January 15, 2010
Dear Friends and Family;
You, without whom there is no reason to
live.
Many people have lost their lives here in Port au Prince in the last few days, many in the first shattering shock and more since then. The hospitals are overflowing into the streets. The public parks, open land and road medians have been tuned onto open air repositories of the homeless, injured and lame. The population has been on the move for the past three days, first Wednesday looking for their friends and families, Thursday looking for high ground from the rumored Tsunami, and today those that are leaving are getting on all manner of conveyances out of town. Water is rare, food is scarcer. Rural towns have dispatched trucks to Port au Prince to pick up family members and town residents. Others who can afford it are leaving to the Dominican Republic or paying the price of travel to their "Payi", place of birth in the countryside. There is a massive out migration and up into the hills migration. All carrying the few possessions left to them.
Most of
the seats of power have been
destroyed. There is little or no government action, a few police here
and there
managing traffic thru the rubble strewn streets. The hospitals closed
their
doors in early Wednesday. The newer CDTI, closed its doors after
processing
over 8,000 people. A hospital deigned for less than 250 patients at the
most.
Food stores have not reopened, Gas station lines are a half day long.
Gas and
diesel fuel will be running out. Today some street vendors ventured out
onto the
sidewalks and some market ladies started selling plantains and sweet
potatoes.
Some sidewalk cook pots have started again to serve fried roots and
starches.
The ladies carrying herbs in from the mountains trickled down the hill
side, to
sell herbs and greens to add nutrition to the meager meat free sauces
that
would be made. Some are just drinking water with a few spoons of sugar.
Communities set up tables in the streets out side their houses where
they have
been living, bringing what they had to share with other people on the
block
where half the houses were destroyed. All the houses have been empty
for fear
of after shock.
There is
some expectation that after Friday night,
three nights later, that they will move back inside if their house is
still
standing and fissure free. The old wooden gingerbread houses are the
only ones
that have survived from the era of the early 1900’s because of the
flexibility
of the wood. The old brick houses for the grater part have been reduced
to
piles of bricks and mortar powder shot thru with splintered timbers.
The
hillside mushroom towns where houses have traditionally grown up over
night
have been hardest hit. On some hill sides the cement and block
structures have
disintegrated, while miraculously on the next hill over the
houses went
unscathed, both hill sides built with the same lack of money, lean
mortar and
concrete mixes saving cement cost and without engineering input. All
houses,
all classes, all peoples have been devastated by the quake. Nationals
and
international a like have suffered massive losses. But the poorest have
to date
had no follow up as to their medical or food needs. They are camped out
in
public spaces organizing committees to remove the dead, manage where to
defecate and how to share water. Neighborhood committees have started
common
graves maintaining identity notes for those buried, if known, the
cadavers
covered with quick lime waiting the next layer of people.
As to
re-building, the future prospects are to
dismantle the unsound houses, truck the rubble and re-build. There was
hardly
enough wealth to build the structures the first time to say nothing now
of the
triple cost of destruction, removal and rebuilding. This is a final
major
de-capitalization of the population at large. Long term assistance and
management must be instituted. All the rebuilding will represent many
times
more money than was ever available to build it right in the first
place.
The wharf
of the principal port has collapsed. Any
maritime aid is impossible, secondary ports Varreaux has partially
collapsed
under the weight of two containers just off loaded. The propane line at
the
Thor petroleum products depot has busted.
I have
missed my flight out, American Airlines is no
longer functioning here. I hear they will reinitiate service by Feb 2nd.
I will stay here and help them with
whatever assistance they need that I can provide with any help you can
provide.
If you want to give direct aid to Haiti
please help
us. I know Haiti, I know the people and I know I will get the help to
them.
In the
first wave we need money for food, water and
fuel. Any of you who wish to donate to me directly please do so by
sending a
check to my home address, Goat Hill Organic Farm, 365 Tiger Valley Rd,
Washington Va. 22747. Please include
your best phone number and email address. I have set up a partnership
for those
who would rather donate to a USA NGO.
Please send donations Attention: Mouvman Moun Mango, Haiti.
@ Washington DC,
Pass this on to anyone else you know who
might be
interested. I will be posting photos in my Picasa album later, sorry
for the
mumbled jumbled writing. Sorry for this blanket email but this is the
only way
I can respond to all the emails you have sent showing concern and
offering
help. Individual responses will follow, I hope.
Love and best regards to all, we are lucky we
are
all ok.
John O’Malley Burns
Skype name johnomalleyburns
Haiti
Digicel, 509 38 52 01 87 (presently no
service)