First Post, Sunday, March 28th.

Sunday, March 28th.

It’s 5:38 pm and I am inside of an improvised office in a city outside of the capital of Haiti. I will spend a lot of time inside of this office during the next two months and I will spend most of my time in this SOS Children’s Village. I will not leave much because it is not safe- actually, my job will require me to leave some, probably daily, but I will always be accompanied by a chauffer or someone from SOS. We won’t be going too far either…. my daily trips will consists of going to the UN base and some warehouses, both are about fifteen minutes away- without traffic.
For the past three days I’ve been trying to process all the information given to me- the person I am now replacing (Louis) left about two hours ago and most of what he did has been left to me- fortunately, I will have two others from the team (German Niklas and Jamaican Nadine) who will continue guiding me during the next couple of days. Unfortunately, they are both leaving soon so by mid-April many things will be in my hands. It is a lot more than what I expected, or at least it seems this way, so I feel I have a lot of responsibility on me during these two months. I, for example, will be in charge of coordinating UN airplane and helicopter flights for all volunteers who will arrive and leave. I am the only person right now who is allowed to sign permission for these flights. I will also be in charge of figuring out logistics for all incoming donations for SOS here. I will learn more about this task tomorrow and Tuesday. I will also write weekly reports and will show visitors the village sometimes.
I could already write a book on what I’ve seen and what I’ve done during the past few days. All of what you will read here can only tell a bit. So far, I feel fine here.. maybe a little scared of the fact that I have about 57 days left here, sometimes I wonder how it will go and if there will be really hard moments. A lot say that the first days are the hardest, but I can’t say the first days have been hard. At least until now… I’ve been fine, feeling mostly lucky to be here.
We’re not supposed to work on Sundays. It’s the day we get to rest, which I’m sure all the volunteers here need because it seems as if people are working really hard these days. I got told that on Sundays volunteers usually go to the beach or to see Port-au-Prince. Today, really early, around 7am, I went with Louis, the German volunteer I am replacing, to drop off another volunteer who was leaving (Steven) at a field close to a children’s hospital. This is where the helicopter picks up people. The helicopter was a little behind schedule so we waited about an hour in the car. Louis is only twenty but for the two months he was here he helped the village a lot. I’ve been hanging out a lot with him because he’s been training me and because he is really cool.
So, Steven, Louis and I waited in the car for about an hour. It was hot, as usual, but we had the air conditioning. We talked about all the places we’ve been and where we all want to travel. Then, the helicopter arrived and we said good-bye to Steven. Too bad because he was also really nice and among the youngest here.
Right after, I went with Louis to the children’s hospital to visit Marevie. She is a baby that Louis is really close to right now. She is about a year and a couple of months, I think, and Louis and other SOS volunteers noticed how malnourished she was during a visit to a community center. They put her in a hospital. The story is really sad because she was being taken care of by her father’s girlfriend and she was feeding all of her biological children, but not her.
It was my second time going to see Marevie. I’m impressed with how easily we are able to access the hospital- we basically just park close the entrance, walk in, go up the stairs and walk in the room. Louis says no one stops us because we are white and we have an SOS tag.
We walk in (by the way, this is one of the nicest hospitals here) and there is Marevie sitting in a crib. It is obvious that she enjoys it when Louis comes to see her, to hold her and to talk to her, but it is also obvious that she is unable to show this or any other emotion. Unlike a healthy baby, she does not smile, does not make noises and hardly moves. I held her the last time we went and you can feel her breathing really deeply. She has a problem with of her lungs, one part collapsed. I don’t know if she will be okay, but I am glad Louis introduced me to her because I definitely will keep visiting her.
When we came back to the village all the other volunteers had left to go to a beach. I didn’t really want to go to the beach anyways because I wanted to see Port-au-Prince. Louis, Niklas (the other german volunteer, one of Louis’ best friends) and I drove to the city. We almost turned around at one point, doubting how safe it was for three white people to drive around.
The more I am here, the more I realize how dangerous this place is – or so it seems. I think about the many photographs I’ve seen on nytimes.com or other websites and I wonder how photographers were able to stand in those streets. They put their life in a lot of danger. I will not be doing the same and I still have to figure out a way to photograph as much as I can- and be safe. I will keep thinking about this for the next few days because I want to go back to Costa Rica with a group of great photographs. I don’t necessarily have to be in Port-au-Prince, but it seems as if it is dangerous in most places. I will photograph the children here at the village (again, it is very safe here), but I want more than this. Either way, the camera will be with me always.
We drove into the city and I began to see destruction. Tent camps. People. Lot’s of people, people washing their clothes by the street, naked kids getting washed outside of the tents, men with bags of little bags of water on their head. The closer we got to the capital the more destruction I saw- some buildings are tilted in a way that it seems as if any other little temblor/earthquake would make it fall in one second. I saw buildings that were untouched, others that were half destroyed, others that I could not even make anything out of it, it was all rubble. There was trash everywhere, chicken/hens and other animals, alive and among all this trash.. all kinds of trash and dirty water. Lots of people were just sitting and I thought, why can’t they pick up this trash or clean up just a little bit. The amount of work that will have to be done to clean up (not rebuild), just clean up the city is indescribable, unimaginable. It was the worst scenes I have ever seen in my life, and hopefully the worst I will ever see. It seemed unreal that a city got destroyed in such way. Almost three months after the earthquake and at least where I saw, there was absolutely no effort of any type of cleaning. I know this country has been left with all kind of major problems and right now it seems as if the priority is to give people food. So I guess the clean up will eventually come, but I wonder when. It will have to come, and after that, the rebuilding.
It really seemed as if the only improvement after the earthquake (as far as what the places looks like) was the removal of the dead bodies (and there are many more left underneath the rubble).
I was definitely shocked. The people on the streets seemed fine, walking to whatever destination, as if they are walking among any other city in the world. They must have gotten somehow used to seeing the destruction.
We visited the cathedral, I did take some pictures there, but the doors were closed and we couldn’t get in. We still walked through the rubble. We also got to see what I had seen many times in pictures, the presidential palace.
We drove quickly and carefully, these are a few photos I took from the car, window close. I wished I could just be invisible and walk through those streets with my camera.
When we got back I took a nap (all the volunteers stayed up late last night talking)- I’m still getting used to sleeping with this hot weather.
Louis left at 3pm. A helicopter came to the village. Niklas and I drove to a gas station half a mile from here and got sandwiches. I’ll get into the food later, that’s another subject. So far eating here will be a big struggle- if not, the biggest. Let’s just say in two months, I will really really really enjoy a home cooked meal at any of my aunt’s house or anywhere away from here.
Ok, enough for today. I saw many other interesting things today, but I will write more later. Happy Bday Cata.