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Father Shares Emails His Daughter Sent Him From Haiti

Emails Starry Sprenkle sent her father in past few days:

We have been hit by two enormous tragedies, in the space of a few
hours.

     I am sorry for the family that might hear this for the first time
here, but since communication has been so difficult, I must put everything
up now.

      Erlantz's mother Marie Claude suddenly passed away on the afternoon
of January 12.

     As he and his family were on their way home from the hospital, their
cars rocked and they saw buildings and trees swaying.  They continued up to
the house on the mountain, and found everything fallen off the walls, and
the front door slightly damaged, but the housed stood strong.

     I had just left Deschapelles with Jasmine, to go to be with the family
in Port.  We were racing against darkness, because it's not a good road to
drive at night.  We did not feel the quake (it seems it was weaker in the
artibonite) but we saw in the area of Dezam that everyone came out of their
houses, they were running around on the street, women with their arms thrown
wide, some were singing . . . . we didn't know what happened, we heard 'kay
kraze' and then we heard 'tremblement te' from the people that we asked on
the street.  Not knowing where the epicenter was, we hoped that it had not
affected port and we decided to continue on the road.  Mirebalais appeared
fine.  The sun set as we climbed the mountain.  I had no signal on my phone,
and the car had no radio, so we were moving along blind.  When we got over
the top of the mountain, we knew that the situation was bad.  There were not
enough lights in the city to indicate that the national power system was
working, and my cell phone still didn't work.

     As we came down the mountain, we saw at least 4 huge boulders the size
of busses in the  middle of the highway.  There was barely enough space for
our car to squeeze between them.  There were no cars or people under the
boulders, which was a small miracle.  I was too rocked with grief to take
out my camera and take photos.  We went through Croix de Boquets, there was
a  long wall that had fallen down along the road, trapping people and cars
and motorcycles.    We saw many collapsed buildings, and everyone was
walking on the street.  I had a sense that everyone was walking to the
houses of their loved ones, trying to find out if they were OK.  We saw
injured people being helped along and transported in taxis.  Others in the
car said they saw bodies, but I didn't.  I didn't want to see.  There were
few cars moving.  We got stuck in 2 hours of traffic to cross a small bridge
to get into the city.  Jasmine played around in the back of the car.  I was
surprised and relieved to see the police directing traffic, making sure only
one lane of traffic crossed at the time (who was to know how strong the
bridge was) but it still was horrible congestion, and made me very afraid
that we would not be able to navigate at all when inside the city.
Thousands of people were coming out of the city over the bridge on foot.

We woke up this morning with a new sense of purpose.  Our
trip to the city yesterday had made it clear how much they needed medical
help in the city- and we had some stockpiles of medical supplies up here,
since the entire family are doctors.  Erlantz, Claudine, and Rickerdy
decided to load up the truck and go down and offer the supplies, and their
services, for the day.  They took two other people with them, who will try
and find diesel fuel (most likely stand in long lines with our 5 gallon fuel
jugs) while they work in the hospital courtyards.  If we don't get fuel, we
won't be able to keep on going down to the city, and we won't have
electricity.  We have enough for one or two more days.  I sent our house's
coordinates to the Embassy in hopes that they might be able to send
something, but I understand that we should be a very low priority
compared to everything else that's going on.  I'm staying up here today.  I
really don't want to go down to the city again, unless I know I can really
help.  It was very hard to see.

                 I can't imagine that if trained excavation teams arrive in
the next few days, that they'll find many survivors.  The majority of the
people here aren't trying to dig anyone out, they presume everyone dead, and
there's no way they could cover the sheer quantity of fallen buildings.  I
must have seen 400, just near the road doing one loop through the city.  The
fatality count will be huge.  The city is FULL of people that are now
homeless.  It's not too cold here this time of year, but it might rain.
They can't keep living in the streets and parks.  These are people that are
already used to having no running water, to bathing and washing their
clothes in polluted rivers, to eating just one meal a day.  They have lost
that small, simple, piece of the world that they could call home, the roof
over their heads, their hearth and their beds (which for the majority were
probably very simple, and shared by many family members, but still they were
beds).  It is just SO UNFAIR that even this small luxury is stripped from
them.

                 I expect that many of them might go and seek their family
in the countryside, because I can't imagine that they will be able to
reconstruct their homes or find new ones very soon or very easily.  The
destruction is all the more devastating because people here invest in their
homes, often instead of putting money in the bank, they will add a level, or
build out.  Homes are the main investment.  In Haiti,  hardly any home looks
'finished', people are always gradually building, whenever they come up with
enough extra money for a bag of cement.  Therefore the loss of all these
buildings is a huge loss of capital for the people.  Many families that were
relatively wealthy will become poor because of this, unless some serious aid
is given to help them rebuild.

                 Another cruel blow: this is the time of Carnaval.
Normally, this is the most fun and joyous time of the year.  The city would
be having 'rehearsals' every Sunday in January, and all the radio talk would
be about which band would have the most popular songs.  Carnaval is the
cultural celebration that the country looks forward to most every year, a
simple pleasure that EVERYONE can enjoy, especially the poor.  And now, the
entire Carnaval season has been wiped out.  Who could imagine celebrating at
a time like this?




             

                 Today we started seriously rationing our electricity.  We
have a generator that runs on diesel, that charges 12 batteries hooked up to
an inverter.  We have to run it for a few hours to charge the batteries, and
then we use that charge until it runs out- usually it lasts about 16 hours
and we run it every night.  But now we're powering only our computers and
charging our phones and a few fluorescent lights, and we're trying to make
it last four days.  We only have enough diesel for a few more charges.



                 That, obviously, won't be the end of the world.  At least
half of Haiti's population is living without any electricity right now, and
they're used to having it for only a few hours every day, if at all, during
normal times.  It's a luxury that we're used to, because we have the money
to pay for our own power. We might decide to go to Deschapelles, in the
countryside, where Erlantz and I work.  They have running water and
electricity there, and access to food would probably be easy since it's in
the agricultural center of the country and was less impacted by the quake.
We have a small house on the hospital campus.  Thing is, we'd probably be
bringing all 20 family members that are now camping out with us!



                 We turned off the power today, just after noon, which
forced me away from the Internet (which is a good thing!).  Jasmine was
taking a nap, and I decided to go for a walk.  I took my two young nephews,
Keyruld, 8, and Kerrian, 6, with me.  They weren't sure if they could go,
because their dad had told them to stay outside the house, but inside the
fence, but their grandma said they could come.  It felt great to stretch my
legs and walk, and the sun was shining bright.  We saw that some of our
neighbors, those with the simplest small houses built from piled rocks and
mud, had indeed lost their homes, or had walls fall down.  It is the houses
built with more concrete that are intact in this area, and the houses of the
poorest that are damaged.  I couldn't help but notice that parts of the rock
walls that hold up the earthen terraces that the farmers build in this area
had fallen.  The earth hasn't started spilling out yet, but if the rains
come and they haven't replaced the broken stones, they will lose the little
bit of fertile soil they have built up and downstream will be polluted by
erosion.



                 When we got back, it wasn't nearly time to turn on the
battery power yet, so I joined the rest of the family in front of Claudine's
house.  We had a meal of rice, bean sauce, and stewed okra, sitting out in
the sun.  It will be our one 'real' meal of the day.  We're rationing our
food carefully.  Most of us could use the diet anyway!  We set aside food
for the three that are down in the city busy volunteering their doctor
skills.  I held my newest little niece, Kara, who is 2 months old, while her
grandmother ate.  It was the longest I'd held her at one time up until this
point, and she is just beautiful.  After the food, the kids had an absolute
blast running up and down the driveway pushing toy dumptrucks and tractors
(in addition to Keyruld and Kerrian, there was Christian who is 2 and
Jasmine who is almost 2).  They were making a ton of noise, and laughing and
screaming, and all us adults had to laugh at the sight of them.  I wish I
had my camera, to make a video of all the dumptruck power being joyously
wasted up here when it is so needed in the city.



                 We heard from the doctors around noon, they got to the
first hospital with the supplies, and very quickly injured people started
showing up.  Yesterday, when we were there, there were maybe 10 people
inside, and no line outside.  Well, today it was a case of demand following
supply.  Word must have spread on the street that the hospital was finally
functioning.  Soon there were more than 300 patients waiting for them.
There were already 3 doctors there, so the 3 of them make only 6 to see them
all.  Claudine felt the need to stay and work overnight, because they need
her anesthesiologist skills to conduct surgeries, but we worried about her
baby Kara who is still breastfeeding, and we're also not sure if we'll have
enough fuel to send a car back down to get her the next day.  It's after 5,
and I don't believe that they've started on their way home yet. We don't
know what Claudine decided.  Probably they all decided to stay much later,
but then go home together.  I'm sure they haven't eaten anything since the
small breakfast they had before they left this morning.  How could you
leave, how could you take a lunch break, with countless patients to tend to?



                 I can't wait until they get home, to find out if they saw
any sign of aid workers, and what they think of the situation now and what
they plan to do tomorrow . . .