Deployment diary day 23: Tuesday 9th February

Have you ever seen that bumper sticker (or office notice board quip) "I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking too good either"?

Doing relief work means wrestling with the implications of that sentiment every day. Today I travelled with John and Steve to visit our team in Petit Goave. It's an interesting drive - the first hour is spent battling with the Port au Prince traffic then the road opens out - the coast comes into view and the road runs along by the sea. Other than dodging the huge cracks where the earthquake has split the road, and trying to stay out of the way of the mad bus drivers, it's not a bad drive. The team, Fred, Emmanuel and Simeon are doing well. Since deploying last week they have experienced aftershocks every day. They have worked well to identify 4 small camps which are in varying states of organisation. They have distributed as many tents as have been available so far - but not nearly enough to meet even the most urgent of needs (the pic shows some of the tents in situ). They have been instrumental in getting pit latrines dug and have registered about 1,000 families for on-going assistance. On Thursday we will be visiting to take about 200,000 meals to distribute to those registered. The trouble is - even this number is just a drop of hope in the ocean of need.

To visit one of the camps we drove up a steep road for about a mile into the mountains. On our way down we discovered a hastily erected barrier blocking our path. As we came to a halt a crowd of about 50 people immediately descended on our vehicle. They were pleading for help, complaining that we were passing their community empty handed as we travelled to 'our' camp. Emmanuel (a Haitian officer living and working in the USA) waded into the middle of the crowd and, with a broad smile on his face, managed to diffuse the heat of the situation. Twenty minutes later we were on our way. I confess, it wasn't a pleasant experience and although the crowd remained reasonably calm I was very glad to drive safely away. With apologies to the author of the quote, it's hard to convince a desperate person that we can only please so many in a day - and that today is not their turn. We do our best to respond but there are so many unmet needs.

On a lighter note, I had one of those experiences yesterday I hope never to repeat. John, Ron and I were heading to a meeting - I was driving. We weren't sure of the way but had a general idea we needed to be on a parallel road over to our right. Looking for a right turn we saw a truck turn off the main road. 'Follow that' - said John. I duly did and found myself driving into a street market. The truck continued (very slowly) so we followed - thinking he must surely know the way through. The market became busier and denser and the road narrowed. The stalls were virtually skimming the wing mirrors. Then came the bad news - the truck stopped - the road was blocked by a power line down across the road.

I had no choice but to reverse the whole way out again - with John trying to clear the way - and market holders literally pulling their feet under them so as not to get their toes run over - it really was that tight! Those all around the car were very pleasant - despite the inevitable thought 'stupid foreigners!' I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we eventually emerged. Moral of the story - just because someone else does something don't assume they know what they are doing!