As we entered Haiti from the Dominican Republic border we saw a hustling mini marketplace setup with people buying all sorts of goods from basic food items and drinks to essential clothing; it was impossible to determine where the goods came from or who was purchasing them apart from the poor Haitian locals.
We noticed that the border only opens from 8.00am until 7.00pm on a daily basis; outside this time one has to wait at the border until the army opens it again the following day and queues many many miles long form very quickly. We were told as well, prior to our departure, that a very long queue of traffic had formed at the border crossing and that we could be stuck there for hours before we got a chance to cross into Haiti, but with the skill of our driver we criss-crossed the queue without any problems and managed to get into Haiti with relative ease. On our way towards Port au Prince, we passed many relief organisations carrying containers of goods and a convoy of Canadian Army vehicles carrying with heavy lifting machines.
Inside Haiti, a combination of dirt tracks and tarmac roads enabled us to reach Port Au Prince in approximately 2 hours. The city itself was alive with people selling goods outside their earthquake damaged buildings on the footpaths, in order to keep themselves busy and to earn some income so that they could somehow support themslves and their families. There was an extraordinary amount of destruction in this highly dense city which had been built on mountains; from the top of one mountain all you could see was houses practically on top of each other and no sight of any roads or streets. It immediately became apparent to us why so many people had lost their lives due to this terible and devastating earthquake which had claimed nearly 250,000 people at the time of our visit.
All along the route to our distribution centre we could see the devastation the earthquake had caused with so many buildings reduced to heaps of rubble or flattened in a space of less than a minute. However, to our astonishment there were still many buildings in the city that were not affected by the earthquake. The only conclusion we arrived at was that most had been constructed with sub-standard materials using an incorrect cement-sand mix with not enough reinforcement in it, which is why the walls probably crumbled to devastating effect; we actually saw a car that was crushed by the rubble of the buildings that had fallen on it, but we were amazed to know that it was still being driven around by locals.
Once at our distribution points in the outskirts of the city, we left the comfort of our car and walked outside in the dry dust which nearly choked us. The gut wrenching smell of death still lingered in many areas so we were forced to cover our mouths with hankerchiefs; it was something we will never forget for the rest of our lives.
We managed to distribute the following items to the queues of men, women and children anxiously waiting for the life-saving handouts at our distribution centre:
- Bottles of water
- Milk cartons
- A variety of fruit drinks
- Cooking oil
- Salt
- Rice
- Tinned fish
Each survivor knew that aid is distributed fairly at our distribution centre on a daily basis at approxiately 6.30pm local time so they queued in an orderly and dignified manner until it was their turn to receive the relief items from the MGR team. Many local volunteers also assisted in the loading of vehicles and the distribution of relief items in other areas of the city.
The condition of the survivors was very bad with most still trying to maintain some sort of a simple existence with what they could salvage from the remains of their houses or by selling anything they could lay their hands on, or by actually working with international NGOs. We visited many tent villages where people were living in the temporary shelters and spoke to as many as we could; one lady called Marie feared that that her life would not be back to normal again because she had lost everything including her husband, but had still got to support her four young children. We also saw how the tents being used were made ineffective when it rained heavily on the first night of our visit in the city; the area was inundated with rivers of water when the skies opened with their deluge but the Monsoon season has still to arrive!
We witnessed reconstruction work being undertake by the locals to rebuild what they could before the advent of the Monsoon season, but it was difficult to determine whether they had received any external assistance from the international community swarming around them. It is extremely important that someone regulates the reconstruction effort and especially the earthquake proofing of future structures as occurred in other areas of the world, such as Kashmir.
Whilst in Port au Prince, M Razaque also discussed with members of several international NGOs, aspects of their work for the short-term and long-term development of the country. After one such meeting and on his way back to the distribution point in the late evening, he saw that some of the main roads were blocked with blocks of masonary; this was not due to the earthquake but were placed there by the locals to alert people, and to prevent drivers from entering areas where survivors had set up their tents on the roads.
On one particular morning at the scene of a collapsed house, there was a lot of commotion and people with face masks and surgical gloves on were busy getting ready to take away another corpse retrieved from the rubble, and this was six weeks after the earthquake. MGR will continue to provide short-term relief items such as food, water and shelter and will also help the people in Haiti with educational programs.
We are heavily reliant on our donors not to forget the desperate plight of the people of Haiti and to assist them in their time of immense need.
We urgently need funds for the following:
- Tent for a family £250.00
- Food & Water (1 Week) £100.00
The cost of running each primary school in our Educational Project will cost £2,000 per month, and will employ at least 10 teachers and cater for a minimum of 50 children. This will provide the teachers an income to support their families and with the children at school, it will give their parents a chance to look for employment or rebuild their homes.
Download Haiti Leaflet SOF
Please continue to donate generously as every penny counts!
