Everyone had been nagging me to come home for a few days now. My parents, my wife, my work colleagues, my friends, they all felt that it was time to come home. While I appreciated everyone’s concern for my safety, I didn’t want to leave. This disaster was not a reason for me to cut my trip short; it was a reason to stay longer. At the same time, I felt very helpless as I compared what I was getting done to the amount of suffering I saw in the street every day. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was doing everything I could to help. Was I being as efficient and effective as I possibly could? What was I going to be able to accomplish in Florida from our office?
I started my day by catching up the rest of my unread e-mails and then was able to connect into our Florida office through Skype and participate in our Emergency Relief Management Meeting. We began by summarizing our efforts thus far. Our focus had been on supporting our partners that were providing medical care to earthquake victims. Money transfers were made to partners such as Medishare, Cure International, and the Hope Hospital in Port-au-Prince. We had also been able to access food that we had in storage in the city to feed people who were displaced. Additional supplies of food, medicines, water, and other goods were also scheduled to be airlifted in the coming days. I had been coordinating assessments of our partners and assessing the damage needs throughout the city, and those assessments were already being used to respond to the needs.
It was time though, to organize our efforts and begin laying out our short, mid, and long-term strategy. After a thorough discussion with our HQ management team, we were able to develop a draft outline for our short and mid-term efforts.
In the short term (Jan-Feb ’10) Cross International response would be as follows:
• Coordinate and assist the delivery and distribution of cash and products such as food, water, medicines and clothing with some of our strategic partners that have storage, transportation, and other logistics capability.
• Continue assessments and meet needs of our Haiti partners in Port-au-Prince and outlying areas through cash grants and shipments of needed goods.
• Assist in the delivery of medical care in Port-au-Prince.
• Assist Save the Children carry out education sector assessment in affected areas.
• Resume payments to partners that support teachers through education programs.
• Approach USAID and other donors regarding change of programmatic scope and potential use of funding for emergency needs.
• Solicit requests from partners for long-term grants.
Mid-term strategies (Mar-June ’10) would include:
• Continue distribution of medicines, food, and clothing through partners to areas where displaced persons had congregated.
• Continue the education sector assessment.
• As possible, provide needed support to education partners in order to resume classes.
• Accept grant applications from partners and make decisions on long-term grants to our Haiti partners.
• Assess new opportunities for CI to obtain grants to support ongoing programs.
• Re-assess our HR needs in our Haiti office.
I felt a bit better after this meeting and began to see that I could be useful in helping to better coordinate our efforts from back in our office. Cross International was not going to “save” the country of Haiti overnight, and neither was anybody else, but one thing was clear. We were in this for the long haul.
I headed out in search for Bresma Orphanage to find out how Ali, Jamie, and the supposed 150 kids were doing. I took a few cases of food and water with me to deliver to them in case it was needed. The e-mail we had received provided some typical Haiti directions (turn right at the moto taxi station, drive over the bridge, veer right at the tree that stands in the middle of the road, etc). Needless to say, I had a hard time finding the place. I eventually did find it though, and when I arrived I found out that everyone had been transferred over to another orphanage. Bresma was apparently a network of three different orphanages, each one serving a different age group of children. The folks that I encountered there were kind and indicated that everyone was fine, but that they needed supplies. They provided me with a phone number for Ali along with a new set of directions.
I eventually made it to the right place and just as I pulled up to the house, a U.N. truck pulled in and began unloading many cases of food and water. Ali and Jamie seemed to be hanging in there, but both seemed exhausted. Thankfully, all but 16 of the 150 kids were already in the adoption process. Arrangements had just been made for 50 of them to fly to Holland, and a number of others to France. Still, the house was overcrowded with children. Their biggest needs were cleaning items such as soap, bleach, diapers, and clothes. The girls didn’t even have an extra set of clothes to wear themselves as they had lost all of their belongings in their home. Of course, these were all items that I didn’t have available to give them. I didn’t make any promises, but figured that I would at least be able to gather some clothes to deliver to them tomorrow.
I left there and headed towards Hope Hospital to find out if Gladys, the director, had made it back safely into Port-au-Prince. She had been in India when the earthquake occurred and was making her way back through the Dominican Republic. Cross International had sent her funds to purchase a load of medical supplies in the D.R., which she would carry into Haiti with her. In addition, she was going to be carrying a satellite phone for me that had been sent via our HQ office.
When I arrived, I found that Gladys had not yet arrived, but would be crossing the border tomorrow morning. As I walked around the hospital grounds, I came across an American doctor who was apparently there volunteering his time to help out. Before I could introduce myself, he said anxiously, “Do you have transportation? We have a situation here and we need to get this woman to another hospital ASAP. She is in shock and I’m afraid we are going to lose her. We need blood and there is no blood here.” I suggested that I make a couple of phone calls to determine which hospitals in the area would have the capacity to help this woman. The doc yells, “Write this down… Placenta previa pregnancy… in shock… Find out who can help us!” He disappeared back into the hospital. I tried placing calls through each of my phones over and over, but cell phones still weren’t functioning properly. After two or three minutes the doctor popped his head back out of the hospital door and said, “forget it, there is no time to transport her. We have to move forward here”. I felt terribly as we pulled away from the hospital. This was just another example of unnecessary suffering and loss taking place all over the city because of the lack of needed supplies and medicines.
Late that night, I spoke to Michaela over Skype. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when she told me that CNN had reported that Ali McMutrie, along with 53 children from Bresma orphanage, had been evacuated to Pennsylvania. What a turn of events! I couldn’t believe how quickly everything had pulled together. When I was there visiting earlier that day, the girls had no clue that there was a chance they would be on a flight out by later that afternoon. As it turned out, all but one of the children had been evacuated. Ali’s older sister, Jamie, refused to leave without the last one. For more on the girls’ story, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuAuReP99d8
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