Partners In Health (known as Zanmi Lasante in Haitian Creole) has set the global standard for delivering health care to the world’s poor. PIH has operated permanently in Haiti for over 20 years. PIH workers, including many Haitian doctors and nurses, are currently on the ground in Port-au-Prince delivering medical care to thousands of those in need.

Haiti Medical Mission of Wisconsin sends teams of medical workers to Thiotte, a village in the mountains of southeast Haiti. The organization is currently making alternate plans to send physicians and nurses to Port-au-Prince. My dad is among those hoping to travel there within the next week. The medical workers pay all of their own expenses. All donations are used to purchase supplies and support Haitian medical workers.

Matthew 25 House, located in Port-au-Prince, serves as a guesthouse for service groups traveling to Haiti. I have stayed at the house many times. The house suffered some damage from the earthquake but is still standing. The three permanent staff members, as well as a small team of doctors, have been working around the clock to treat those injured by the earthquake. Patients have flooded the courtyard and a neighboring soccer field. Matthew 25 House is in desperate need of additional supplies and support to continue this work.

Eben-Ezer Mission was my primary home in Haiti. Located in Gonaives, Eben-Ezer Mission is now caring for patients from Port-au-Prince at its hospital. In addition, the mission is taking in orphans from the capital city and setting up scholarships for students from Port-au-Prince to attend schools in Gonaives. Donations to Eben-Ezer Mission are tax-deductible and may be sent to: 345 Nahum Road, Moravian Falls, NC 28654.

I will write further updates soon. For now, please keep my dear friend, Mireille Jean-Charles, and her step-son, Mikeson Jean-Charles, in your thoughts and prayers. The two live in Port-au-Prince and have not yet been located. Update: Mireille’s husband, Michelet, received a call from Mireille yesterday evening. She and Mikeson survived the earthquake. Like all of the other residents of Port-au-Prince, they are living on the streets, but they are alive.

As you can see from my last two entries, the Haitian people are still living with the effects of Hurricanes Hanna and Ike everyday. Nonetheless, I am redirecting my efforts toward my original project. I still believe that long-term solutions to the environmental degradation and economic stagnation in Haiti are necessary to avoid the worst effects of hurricanes and other natural disasters.

You may continue to follow my experiences at my original blog: http://lizziebell.wordpress.com. If you have questions about the project or how you can help, please contact me through the comments section and I will respond to you directly.

In the meantime, a tent village is springing up across the road as the Hilton residents shift from their emergency accommodations to more permanent, if no less stark, living conditions. The road is Haiti’s National Highway Number One, but this section has been eerily empty since the great, arcing lake submerged 1.5 miles of highway just east of the Eben-Ezer Mission.

To the west, the road leads into Gonaives. In that direction, the water has finally receded from the road, collecting in the lowlands on either side. However, it has left behind a landscape resembling a battlefield with potholes the size of small buses. The picture doesn’t get any prettier as one enters the city.

Mud covers everything. Where the water has receded, the people have painstakingly scraped the mud out of their houses. Yet with no mechanical means of removing the mud—no dump trucks or bulldozers—it sits in great mounds along the edges of the road. In some places, it has dried and cracked beneath the sun’s penetrating rays. In others, it is still wet and ripe with algae and microbes. Between the stagnant water and the ubiquitous mud, disease has been ravaging the people—mosquito-born malaria, vaginal infections from wading through filthy water, severe allergies from the mold, and infected cuts on bare feet.

In the city streets, the people pick their way carefully around the wettest parts, winding their way through the city over a series of cement slabs and wooden boards set up to ease travel by foot. Those on bicycles and mopeds are forced to make their way directly through the mud. Those in cars don’t fare much better. They may be removed from the mud, but long lines form as two-way traffic is forced to alternate through narrow gaps between potholes and mud heaps.

At one point, the young man driving Eben-Ezer’s small, white SUV gets out to look ahead at the bottleneck where a large tanker is trying to pass in one direction and a convoy of UN trucks in the other. He leaves the car running because it must be pushed every time it is restarted. He goes to stand at the edge of the road where dozens of vendors sit fanning themselves beside their open-air displays: baskets filled with bags of cheetos and packets of powdered drink mix, tables piled with cans of tuna and evaporated milk, and strings of phone cards for DigiCel and Voila, the dominant cell phone companies.

The two women sitting in the mission car settle back in their seats, watching mopeds and bicycles swerve between the huge trucks that idle face to face. One moped driver miscalculates as he maneuvers the ruts in the road and tumbles sideways, dumping his two female passengers onto a small mud heap. A passerby pulls the moped off of them, and unharmed, the women angrily brush off their clothes, gather their things, and set off on foot. The driver sighs at the lost fare and continues down the road. Finally, a few police officers arrive and direct the tanker down a side street, allowing the UN convoy to pass, followed by a line of tap-taps and a few private cars.

After a failed attempt to withdraw money from the recently reopened bank (the system was down), the mission residents head back out of Gonaives, with one extra passenger whom they picked up in the city. Along the way, they stop twice to purchase goods from roadside vendors. First, they pull alongside a line of men who lift great blocks of ice from the road onto small tables, rinse away the sawdust in which the ice is packed, and chisel off chunks for their customers—a small square for 10 gourdes, a large rectangle for 50 gourdes. One of the mission women buys ice directly from the car window, haggling with the vendor over the size of her purchase and instructing the man to put it in a plastic sack. A few miles down the road, she tells the car’s driver to pull over, and she runs back ten yards to buy bread and avocados from a woman sitting beneath an umbrella.

Back at the mission, the field workers are told they must go another day without pay. Some are angry, others resigned. All are frustrated.

“Hanna,” they mutter. “Hanna has ruined everything.”

The leaders had gathered to learn more about the jatropha biofuel project that I and others at the mission have been working on since before the hurricanes. Pastor Morisset introduced the project, then turned things over to me. I quietly requested that he translate my English into Creole, not trusting myself to properly express my thoughts in French.

Although speaking in English, I attempted to look around at the faces before me as I talked. I saw a couple of female faces, though most were male. I saw young and old faces, though more old than young. I saw a few men with beards and a couple with hats—a USAID baseball cap and a widebrimmed farmer’s hat—though most were clean-shaven and bareheaded. I saw a few eyes containing a hint of hope, though most were filled with fatigue and despair.

I made a brief introduction about my vision for restoring the Haitian environment, then moved to my main purpose: asking these people what they needed, what they dreamed of for their country, and how they thought I might help.

There were several moments of silence after I finished speaking. I briefly worried that they would say nothing, that they did not see any way for me to help. But then one of the older men raised his hand cautiously and began to speak. He had obviously thought carefully about the jatropha project. In his hand, he held a piece of paper filled with writing. He said the farmers wanted to see a test project first so they could be certain of how much oil, and therefore how much revenue, a hectare of jatropha would yield. He noted that if there were a test field, he could bring other farmers from his district to the field to receive training.

After the first man spoke, others joined in with further suggestions and questions. One warned that jatropha does not grow well with too much water, an obvious concern given the floodwaters that still occupy most of the surrounding fields. Another requested the creation of a seed and livestock distribution center to replace what the farmers have lost. At one point, several tried to talk simultaneously, and a man sitting to my right got out of his chair to stand in the middle of the circle, chastising some of the men and directing in which order they should speak. Clearly, this was an organized forum with a designated chief who had the final say in disputes.

At many points during the discussion, I saw men with their heads buried in their hands or their knees. Over and over, I heard the plea that the farmers need a way to restart their lives. They have lost everything. They have no way to help themselves.

I left the meeting with a deep sense of responsibility and a desperate desire to not let the glimmer of hope that I saw in a few pairs of eyes die out.

On the paper, he had sketched in profile the head of a Haitian man. Across the top of the page, he had written, “Un Jeune Haitien.” Along the left side of the page, he had written details about this young Haitian man: his name, date of birth, and address.

Ephraim explained to me that the paper described the life of a typical Haitian male youth. Beneath the profile were three tiny drawings, each numbered and corresponding to three short descriptions of what Ephraim had identified as the three stages of a young Haitian man’s life.

The first drawing showed a boy sitting at a desk. The accompanying text read: “First, the young Haitian is a student without hope. He goes through school laughing.” Ephraim explained that many Haitians can’t go to school and that those who do have no hope of getting a good job after school unless their parents are rich.

The second drawing showed a young man with a motorcycle. The text read: “Next, the Haitian buys a motorcycle, if he can afford it, so he can have some money in his pocket.” In Haiti, a common sight is the hordes of young men who drive around on motorcycles, offering pedestrians a ride on the back for a small fee.

The third drawing showed a man and a woman with a line of children in tow. The text read: “Finally, the Haitian gets married and has five children.”

I longed to tell Ephraim his life could be different but I feared I would be lying to him.

As a spiritual leader, I am beginning to sink into the reality of my environment. I am beginning to realize that many of the houses that do not show in the photos have been carried away. As the survivors come down from the rooftops, I am beginning to read in their slim bodies the rough impact that this struggle is having on their spirits and their emotions. I am beginning to feel the heart of the Mayor of Gonaïves who confided in me that he is discouraged. I am beginning to become conscious of the fact that more than half of our people have become homeless overnight. I am beginning to realize that all the churches are under mud. We haven’t been able to worship in our temples for two Sundays, and most of the pastors don’t have any hope of gathering their flocks for several months. We are not thinking about schooling; survival has taken precedent over education.

This tragedy occurred shortly after we had spent nearly one and a half months with about 600 hundred young people from 80 churches in Gonaïves. We had taken them to mountaintop, and now they have fallen to the bottom of the pits of life. Their leaders have been unable to locate some of them. They have been separated from their physical families and environments. They have been isolated from their spiritual families and environments. Some of them have sent word from their temporary shelters where children are being choked almost daily (those shelters are too crowded and sanitation is nonexistent) and adults are dying from thirst and starvation. Eben-Ezer is managing to organize a special shelter for those young people and their families under an interdenominational leadership. The leaders have identified the right location, a former orphanage. We are now praying for food, clothing, toilet kits and other basic necessities.

As I have become more and more conscious of what has happened to us, I have come to realize that this is an act of war of the powers of death against life. Unless the people of God arise and strike back with power and might, we shall be defeated in every area of our lives. Monday was a very sad day for me. We were approached by two food organizations and MINUSTAH to provide a list of 600 families with an average of 4 or 5 children per family. They made an appointment with the mothers of those families (600 mothers) at the mission’s compound for 7:00 Monday morning. MINUSTAH showed up after 9:00. They found a sea of people, many times the 600 mothers we invited. Those people woke up our village at 2:00 a.m. Some walked through the waters during the night from seven kilometers away. Everyone wanted to be first in line because they knew there wouldn’t be enough for everybody. The husbands accompanied their wives through the night. Around 11:00, the MINUSTAH soldiers excused themselves to me. They felt bad, but they said they had been called back to their base. They abandoned the crowd. Think what could have happened to the mission. Later, one of the two organizations called and reported that the other food organization had a problem. The distribution was cancelled.

Hard and sorrowful news to share with those miserable people who had left their starving families behind. We finally faced them, and they were very understanding. But they preferred to lie down under our trees for the rest of the day because they had neither the physical nor the moral courage to face their children. My heart is still following them…Nature has not only broken Gonaïves. It has made her vile.

Michel Morisset

Like many aspects of life in Haiti, the smell would be unbearable if there were any choice but to bear it. The smell rises from the fetid waters and from the thick mud left in the wake of their slow retreat. It is a nauseating mixture of everything that has been submerged and is now rotting—animal carcasses, human waste, heaps of trash. Plastic bottles bob at the surface and collect at the edges of the water. At night, cool breezes drift through the windows—breezes that should be refreshing but instead leave one gasping like a fish for a fresh breath that isn’t quite there.

The days are busy. Meetings are held with teachers, pastors, and other community leaders. Reports are prepared for potential donors and partners. Calls are made to coordinate helicopter supply drops.

Stepping out of the office one evening at twilight, I am momentarily stunned by the beauty before me. I pause on the second floor balcony, surveying the water that has spread over everything, filling the broad valley from one chain of mountains to the other. The piercing white light of a planet hovers brightly just above the horizon. I cannot see the moon from where I stand, but I know it is there by the soft glow that suffuses everything. No need for my flashlight tonight. Below me, a small wooden boat is tethered to the first floor porch, rocking gently in the water. If I did not know the damage caused by that water, I would find the scene charming.

I turn my feet toward home, maneuvering through the long cement building where the refugees live among the red glow of charcoal cooking fires. People are everywhere, curled up on the porches, in the sparse rooms, and at the top of the dark stone stairwell. Children call out “Blanco” or “Blond” as I pass. A few who have learned my name call, “Elizabeth.” An old woman sits in a straight-backed chair at the bottom of the stairs, her head leaned back against the cement wall, fast asleep.

Despite the persistent waters, local leaders are striving to resume normal activities. The schools never opened for the fall since Hanna arrived just when classes were to commence. Now they are scheduled to open on October 6th, but no one knows how that will be possible. Even before the hurricanes, families were having trouble finding the funds to pay the modest fees for books, uniforms, and teachers’ salaries.

It has been a difficult year in Haiti, where life is never easy. Rising global prices for rice, corn, and other basic commodities had pushed most families to the brink of survival. The hurricanes pushed many over that brink. At one shelter, more than 5,000 people crowded around food distributors who had only enough for 300 people.

Nonetheless, the mission leaders are trying to lay the framework for significant structural changes in their community. Pastor Morisset has expressed frustration with relief organizations who feed people for a few days or weeks but then leave them to struggle until the next tragedy hits. A mission report prepared quickly last week for several American and British organizations offers not only an assessment of the damage but also a plan for physical, social, and economic reconstruction (see: Gonaives Assessment).

Others too seem ready for more lasting solutions. Several of the young men at the mission approached me to offer their help in restarting the jatropha biodiesel project. The lead agronomist returned late last week, eager to replace what was lost. Together, we planted the few seeds that had not been ruined in the flooding. As we crouched in the yard digging shallow holes, a UN truck arrived at the pastor’s house. Two of the men from the truck sauntered over to ask about our work, clearly baffled that anyone would be planting seeds at such a time.

Yet I can think of few more appropriate actions. As Johanna Mendelson Forman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote to me after the storms, “Had Jatropha been planted even three years ago there might have been some mitigation.”

Scanning the barren mountains on the Haitian horizon, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and to believe that any attempt to heal this land is futile. However, dropping seeds one by one into the moist earth and watching the green shoots that emerge over the coming weeks, a flicker of hope returns.

By daylight, the rain had slowed, although occasional outbursts continued throughout the morning. All day, the home’s residents watched the floodwaters slowly but steadily creep across the yard. By late afternoon, the waters had settled, encircling the house but not high enough to enter the house.

Early last week, the local people compared Hanna to Jeanne, a 2004 hurricane that inundated Gonaïves, but now everyone agrees there is no comparison. The combined effect of Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike has torn the entire nation apart. Reports of flooding in Port-au-Prince and a half dozen fallen bridges along the national highway mean that aid will be needed far beyond Gonaïves.

“National solidarity,” said one woman. “That’s what we need or our country will disappear.”

On Sunday evening, the residents of Pastor Morisset’s home gathered in the courtyard, an open-air space surrounded by the walls of the house on three sides and open to the front yard on the fourth. Some sat in chairs on the cement porch that runs along two sides of the courtyard, elevated a few inches above the floodwaters. Others sat on the concrete steps that run down the third wall of the house. Still others sat in the living room overlooking the courtyard.

They raised their voices in song and prayer while the wind gusted around the house, sending ripples across the water in the yard. The strumming of a guitar accompanied the voices, and a single candle flickering in the wind lit the scene. Late into the night, the people gave thanks for their safety and asked strength for the coming days.

Outside, the white light of stars was visible for the first time in days. Clear skies had finally arrived the previous day, and the hundreds of people living on the patch of dry land around Pastor Morisset’s home had profited from the weather to make repairs, retrieve belongings from flooded homes, and hang laundry out to dry. Despite the misery all around, a sense of regularity had returned to life as people went about the daily tasks that must be completed in even the worst of circumstances.

Occasional helicopters whirred overhead, carrying aid to those in the center of Gonaives. A boat from the organization Food for the Poor carried a small amount of food and water into the mission, motoring along a former mission road. Heading back out, the boat carried orphaned children who were being sent to Port-au-Prince.

One woman, talking on her cell phone to a friend, described the people’s morale, “Some cry. Some laugh. That’s how Haitians are. When they don’t know what else to do, they laugh.”

A technician arrived via boat from Saint-Marc to repair the mission’s satellite Internet system. By three o’clock in the afternoon, the system was running. A few mission residents waded through thigh-deep water to reach the office, where two inches of water covered the floor. They set up their laptops and spent the next six hours sending messages and photos to communicate the mission’s needs to the world beyond the floodwaters.

By the end of the day, the people were exhausted, but sleep was slow to come in the intense heat. In the morning, the work continued as clouds slowly moved over the sky, a tacit reminder that time was short, with peripheral rains from Hurricane Ike expected to approach the area that night. Helicopters continued to pass overhead, profiting from the brief respite between the storms.

The mission’s communications equipment was moved to a second-floor room that was free of water and could be reached by stepping stones rather than wading. Lists of needed supplies were quickly typed and sent to government officials and relief organizations.

Pastor Morisset sent a letter to friends explaining the situation in stark terms, including the following passage about tragedy within his own family: “The father of my wife passed away at the Government Hospital in Gonaïves while everybody was carrying their sick people up to the second story. The first floor was quickly flooded to the ceiling. Right in front of the eyes of my two sisters-in-law, people were throwing the dead into the flood. The public and private morgues sent messages saying that they were flooded as well and couldn’t receive anyone. My sisters-in-law had another relative embrace the body of their father to prevent others from throwing him away. On Wednesday afternoon, we brought his body out to our community and buried him across the road from my house.”

A story of life as well as death came out of the storm. Pastor Morisset continues, “That same night, Mrs. Tcharly Préval gave birth to a son, right in the midst of the commotion. She had just long enough to move from her flooded home to the main compound across the road.”

Back in the pastor’s house, children played soccer, using a stuffed animal as a ball. They were lucky enough to be in a home with enough food, and in their young minds, the experience had become something akin to an extended holiday.

For now, all efforts are being made to meet the immediate needs of those less fortunate. The mission is currently feeding 1,500 people in four different locations. The people here persevere day by day, yet they know the damage will last long after the floodwaters recede. When the flood is gone, the local peasant farmers will be left to face the loss of their loved ones, their crops, their animals, and their homes to the raging waters.