Deployment diary day 5: Friday 22nd January

Despite a 2.30am arrival, the most recent team members to arrive were up for breakfast at 7am and ready for work at 8. The routine of the daily briefing at the command centre is being established and the new team took their places around the room eager to learn what the day's tasks were to be.

Immediately after the briefing the newbies were taken on a quick tour around the compound to induct them into life here in Haiti. Following this they were interviewed and assigned their roles. It has amazed me how quickly new personnel have emraced their new situation and role. For folks used to working in North America, life is so different here - yet team members are slotting in and getting things done veryu quickly.

As I look at those families around us I have even grater admiration for their ability to adjust to something new and to cope with it. Life seems to go on - despite the terrible loss and huge adjustments being made. As we drove home at the end of the day (and rather later than usual) we found that the roads had been blocked on one side. People were setting up their beds for the night and preparing to sleep in the street. The level of destruction here is incredible - much more extensive than I have witnessed in earthquakes at Peru or Pakistan. Very few buildings have survived unscathed. The earth tremours continue daily - so it is no surpirse at all that locals refuse to use those buildings that remain standing. Most look severely weakened and reamin vulnerable. So life for most is now a tent or a makshift shelter. Yet they still smile, laugh and carry on with family life.

Our focus for the next few days is very clear:

1. We support our exisiting clinic programme - resiting it into a stronger building which is being prepared and adapted to take it. Occasional we receive an urgent call from the clinic and transport someone to hospital. The medical ship USS Comfort has also been a godsend.
2. Assess and register those who are living on the sports ground, SA compound and plaza behind DHQ.
3. Prepare for some major distributions which will take place in the next week. We have a ration distribution in partnership with WFP for 10,000 prople lined up very soon and then receive our own incoming supplies of 1.3 million meals and 3,000 tents.
4. Assessing of remote sites. A team head out soon to Petit Goave to gather information there and see whether we can set up remote distributions and clinic facilities.

A team of 30 young people from the local corps were involved today with the local assessment and registration. They returned saying how welcome they had been made by the local people. THey saw their SA T shirts and knew you and what they were. This is testimony to the ministry of the Army in this community for over 50 years. Thank God for the fatihful witness of Salvationists around the world.