From Haiti

After more than a week of frustrating uncertainty and lack of communication, telephone communication between the Fondwa community and the US has been re-established and conditions on the ground there are improving little by little. An "extreme team" from Heart to Heart International were the first to visit the Fondwa community after the quake of January 12, 2010 destroyed more than 20 years of infrastructure development by PIP's Fondwa partners, the Association of Peasants of Fondwa (APF). The team brought water, food, and medicines to the Sisters of St. Antoine and more than 50 children from the Fatima House orphanage. Soon after, Sr. Judy Dohner, HM, who was living in Fondwa at the time of the quake, delivered two tents and additional supplies. The Sisters are now operating a field clinic from one of the tents and are again providing medical care to the Fondwa community.

An APF engineer made an initial assessment of damage to property last week. Among other things he found that the orphanage suffered structural damage to its foundation, but that may be repairable. There are 3 pre-school classrooms at the St. Antoine School that are still standing and may be able to be rehabilitated for later use. A separate building with 3 classrooms is still standing. This building was found to be minimally damaged and can be restored for use. The school campus will have to be carefully cleared of rubble, but APF has set an ambitious goal of reopening the school in some manner by March 1.

Damage to the APF community and guest center (with the clinic and radio station) was severe, but rebuilding on the same location will be possible. The adjacent depot was also severely damaged, but a separate, unfinished building (intended to be a dormitory for the University of Fondwa 2004) survived mostly intact except for cracks in the water cisterns built into the foundation. The cisterns are repairable and construction can eventually be resumed on the building.

Several APF members and others in the community lost houses and suffered damage to property. Still efforts are underway to recover a degree of normalcy in Fondwa. The bakery and beverage depot are reported to be reopened and functioning!

Waiting, praying, hoping.

The sight of "ti machan yo" - the market women - selling in the open air markets of Haiti has always been a comfortably familiar one during my many visits to Haiti. They sit patiently all day waiting, hoping, and perhaps praying for a customer and a sale.

It is, I suppose, an odd form of solidarity with the "ti machan yo" of Haiti that today we must continue to wait, and pray, and hope for news of our friends, associates and partners in the aftermath of the massive earthquake that shook Haiti only two days ago. Yesterday and today were a blur of activity - answering phones and emails - against a background of waiting, praying and hoping. Our senses are flooded with the sheer magnitude of the disaster as the airwaves overflow with images of devastation and suffering. The news we most want to hear - the fate of our partners, who are also our friends - does not sound in our ears.

In past visits to Haiti I have noticed too how common it is to see makeshift and pieced-together objects fashioned from bits of this and pieces of that. Any Haitian boy can fashion a kit from a few sticks, a split-open plastic bag, and some string. It is again an odd form of solidarity with the people of Haiti that our considerable efforts to know about our friends and partners yield only a bit of information here, a scrap of news there and we begin to piece them together. William escaped the collapse as did Paulin and Remy. One of the brothers died. George is safe in Canape Vert. Little Therese was located and all the children at the orphanage are safe. Their house collapsed but the boys and Michael are all right, except for that one boy whose arm is broken. Leigh is injured, but will recover. Joseph is OK. Ernst is OK too. The place we knew as "home" is in ruins, but Max and the others are safe.

At the end of the day we are grateful for those bits and shreds of news - good news most of it. But still we know nothing about our many other partners who are also our friends. Not even a clever Haitian boy could fashion a kite from what we have. So we wait. We pray. We hope.

Dear Friend of PIP,

At 4:47 pm yesterday a 7.0 earthquake shook Haiti, collapsing much of the capital of Port au Prince and causing widespread death and destruction. A series of more than a dozen aftershocks - many of which themselves were classified as "large earthquakes" - continued to collapse buildings made vulnerable by the first quake, rendering them uninhabitable and forcing survivors to remain outdoors through the night.

We know the devastation is severe, but thus far - with phone lines down and electricity scarce - we have only scant information about any our friends and partners who live and work in the areas that were so severely shaken.

Already our friends and supporters are asking "How can we help?" We first invite your prayers for the immediate victims of the devastation and their families and for those who will suffer in the days ahead as the effects are compounded.

Contributions to provide immediate disaster relief can be made to:

Catholic Relief Services, www.crs.org
The American Red Cross, http://www.redcross.org

It is too early to know how best to respond to the needs our own partners, particularly the Association of Peasants of Fondwa (APF) and Centre d'Intervention Jeunesse (CIJ), but also the schools, churches and other projects in and near Port au Prince that receive support from PIP. We anticipate there will be significant need for disaster assistance. Therefore, we are immediately setting up an "Earthquake Relief" fund that will help us respond to their needs.

DONATIONS can be made online at DONATE NOW or checks marked "earthquake relief" can be mailed to Partners in Progress, 329 N. Fairfield Street, Ligonier, PA.
We will continue to update you via the PIP e-news distribution list and my blog .

Thank you,

Rich Gosser
Executive Director

Partners in Progress
329 N. Fairfield Street
Ligonier, PA 15658

Today I hired William, an old friend and a good "chauffeur" to drive my friend Rosemary and me to Montrouis, a pleasant town about an hour and a half North of Port au Prince along "Naitonal 1", one of three national roads in Haiti. (It's hard to believe that there are so few roads in Haiti until you try to get somewhere here!)

The road isn't too bad for the most part and much of the drive is along a beautiful coastline dotted with beaches. We made pretty good time and I enjoyed getting out of Port au Prince!

We spent most of the day with Fr. Antoine Charles, a Haitian priest of the diocese of Gonaives. Fr. Anotoine's parish is "twinned" with the parish of St. Barbara's in my own diocese. Several years ago - after a lot of coaxing (well, maybe a bit of nagging) - I persuaded my long-time friend Fr. Paul Fitzmaurice, the pastor of St. Barbaras, to come to Haiti and visit St. Jean Baptiste parish in Montrouis. He and Fr. Antoine "hit it off" and I got to play "midwife" to the birth of "twins"! The relationship has been a good one and it's been a delight to watch it grow. Fr. Antoine is pictured below next to a new vehicle he got for the parish through a German organization that helps Catholic missions.

When I first visited Antoine I brought a translator because Fr. Antoine doesn't speak English. It turned out that the translator was so shy that he couldn't speak English in front of the group I had brought with me! Being shy myself I could understand, but that didn't help the situation! I struggled to communicate and Fr. Antoine never once made me feel self conscious. He only encouraged me. The next time I came I didn't bring a translator and ever since my Kreyol has improved "piti piti" (little by little)! Mesi Pe Antoine! (Thank you Fr. Antoine!)

Today is an historic date in Haiti. It was February 7, 1986 that marked the departure of Jean Claude Duvalier and the end of a 30 year dictatorship that began with the "election" of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. It was February 7, 1991 that marked the inauguration of Jean Bertrand Aristide, formerly a Salesian priest, who captured more than 67% of the votes in historic election of December 16, 1990, the first free and fair election in Haiti's history. After that February 7 has become the "normal" date for presidential inaugurations - at least on those occasions when Haiti's presidential elections have been held close to November (as "required" by the Haitian constitution of 1987)!

After winning a second election in 2000, Aristide was forced to leave Haiti in February 2004. I expected that there might be some demonstrations in Port au Prince today, but didn't think about it when I set out with my friend Rosemary to "stretch our legs" on the streets of Port au Prince. We walked without incident all over town starting at Hospice St. Joseph, down Rue Acacia, across Ave. Martin Luther King and then down Rue Popoulard all the way into the downtown. Crossing over at Rue Capois we walked past the Champs de Mas and climbed up the hill to the historic Hotel Oloffson (which provided the setting for Grahm Greene's novel, "The Comedians") where we had lunch (and a couple of cold bottles of Prestige, the Haitian beer that won a gold medal in a world competion many years ago).

We left the Oloffson and proceeded along Rue Christoff until we reached "Lalue" (Ave. John Brown) where we began the climb back to Christ Roi and Hospice St. Joseph. It was along Ave. John Brown that I remembered today is an historic date. Hundreds of marchers were coming in the opposite direction, demonstrating peacefully for the return of Aristide! There were Haitian national police along the route and riding admidst the demonstrators. The march was orderly and peaceful. We stood aside until the "Lavalas" (Kreyol for flood and the name of Aristide's political party) of Aristide supporters passed. Port au Prince was peaceful today, but the marchers were a vivid reminder to that, while it has been little known here in the 200 years of Haiti's history, this country longs for peace. I also recalled the words of the late Pope Paul VI: "If you want peace, work for justice."