Visiting Port au Prince

There is a lot I could write about after a week of activity here. I dare not mention the "S" word again (s is for squi....) as Catherine said that she did not appreciate the detailed descriptions of my bodily functions. Suffice it to say there have been no "s" words for me in the last week. My colleague Steve has been a different matter - "s" "v" temps dehydrationbut youwill not want to know all about that. I will leave Steve to tell you when he gets better. I could tell you of the "operations in hell" this week - the only theatre light failing at the critical moment as I tried to do a hernia darn in the dark. I could mention dealing with gunshot trauma like I have never seen before. Or I could tell you of Kim our newly arrived physio getting into the rehabilitation work with Dale. But I think I will tell you of the exciting excursion to Port au Prince in the earthquake zone and hope that does not offend sensibilities.

Our flight left Cap Haitien at 6.50am so we were in a taxi heading to the airport about 5.40am - another early start. Steve did not come as he was still unwell so Robyn, Dale, Kim and I were on the flight. There were about 8 others in the 20 seater twin engine turboprop plane. As we took off to the south we did not see much of Cap Haitien but in passing through the clouds and while my video camera was running I suddenly saw the Citadel off the left wingtip about 100 meters away. This is the hilltop fort built by the King of Northern Haiti about 1812. It was quite bumpy until we got through the clouds and it was

smooth flying from there. It took about 25 mins to get to Port au Prince coming in from the sea with the city to the right, not my side. Not a lot to see of the earthquake from the air. We got into the airport to await Joshua Octeus, the president of the Evangelical church of Haiti who Robyn had asked to show us around. He had been in Dominican Republic the day before so was rather tired and was over an hour late picking us up but very apologetic. He was a delightful man. Our first priority was

breakfast so Joshua took us through the back streets of Port au Prince to Epid'or a French

pastry shop, guarded as usual with a shotgun toting guard. I chose to have a 'cold' bacon and egg burger while others had a warm ham and cheese croissant - they got the better deal.

The tour of the city was something else. 5 months after the killer quake, there were still piles of rubble everywhere and many buildings uninhabited with obvious cracks. There were still throngs of people - we could hardly imagine what it would be like with and extra 300,000 people. The United Nations were patrolling the streets but are seen as pretty ineffectual by most people. They observe but do not intervene.

Robyn was in shock as we toured - she had seen the former glory of the presidential buildings, the ministry buildings, military barracks and the cathedral, all now destroyed, just crumbling ruins. In the central parks and open spaces were thousands of tents and blue tarpaulins where families who are homeless live. There were water tankers delivering water, portaloos lined up at strategic points. I felt a very conspicious rubber necker. At times we heard shouts of "Go home" as we crept slowly

among the other traffic. After just

over 2 hours of this I had seen enough. The basic roads were in better condition, than at Cap, even some roads with 2 lanes each way and there were even traffic lights! Sometimes I felt embarrassed as we held up traffic to take photos but Joshua wanted us to see it all. On some stretches of road, the tents went for miles. It was heartbreaking. Meanwhile, many buildings were uninhabitable and others had been partly reconstructed with what looked very dubious materials.

On the journey, we had one stop where the Toyota 4WD and not started - sounded like a starter motor problem. Fortunately we were on a

slope and managed to run it down and then into gear. It started later when at Epid'or.

However, we were diverted near the airport to a very rough road and when turning back onto the main road the car stalled trying to get over a big kerb. Then it would not restart. We got out as traffic mounted the kerb to get round us. Another truck pushed us backwards to get us started but our driver had the gear in forward so it did not start. Eventually we manuvered into a place where 5 of us pushed the car for a few meters and got it going again after much yelling and screaming. We finally got back into the traffic but decided we had enough of

sightseeing to went to a restaurant near the airport where in an air conditioned room we relaxed. I had an ice cream, others had cake and coffee and plenty of water. We talked with Joshua about our impressions and his desire to set up yet another training facility of Haitians under the auspices of the church. One of the problems here is they they are training people for jobs that do not exist. There are nursing training, medical, legal etc etc but no where for them to work when trained. Furthermore, the culture does not accept the disabled as worth treating so the physios are up against it. If any training would be valuable, it would be physiotherapy (there is no training in Haiti for physio and what our physios are doing is being appeciated) but the benefits of treating disabled in a culture which sees amputees and worthless is going to be a hard task. Dr Vulcain at St Justiniens does see the benefits and is promoting what Dale and Kim are doing. But attitudes are harder to change than structures and the concern is when our physios leave, the program

will stop. We feel so impotent to deal with the overwhelming problems in a country with so great a need, so many people and yet so difficult to get even a basic change accomplished. Rubbish is a huge problem, particularly plastic which is tossed into the streets and washed into the sea when it rains. Regulations - just will not work. Electricity, fire dept, police are utterly ineffective. There have been at least 6 fires at the hospital in the last few years. The fire truck which is only mobilized once authorized from Port au Prince has always arrived to dampen the ashes. All the fires have started from electrical faults and would have been put out by a fire extinguisher easily, but there are none. An organization supplied 50 fire extinguishers for the hospital but the administration said it was not their responsibility to fit them on the walls at appropriate places. So they lie in a container and the fires continue. Steve watched a fire near theatre on an outside pole at an electrical switch. A few wires were pulled until it stopped and the wires left dangling. What can you do? It is mainly infrastructure that needs to be tackled but where to start? It seems impossible!

After about 2 hours of lounging in the restaurant, we decided to wait at the airport, even though it was 2 hours before our flight left at 4pm. We went through the security screen much like any other western airport system but without too much concern when things went beep. Robyn was very tired and tried to sleep before we boarded. The 25 minute flight was uneventful as we went through the clouds and landed at Cap.

I think it will be years before Port au Prince is cleared of the tents and some of the rebuilding of the ministries and buildings is started. They have so little and it seems as if they are totally dependent on aid. We saw a lot of "mission" based people coming in - young people clad in the same tee shirts that announced that they were doing their 2-3 week mission stint, mostly from the USA. I guess they mean well but really what can they do without the language and understanding the culture. In the meantime, we all do a little bit and maybe affect a few individuals. For them it will be worthwhile but the masses struggle on.