Tuesday--Post -Quake

Once we got back to the house, it was just about dinner time. They took care of us so well in Haiti, Actionnel's wife, Yolande, is such a great cook! So we sat down for dinner with Actionnel and the North Carolina guys. We all traded stories of the day, not the least of which was where everyone was during the earthquake. Actionnnel confirmed that the community didn't experience any structural damage. He did say that the two-story school shook quite a bit and the kids bolted out.

After dinner John was the first person to grab his computer and check the headlines for the day, nothing was the same after that. John went to the NY Times website, the front page story was the earthquake in Haiti. Most of us were still stalling at the dinner table chatting when he came in and told us the EQ was at least a magnitude 7, it's epicenter was really close to Port-au-Prince, a hospital in Petionville had collapsed. When John stopped reading the article, Actionnel brought his hands to face and asked out loud, "God, haven't we had enough?"

From this point on, time began to crawl. It seemed the hours just kept going. I don't know if we really noticed it at the time, but looking back, we couldn't seem to understand how 3 days seemed to last 3 months. Also from this point on, details get a little shaky. I remember just about everything that happened, but a few things may be a little out of order.

Once we realized that the EQ was a much bigger deal than we had first realized, we got online, sent out some quick emails and updated blogs. Internet had been spotty all week and we figured it would be even worse now, so we conserved the time as much as we could. It got dark pretty quickly after dinner.

Normally nights around the guest house were full of life. There was a table under the overhang of one of the school building that the men always played dominoes on. You should see Haitians play dominoes. It looks and sounds awesome. They don't just set the dominoes on the matching numbers and keep going quietly, it all about intimidation. They're slamming and sliding dominoes, hitting the table, shuffling tiles in their hands and on the table, and making sure everyone else at the table knows who's boss; I think it's probably more fun to watch than to play. Normally groups of the high school kids would hang around with us trying to practice their English by just making conversation. I spent most of my time at night with the littlest kids, I loved playing clapping games with them, you know life Miss-Mary-Mack, of course they sang sweet Creole songs I couldn't understand, (man I really want to learn that before I go down next).

None of that really happened Tuesday night. Dominoes was the last thing on the men's mind as they gathered around Actionnel's big, white pick-up truck, with the radio blasting the only news available being broadcast from Gonnaive. The station was pretty much just broadcasting phone calls they were getting from people close who had information about Port-au-Prince. Most of the high school kids stayed at home that night, but a couple of the older boys had come out to Actionnel's truck too. Most of the young kids didn't really get it. They seemed to notice something was up, they hung around the guest house just a little less active than usual.

That morning we had planned to do a hand washing clinic with some the kids. It didn't really seem like high priority any more, but we figured it would at least keep the kids out of the adults hair, so Eyleen and I did that. I got to take pictures and hang around watching her work while she taught in Creole. After the kids finished the class, they all got a sweet Bucky Badger magnet. They didn't quite understand the concept of a mascot, but they had fun.

Quick side note: That night it was really windy and really unseasonably cold. As soon as we went inside, I put on sweats and a sweatshirt. None of the kids we spent our time with that night had that option.

Once the kids all headed for home, Eyleen and I joined everyone back in the guest house. We talked with the North Carolina guys for a bit. We still didn't really understand the extent of the earthquake yet. We had been able to see some pictures of structural damage, but we didn't have the live video feeds you were all getting. At this point we were still hoping that American Airlines was going to open up flights on Thursday and we would be leaving Thursday out of Port-au-Prince exactly as we had been planning.

As if got later, numbers in the computer rooms dwindled. Eventually it was just Tyler, John, Eyleen, and me. Tyler decided to check his email before we shut down the computer for the night and waiting in his inbox were 3 emails from news stations who had figured out that we were in Haiti. We were pretty amazed, honestly. We worked together to reply with something short that wouldn't be able to cause much of a stir on any news report. We hung around together for a while and eventually got to bed late.