Day 1 - Group of Five with Haitian
Ministries Arrives in Port-au-Prince
Dominique Georges (far left), Emily Smack and Joseph Jean-Baptiste visit Lanitte Belledente at a tent hospital near the international airport. Lanitte's left leg was amputated below the knee, and she has been in the emergency relief encampment for a week. She is treated by American medical teams. A surgeon who cleared her wound Saturday said her condition was good.
Dr. Tom Gorin of Storrs and Emily Smack, executive director of Haitian Ministries, put a makeshift sling on a neighbor of Norwich Mission House. Jean Guy Hyppolite broke his collarbone in the earthquake and his wife and friends were killed. He and other survivors were trying to clear the debris of their homes in order to recover the dead. Smoke filled the air because people were burning the bodies to keep away contagion.
Day 1 - Group of Five with Haitian Ministries Arrives in Port-au-Prince
A group of five with Haitian Ministries arrived in Port-au-Prince Friday afternoon to begin assessing the conditions of Norwich Mission House staff and the programs that the ministry supports, including the parishes that are twinned with churches and other groups in the United States.
Emily Smack, the executive director of Haitian Ministries, along with Kyn Tolson, Dr. Tom Gorin of Storrs, and a reporter and photographer from The Day newspaper in New London, CT, travelled by bus for seven hours from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to Haiti’s capital.
All five, along with staff of the Norwich Mission House and their families, are staying at the house of a friend of Paula Thybulle off Rue Freres. (Paula Thybulle runs an orphanage for 70 girls and an adjacent medical clinic and small hospital.)
Only Lanitte Belledente, the mission house cook, was not with them. More than a week ago, she underwent an amputation below the knee of a badly injured leg. She remains in a United Nations medical area not far from the airport.
In the drive through the city, the arriving group saw that most buildings are still standing, although several were totally demolished and many appeared to have some damage.
The road into the city from the east (going through Croix des Bouquets) was clogged with traffic, and travel was slow. Once in the heart of the city, however, their bus moved along more easily. People walked the streets, and life seemed much as it had been before the earthquake.
However, the apparent normalcy belies the fact that many people and families have fled the capital either to live in improvised tent communities or in towns elsewhere.
Emily Smack and the others plan to visit Lanitte Belledente on Saturday. They also hope to go to the mission house, which was destroyed in the January 12th earthquake. They will go to Paula’s orphanage to take supplies of rice, beans, cooking oil, and water that they purchased in Santo Domingo.
Other plans include:
- Meeting with Catholic Relief Services about use of Paula’s clinic to treat earthquake victims and to assess it for use by medical mission teams with Haitian Ministries.
- Visiting Madame Samson’s neighborhood and house, which was the location for a meal program for poor children. Her house was reportedly damaged. An effort will be made to find out about the children in the program.
- Tracking down more of the 140 students in scholarship program. (Three deaths have been reported, but news of many of the students—all from the Norwich Mission House neighborhood—has not been available.
- Visiting Hospice St. Joseph, another ministry of the Diocese of Norwich. The building was severely damaged in the quake.
- Meeting with Bishop Lafontant, a member of the Haitian Ministries’ board and longtime friend of Norwich Mission House.
- Meeting with Sr. Marie Yannick, who is the bishop’s representative to Haiti.
On the bus trip from the Dominican Republic, Emily Smack saw the church in Fonds Parisien, which was under construction, is still standing.