A quick trip to Port-au-Prince

Yesterday, Sharon, I, Jean Remy, a friend of his who's name I forget, and a Belgian who has been working in Desarmes all went into the city. Our Belgian friend was going in to catch an evacuation flight back to Belgium and the rest of us were delivering sacks of rice and corn and other supplies for distribution and to find out what else we could do to help. We bought what rice we could in the local market - it turned out to be 4 sacks of rice and 1 sack of ground corn. We also took in 2 pickaxes and some new solar panels we had just bought for the Desarmes office but had yet to install them, so they went in too to help keep the batteries charged for the folks in Port.

Driving in was just as easy as normal - when we got to the last mountain crossing before descending into the valley where the city is, many large boulders had fallen onto the side of the road but were not blocking it. When we arrived in the Croix-de-Bouquet area, we sat in a traffic jam where a once-small makeshift bus station has now turned into a very large and crowded makeshift bus station for people trying to get out of the city. A small gas station had cars and trucks lined up trying to get fuel and ended up blocking the road. In this mess we came across two ladies who work in the MCC office in Port and their families, who have been living outside since their houses were destroyed on Tuesday. They were relieved to see us and asked for a ride out of the city - for about 15 people (!). We told them we would drop off the supplies and come get them on our way out. After 30 minutes or so we squeezed through the jam and found roads to be actually much less trafficky than normal.

Our normal road to get into Port (Delmas 33) was clear but was blocked by a few big MINUSTAH trucks so we had to make a detour to one of the main roads (Delmas). We passed close by the airport and saw helicopters and convoy trucks with what looked like search and rescue teams inside. Going up Delmas towards Petionville was eerie: people were walking up and down the street and traffic was almost nonexistent.
Everyone was either wearing a mask over their mouth and nose or had smeared a white cream under their nose (possibly to keep the scent of bodies away?). Many big buildings were flattened, and in a few places we saw heavy machinery working to remove rubble, most likely searching for survivors. We made our way to Petionville fairly quickly and dropped off our supplies . We saw Ben, Pancha and a friend named Carlito, holding up as best as possible. They had to leave soon after we got there so we started on our way back to Desarmes.

We made our way out of the city and found our group ready to head out to the countryside. Miraculously all 17 of us (I think, it was hard to get a head count) and luggage fit into the pickup, where we slowly (35 mph) made our way back to Desarmes, chugging up steep mountain roads in 2nd gear. The normally 2.5 hour trip was stretched to 4.5 hours but we all arrived safe and sound. This morning Jean-Remy loaded them up again for another long slow drive to a city in the central plateau called Hinche where they have family. Hopefully they all get there safely and Jean gets back without any problems; we still have no cell phone contact which makes everything more difficult, especially if vehicles break down.

It's obviously not the most dramatic story of Haiti right now, but we just wanted to share a little bit about what we're doing in all of this mess. With the arrival of MCC disaster-response folks and more organization and coordination with other NGOs we hope to figure out the best way for us to help.