melinda at the airport’s exit, who had come along to pick me up.
I noticed right away how all 3 had grown, and that they looked so beautiful and healthy.
After a 2.5 hour car ride we were back in Jakmel and Kay Angel.
What a joy to see all the other kids again as well. All of them had grown a lot. Sophie, who is sitting on my lap as usual, had turned 3 in my absence.
Luckson (5) had just a few days before my return lost his first tooth. Just past week school had started for the 6 oldest kids
and all of them were talking to me about their new school and how much they love going to their school.
To me it definitely has been worth it to make this long trip quite early on in my recovery time.
The rest of my recovery I now get to do at home. Nothing can beat that.

A big compliment and thank you to my friends and staff who have managed Kay Angel very well in my absence.

Of-course I have been very worried about the recent tragedy that has hit Haiti, the cholera epidemic.
I had already tried to get cholera vaccines in New York, but it turns out that they are not available in the US.
Once home I immediately called our doctor, Dr Ernest to see if vaccines are available here, and if our kids and staff
could be vaccinated as a precaution. But unfortunately also in Haiti there are no vaccines for cholera available.
At this time it seems that they have gotten the epidemic under control, and that they were able to keep it from spreading to
Port au Prince. But that is not yet completely sure. At this time no cholera has been detected in Jakmel.
Of-course we at Kay Angel always follow very strict hygiene rules, which makes our chances very low to contract cholera.
It is really sad that yet another tragedy has hit the Haitian people. Many have fallen victim already, about 300, and
thousands are ill and being treated.

This makes me appreciate even more that I am  home again with the kids.
If I had to sit by and watch from such a distance I would have been worried sick.
Not good for my recovery of course.

Of course I am still recuperating and tired, but YES I am extremely relieved that the results came back negative, or how I like to look at it, positive, in the sense that the cancer did not spread. Now I can just concentrate on getting my strength back, resting up, hoping that the physical discomforts, like a leaking bladder, sharp shooting pains and burning sensation in my upper legs, due to irritated nerves etc from the operation will slowly go away. The doctor said those discomforts might be there for a few weeks.

I have booked my return tickets to NYC on Oct 21st and back to Haiti sunday Oct 24th. Of course I will still have to take it very easy when I am back, and I will travel light, but I am sooooo very home sick. And by then it will have been 4 weeks post operation, the doctor said it is okay to travel by then. AT least I can catch up with the accounting then, and be with the kids.

I have a huge “beautiful” scar right over the length of my belly, to remember this ordeal by. It is still healing and very sensitive, but I will treasure it.

You know it is amazing, I have had this cancer in my belly since well before the earthquake, at least since last summer  ’09 according to the doctors, and so all these past 8 months I was running around
with that inside of me, not knowing, The moment the doctor told me :”you have cancer” I actually did not have cancer anymore it turns out now with the results of the 2nd operation. Life is just amazing!!!

Hi Everybody,

We are all alive and none of us is injured, by a miracle, mere timing kept us alive, a few minutes earlier or later and most of our kids and me would have been dead. But………. we are homeless, The orphanage is still standing, but totally unsafe.

A recap of Tuesday 12 January 2010:

At 4 PM me and Eliane, 1 of our nannies had taken 5 of our kids: Youseline, Estania, Melinda, Yakime, Luckson and Chidlie our little neighbor friend to the playground at La Place (townsquare). The kids were having a great time.

At around 5 PM I was just about to wrap up all the kids to go back home, when suddenly I felt like I was standing on a rocking boat. I could not move, I could hardly stay standing up, and in front of me all the kids are calling out my name in panic Lia, Lia……

The whole world was spinning, all the buildings around La Place were swinging and above Hotel de la Place a huge cloud of smoke and dust. There were screams everywhere, and lots of noise from buildings collapsing. The air was filled with dust, and then I saw the roof ornament of the school next to Hotel de la Place,( see the green building in the photograph below), falling down right on top of my car.

We are sooo lucky we were not yet sitting in the car, we all would have been dead.

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The shock lasted for quite a while, it felt like many, many minutes. Then when it felt like it was over, Eliane and I  gathered the kids, and they were all okay. We moved to the middle of town-square, out of reach of anything that could possibly fall down on us and sat down on the ground to re-group.

Melinda started praying, threw her hands up to the sky and said: “Jezu Jezu, Kisa ou fe?” Jesus, Jesus, what are you doing?

Within minutes townsquare was filled with people, a lot of people where hurt, crying, screaming: my child died, my wife died, My house has collapsed……etc etc lots of people were covered with dust. Our kids were scared but did not freak out or anything, they were very brave, they did not even cry.

They just wanted to go home, and so did Eliane and I.

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Since my car was completely damaged by the falling piece of the school, and the streets were filled with debris anyway we just walked back home. All hand in hand with Eliane and me, we walked back home as fast as we could. The phone-system was not working at all, or maybe overloaded and we feared the worst for the rest of our kids and the orphanage itself. Everybody was walking in the streets, there were many cars covered with pieces of fallen buildings, many injured people in the street, dust everywhere, but our kids kept their courage, while we had to climb over parts of fallen buildings to get home.

Yakime and Luckson are only 4 years old, and the girls 7, 8 and 9. On our way home we ran into Mona, Chidlie’s mother who had come running down to find us, totally in tears, without shoes, and her blouse hanging open. The buttons had fallen off as she had pushed her way through a sea of people in the street, coming to find her child. She was sooo relieved when she found her 6 year old daughter was unharmed.

She did tell us that our other kids were okay, but that our home had taken a lot of damage. That sped up our already very fast pace. When we took the last turn to turn into our street a lot of people started screaming:” Men Lia, men timoun-yo, ou anfonm?,  nou kwe ou te mouri! Men ou pa gen machin anko?” “There’s is Lia, there are the kids, are you okay? we thought you had died , you don’t have a car anymore?”

To my great relieve I saw our house still standing up.

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I found Frantz, our director and all the other kids in the garden with 2 of our nannies. All very shaken up and very happy to see us.

While we were at the park, this is what had happened at home:

At the time of the quake most of our little ones, 8 in total, 2 of them (Idoris and Martin),severely handicapped, the youngest, Zael almost 2, the oldest Martin (handicapped) almost 4, were sleeping in the playroom. Our other nanny Magalie and our nurse Claudette were sitting with them inside. Frantz happened to be just in front of the front-porch in the garden. Frantz was unable to move and go inside at first to get the kids out. Magalie and Claudette were trying to come outside with some of the kids, but could not move either.

Almost immediately, they told me, big parts of the inner-walls in the playroom were falling down. Some pieces fell right on Idoris, (our little boy who has microcephalia) who was sleeping in his crib. By miracle only his upper lip was cut. Sylvaince, who just turned 3 on January 2nd, was sleeping on a pillow in the back playroom and huge pieces of center-block had fallen on him,  below you will see a photograph of the pillow with his silhouette still on it. By miracle he too was unharmed.

As soon as they were able to move, while the quake was still going on, Magalie and Claudette started handing our kids over the front-porch fence to Frantz who sat them down all the way at the end of our front yard.

By now it was about 6.20 PM and completely dark. No electricity, no streetlights and a new moon, so a very dark night. Since it felt quiet as far as aftershocks was concerned I ran inside the playroom to get all the play pillows out, and asked Frantz to help me carry the 2 cribs we have in there outside as well. I ran into our little clinic to get all our medication out, 5 of our kids are HIV+ and on ARV medication, that they take twice a day, at 8 AM and 8 PM. Missing their medication is not an option.

Then I said a little prayer and went upstairs to get the 3 single mattresses from the girls beds and threw them down over the balcony. I grabbed as many sheets and blankets as I could, so we could prepare a huge bed for our kids for the night. Then I went into our office upstairs and found everything on the floor. Lots of stuff had fallen down from the shelves on top of my computer, but luckily she was not damaged. Frantz came upstairs to help me collecting our valuables, like our 2 petty-cash boxes and our bank book.

Then we felt some aftershock and ran downstairs.

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As soon as all our kids were fed and situated in the big bed for the night, Frantz and I regrouped together on what to do. We did not really know what was going on, or what was still to come at this point. Phones were still not working.

I do have this hidden tsunami-fear for the last few years, after the last tsunami hit, because at the time it was said that the next one most likely would happen in the Caribbean. If that was the case we figured that it would be best to be right where we were, because we live far enough from the sea, on much higher ground than downtown Jakmel.

On our way walking home I had heard a lot of people saying that it was said to best go to the local airport, right next to the Minustah/UN base. But that airport is on very low ground, very close to the sea, so in case of a tsunami I would not want to be at that location at all. And besides, with 13 little kids, no car, streets full of debris on a very dark night we figured that the best thing to do was just to stay right there.

By now it was about 7.30 PM and I decided to go down the hill to check my own house, and find some info on what was going on, what was still to come maybe. I found my house to be fine, no cracks in the wall at all, only stuff inside that had fallen down, some cups and glasses broken. I guess my landlord had not been cheap with cement while building this house.

Everybody in my street was sitting in the middle of the street, singing, praying. Improvising beds to spend the night outside. Around 8.30 PM a lot of aftershocks occurred again. I sat down in the middle of the street with all my neighbors for quite some time.

I wanted to go back up the hill to the orphanage to be with my kids, but fear of more shocks, the darkness, the bad roads, and none of my neighbors willing to accompany me up the hill kept me sitting in the street.

Around 11.30 PM a friend of mine came looking for me, to see if I was okay and he was willing to walk back up with me, so that I could spend the night with the kids. It was a very freaky walk that normally would take about 10 minutes, but now it took us more than an hour, because every time we felt a shock we sat down on the ground immediately, and then waited some time before we had the courage to continue our walk. We arrived back at the orphanage around 2 AM. I had carried a piece of carpet I happened to have at home to sleep on.

From time to time there were more after shocks during the rest of the night, and the air was filled with the sounds of Voodoo drums, people praying and singing. We did not really sleep at all. It was also a very, very cold night, because there has been a Northern chill wind for the last 2 weeks.

Wednesday 13 January 2010:

At 5.30 AM we carried our stove and refrigerator out of the kitchen and put it in the garden under the laundry roof, so that we would be able to prepare food for our kids. Luckily the day before we had just refilled all our drinking-water gallons, so we carried them out as well.

For the next few days we have water to drink.

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At 6 AM Elmas, one of our cooks came to work. I was pleasantly surprised. At this point we did not know yet if any of our staff was hurt or killed, or had lost their home. Today saturday I can tell you that all our staff is fine, nobody is hurt, except for Rochel, our night security guy. He was at a barber shop at the time of the quake and a panic had broken out when everybody tried to get out at the same time. He had fallen on the floor in front of the door and all the other guys that were inside had walked right over him. He is bruised pretty badly, both his hands, feet and legs are swollen and hurting. He came to see us for the first time on thursday.

Some of our staff have severely damaged houses, and 2 of them lost their home completely.

But all of our staff has been GREAT, everybody has come to work. 2 of our nannies and 1 of our nurses have moved into the tent with us, since they live so close and everybody has to sleep outside anyway, now we are all sleeping together.

We are sharing our tent with lots of neighbors, and some people that are wounded have come to us as well to be treated by our 2 nurses, since at the hospital they were not finding help. The hospital has collapsed, there are some doctors, and they are doing what they can, but there are so many wounded people that they can not help them all. They don’t have enough beds, or medication, and other medical material, gaze alcohol, betadine, painkillers etc etc.

We have lend one of our beds to Wilson, a neighbor who’s hand is severely injured, bones sticking out, and he lives with us in the tent as well. At 7.30 Am I went down into Jakmel to see the damage, and to try to find out as much as I could about friends, schools etc and the status of the quake.

Walking all over town was very devastating, to see all the collapsed buildings, to learn that some of my friends have died, some others are missing…………..3 schools that were full of students had totally pancaked down, some people still alive inside……………………..I walked all the way to the airport. A lot of people had spend the night there, Minustah had set up 3 big white tents, and were handing out water. But water only, no food!!

I found some of my friends there being alive, lots of personal stories were being shared, lots of loss of life, belongings, homes. I then went on to the Minustah/UN military base to ask for help in the form of a tent. The commandant, a friend of our orphanage, he had just visited us the sunday before and given us a watertruck,  and lots of yoghurt, as they do for us almost every week, was sooo sorry but did not have a tent to give us. He said, I want to help you, but we have no materials, we only have 3 tents and they are set up on the airport. I kept pushing on, “you do not have anything at all to help me, a huge piece of plastic maybe? “He said no, I am very sorry.

I was not going to leave this UN base empty handed.

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I kept pushing just till I got through to another department within this base, and got to speak with a Scotsman named Angus. He made the military guys surge the whole base for at least a huge piece of plastic and rope, and they found us exactly that.

They gave me a ride back into town, and I ran up the hill back to the orphanage. Together with Frantz and 2 friends of mine we sat up a tent, just with the plastic and some robe, in our front yard as far away from the house, so the kids would have shelter from the by now very hot sun.

Our kids were thrilled with there new home, they are definitely having the experience of their lives. Then around 3.30 PM we felt again more shocks, and I decided to just move the tent all the way in the street behind our front gate.

We don’t know if our building is going to come down.

But it is very possible if these aftershocks continue. And a big building like this one, you don’t know how it is going to fall. We made a new type of tent/overhead in the street and are sharing that now with many neighbors who do not have any type of shelter at all.

On Thursday morning I have made many trips inside with the help of Ambroise, our assistant director, and recovered a lot more of our belongings, we also moved our make-shift kitchen all the way to the front, far away from the building in case it falls.

Saturday morning I have send Frantz, our director to PaP to go see his wife Ann. She is fine, their home has some cracked walls and inside a lot of broken things, but she is okay. The first 2 days were devastating for Frantz, because he was not able to find his wife on the phone untill thursday or have any info if she was okay or not.

Frantz has been amazing in handling this difficult situation with me and making sure the kids are fine, and very well taken care of and save. And so I think it is essential for his well-being to go and re-unite with his wife for 2 days, also that will give him more strength to handle our difficult future to come.

The road to PaP is blocked at St Etienne, motor bikes do go to PaP and back, but at that point they need to walk over the side with the bike in hand. See last picture below, the side of the mountain has totally covered the road for a long lenght.

The kindergarten Claire Fontaine, the school of Yakime, Luckson, Kettia and Sylvaince is still standing but very badly damaged. see pics below The little blue chair you see next to the pink chair on the first level where the wall has fallen down is Yakime’s chair.

Today Saturday is the first day that any help has come in.

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This morning there were 5 helicopters, they came with dogs and material to find survivors at the school Trinité which has pancaked down with many students inside, and some of them are still alive……………

You can see full coverage of this on our sidebar and check out the website of Cine institute: http://www.cineinstitute.com/

The first time I was able to get in touch with anyone was Friday morning, I spoke with my mother, great reliefe and with Martin, our sponsor. Before that, it was impossible to call, by now it is possible to get through when you persist a lot, and somehow it is easier to call abroad than within Haiti. It is also for free, thank you Digicel. But the system is still overloaded. It is not easy to find a place with electricity, I went to the radio station, because they are running a generator and they are letting me plug-in in one of their outlets. Luckily I have my own portable internet box thanks to Martin, he donated that to us on his last visit in Sept 2009. And I am sitting in a little corner to finally send this e-mail out to you all.

Thank you all for the support, the love, the prayers, all the e-mails you have send me, all the effort that is out there to find out if we were okay in my address below you will find the link to our blog, and there you can learn more about this little orphanage and the 13 amazing kids we are taking care of.

You can also donate on this blog. Obviously we will need a lot of support to rebuild a new home for our kids. You can use this link or any of the yellow “donate” buttons you see. You will be taken to a PayPal page, you can use your PayPal account OR with major credit or debit card.

If you prefer to send a check, please send it to our administrative address:

WeCanBuildanOrphanage.com
1291 Will Geer Road
Topanga, California 90290
We Can Build An Orphanage is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. All contributions are tax-deductible. Our EIN (tax id number) is: 20-8660929

Photos from January 12th – 13th, Jacmel, Haiti

Peace and Love

When the earthquake hit, she was at the park at the Town Square with five children.  Just before 5PM she decided to head back to the orphanage.   “That’s when everything turned upside down,” she tells us.

Timing was everything.   Had she left five minutes earlier she would have been getting the kids in the car.  Her car is no more, as the quake landed the Hotel La Place on top of it.  She and the kids walked  safely through the streets back home.

Sunset at the Town Square, Sept. ’09

At the orphanage, as the ground shook, bricks flew off the wall in the playroom where some of the children slept.  Idoris, a child with Microcephalis got hit, though only has a small lip injury.  Another, sleeping child Zael, got hit in the back and has only some minor scratches.

Lia explained that during the quake you couldn’t move, it was like being on a rocking ship in a storm.  You could only stand there until it stopped. Once it did the staff got the children out safely and all escaped the quake unharmed.

Their staffs’ families are safe and most of their homes are still standing (though not all).

Everyone in town is sleeping in the street and are not allowed to go back to their houses, even if they are standing because the tremors continue.

Lia went to the Minustah (a UN aid peace keepig group) and asked for a tent to sleep in. They had none to give, so she begged a Scotsman working there for a large piece of plastic and fashioned it into a tent like shelter.

The kids handled the earthquake without panic and are not afraid, except for Sylvaince who told Lia during a tremor “I am afraid of the earth!”.  As the tremor’s continued one of the older girls, Youseline threw her hands to the sky and called out in protest ”Jesus, WHAT are you doing?!?”

Reality is harsh.  There have been many deaths.  Downtown and the beach area destroyed.  Lia’s friend Flo had grabbed a sandwich at the Peace of Mind of Hotel.  The word is that she forgot her computer upstairs and ran to get it.  The earthquake struck while they were in it and she and her companion have died.

The Mayor of Jacmel is driving around in his big yellow Dodge Ram full of people,  looking important, but not stopping for anyone.  “He must be busy, but I have tried to talk to him.  I would like to get information from him, but he won’t stop,” said Lia.

She calmly explains that they are ok with food and water for a week, then both will run out.  “Where is the aid?  There is no one here helping”.

The back walls of the local hospital have collapsed so the facility is useless.    Patients are being treated outside but there are too many people.  There are not enough doctors, bandages, pain killer, disinfectants, antibiotics.  Patients are seeking out Lia and our staff as we have two nurses.  They are helping bandage and treat people as they can.

The orphanage needs to find a new home.  For now they may be able to use the nannies’ houses for temporary shelter, and Lia’s house which survived.

The World Food Program (thanks, guys!) has been providing them with food in the past.  She hopes this can continue.  She needs to get a new car to get around and get supplies, and medication for the kids.

“I don’t need you to send those replacement window switches for my broken car windows”, she jokes.  And we are relieved that she can joke.

There is no passage yet from Port au Prince to Jacmel, only by combination of bike and walking. And even then it is daunting.

The only helicopter she has seen was airlifting the Danish ambassador (Jürgen whose house collapsed) — the UN flew him to the Dominican Republic (DR) by helicopter, she tells us.  We find out later, from someone here that it was actually Jürgen’s son who hired a helicopter from the DR to rescue his 72 year old dad whose beautiful and palatial house had collapsed.

Lia, Martin, Jürgen’s Groundskeeper, Youseline, Yakime, Sylvaince & Melinda in front of Jürgen’s Villa in September ’09

Pazapa, school for the handicapped, run by a woman named Marika is closed.  The kids’ kindergarten is destroyed.  “Public schools are closed and will be for a long time,” she tells us.  “How will we get these kids educated?” her voice is deep with concern.

Lia, Marika and Jeannette at Pazapa, September 2009

Children in the courtyard of Marika’s Kindergarten, September 2009

In La Vallee (rural area in the hills) there are lots of deaths and no resources for rescue, like in Jacmel where there is no sign of outside help.

They have been completely cut off from the world, so they don’t even know how bad the damage was in Port Au Prince, how big or long the earthquake was, or how much or little attention the world is paying to the disaster.

She is surprised when we tell her of the money and relief efforts pouring in from all over the world.  While none of that is helping them in Jacmel, she seems relieved to hear that help is in Port Au Prince.

The recent cold front has made its unusally cold at night, but they do have some blankets.  The evenings are almost always in the 70′s. But the sudden change meanst that it is now too cold to go without blankets.

We ask what they need most, “The kids need need shoes and clothes,”she says.  We may need cribs after this, though we got a couple out of the house.  Things are getting very expensive, and the bank isn’t functioning.  She wonders how she will get the money we wired over the day after the disaster.

She starts to recount that they have lost their furniture and dishes, “well, nearly everything”, she realizes.  I guess we will buy everything when this is over in a few weeks.  From the viewpoint here, it doesn’t seem like this will be over anytime soon…

Lia at first thought a bomb exploded.  She was next to the World Trade Center during 9/11 and narrowly escaped.  Being in the market place during the earthquake reminded her of that.  But, she reacted very calmly, driven by adrenaline.  Now she’s amazed at how this has brought out an extreme kindness and patience in her.  Haiti is a very frustrating place to live for someone who is used to smooth infrastructure, and functioning systems like in the West.

There was no panic, just a sense of doing what needs to be done.

Some of the  downstairs orphanage walls have collapsed and those that remain are full of holes and cracks — opening more with every aftershock. The garden walls may come down too, so they have moved away from the house and garden awaiting more aftershocks today that have been predicted.  They sit a safe distance away and wait for it.

Lia braved three trips inside the house and upstairs in between aftershocks and creaking sounds as she dashed in.  With help, she took out food, a fridge and stove — she was scared, but braved going in, and even upstairs several times.

The adrenaline has worn off and now she doesn’t have the nerve anymore to go inside and retrieve anything.

There are those still trapped under rubble.  One family of seven got trapped under their house.  People fed them water and finally managed to cut them out with a concrete saw, but 5 of them had died.  The other two are badly injured.

Someone recently asked Lia “Hey, blanc (White), why are you here?  After the hurricanes and now the earthquake, you’re leaving, right?”

She is not, her commitment is stronger than ever toward these 13 children, and this country.

People are singing and praying all night and Lia wants to say “can’t we just be quiet?”  She is exhausted.  The three oldest girls (known as The Triplets) wake up at night too and pray with the other people, loudly singing Hallelujah.

“This sounds strange”, said Lia but we are happy.  They are embracing the spirit and bonding that comes with an ad hoc, tight-knit community of almost joyful survivors.

From Andrew Madda…

LIA is fine ! her orphanage is destroyed and her 13 kids sleeping on the street.. but they are fine and all together.

xx

Lia Teaching Orphanage Kids
August 2009

I can barely believe it.  The news is still sinking in, but I wanted to get this out to all of you asap.  Yay, I’ll be able to sleep tonight.  Then again, so many questions: how did the staff get out in time, with 13 kids, most of them toddlers, one unable to walk, another one unable to move?  Where are they sleeping now — out in the open?  How are the kids getting their AIDS and Tuberculosis medicine?  Were they able to salvage that from the wreckage?

The answers will emerge… at the latest when Luke arrives on Monday.

Thank you all again for your amazing support in these difficult times!

Stay tuned and rejoice!

Friends I spoke with are in the same position. Arts Creation Foundation had 43 children working on arts projects in their concrete house when the quake hit. Their director in Florida, Judy, was on the phone with them when the phone suddenly went silent. No word from them since…

By now we have several people searching for Lia and kids. I expect to find out today what happened. If you pray, please pray for them!

Here is some of the damage to buildings in Jacmel:

No matter what happened to us, this earthquake is a major disaster for so many children, friends and neighbors in our town.

Please help our orphanage and the people of Jacmel by donating to our disaster relief effort! (The donation module is on the right side of this page)

Our staff will immediately buy and distribute food as they did after the hurricanes, and in the coming weeks help rebuild homes and hospitals.

Thank you for your compassion!

Martin Schmitt

Why Haiti? Again?