message from Haiti

My first opportunity to use a computer to update my blogsite....and where do I start?

I'm in Fond des Blancs a small town (comparitively speaking) of about 45000 which includes quite a number of surrounding villiages. We are up in the mountain about a rough hours drive from main highway to Les Cayes. It is roughly 70 miles from Port au Prince according to one person (I would have said 50 as I was told Les Cayes is 60 miles) We are halfway between Jacmel and Les Cayes according to the map and it took 4 hours to drive here from the UN compound where we caught our ride in the St. Bonaface hospital ambulance.

To go back a bit, we arrived here 2 weeks ago today well tonight. A Healing Hands for Haiti group of 11 'hitchhiked' a ride with a group called the Utah Hospital Task Force. This group chartered a flight to bring docs, nurses, construction, translators, and support along with medical supplies - total of about 120 people. We arrived in Port au Prince at about midnight (with about a dozen pizzas for payment to the 82nd airborne), unloading about 10-12000 # of supplies. We finally got to camp about 3 am, a soccer field of tents. We didn't get much sleep- Angie and I were sharing a tent and about 30 minutes into bunking down we were swarmed by mosquitos- I think we had a neon sign above our tent flashing "fresh meat"! It turned out we weren't the only one with the sign.

Nothing but hurry up and wait this first morning- something we should be used to but we were anxious to get out to our foundation. Finally mid morning the 82nd airborne got the big trucks over and started loading up. It was a sobering drive through the city - the imagination can not begin to comprehend what we were finally seeing. Buildings - many of my landmarks were nothing but rubble. Seeing buildings buckeling and tipped, the rubble piled in the streets. Tent cities in any open area. Tents made of sheets, cardboard and tin, as well as real tents on occasion.

We see people cleaning, sweeping, vendors selling a few things along the street. Its a start towards returning towards living again.