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A lot of the stuff I saw at the hospital, I can’t tell you about. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you cover your kids’ eyes. I wanted to cover mine.

What I can tell you about is St. Francois de Sales, the Caritas-supported hospital that was almost destroyed in the earthquake but is now once again taking care of people.

The Haitians there will break your heart. Like Sara. A six-year-old with what seems to be a left leg broken in multiple places. The quake buckled her house and she was trapped under it for a few hours.

She was finally pulled out and now she’s here. Laying in a white undershirt and a diaper fashioned out of bandages. Her mom, wearing a red beret, sits next to her and spoons rice and beans into Sara’s mouth from a Styrofoam container. Neither of them smile.

Many of the people at the hospital were trapped in rubble and have the ghastly injuries to prove it. Some were trapped for a few minutes, others for a few hours.

Most of them sat on the floor in the heat and stink of various hospitals around the city. They waited patiently to be helped by medical staff that were bombarded with people broken apart, being carried in on doors and tables and any flat surface people could find.

At night, the injured slept in the street and hoped that tomorrow would be better. Hovering over Sara was Dr. Guesly Delva, a Haitian who’s lived in the United States for 15 years.

“I was dreading coming here because of what I’d seen on TV,” he says. “I broke down the first night.” And now he’s here, hovering over Sara, speaking to her mom in Creole, the language he grew up with.

As the day wears on, and the more bandages he peels back, the more his face sinks. “I feel a sense of desperation,” he says. “There’s so much to do. I know that we’re probably not going to have enough the time or resources to relieve all the pain and suffering.”

Ninety-nine percent of the people at the hospital are suffering from trauma. Stessy Jeannot, 18-months old, asleep on a bed in a frilly skirt and red velvet top, had part of her hand crushed.

Dore Lalanne, 12, sleeping in his underwear next to a French bible, has severely injured legs. Still he’s in a good mood and brightens up when the subject of soccer, and his favourite player, Messi, the Argentine, comes up.

Seeing the kids was rough. But it was good to know they were finally getting help. The toughest part for me was when a doctor rushed up and asked for me to follow him.

We wound our way through the patients. His walk had an urgency about it that made me uncomfortable. He led me to a blond-haired Belgian doctor, holding a one-year-old little girl named Shleidem who was resting her head against the doctor’s chest.

On a bed next to her, Shleidem’s mom, Vanessa, 24, was getting ready to go into surgery. Her leg had a deep, ugly cut in it. The wound needed cleaning. These people lost their house, the Belgian doctor, told me. Can you find a place for them to stay?

There had been a mistake. They saw me jotting down notes earlier and mistook me for a counsellor. And, unbeknownst to me, word had spread that I could help families find a place to stay. “I’m afraid for the baby,” said Dieuness, Shleidem’s father. “We have no place to go.”

‘Courage,’ I told him, a phrase that’s frequently heard now. Nothing else seemed appropriate. I knew that word wasn’t enough. But I also knew that without St. Francois de Sales, Vanessa’s leg may have become infected and Sara would never have had someone like Dr. Delva helping her.

Posted by LaneH (Caritas US)

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Donate to the CAFOD Haiti Appeal or DEC Haiti Appeal

A lot of people around the world are asking the same question about Haiti: What’s taking so long for food to get out? Spend a morning at the Petionville golf course, and you’ll have your answer.

The once-swanky country club in Port-au-Prince is now home to some 50,000 displaced Haitians. The camp is already taking on the trappings of a community.

In one section of the camp, you can charge your cell phone, call Europe at a phone kiosk, buy vegetables, and get your hair cut. Cardboard street signs are even popping up on some trash-strewn paths.

The place is so packed you have to turn sideways to get to some tents. Behind the flowered bed sheets that serve as walls, you see shadows moving, hear babies crying and smell the akra sizzling in oil, the flat cakes made of flour and spices that Haitians love.

The sun feels like it’s closer here, and most people lay in the shade, fanning themselves, trying to figure out how to make it through another day.

Most people keep their eyes averted from one of the hills at the camp. That’s where some Haitians bathe in their underpants, hiding behind some scrawny trees that offer only a suggestion of privacy.

But when Caritas workers go to the camp, they see problems—and solutions. One of the biggest issues: Tens of thousands of people living in shelters made of bed sheets tied to sticks.

In a country that has been denuded of trees, lumber is a valuable commodity. Residents have used machetes to hack off branches of some of the trees lining the fairways. All that’s left are trunks that look chewed and frayed.

The rolling fairways are balding, with the brittle yellow grass getting further ground into the dust every day.

When the rainy season starts in late March, the place is going to turn into a Haitian version of Woodstock: thousands of people living in mud. And that has a lot of people worried.

Caritas has already ordered plastic sheeting to improve the shelter of thousands. There are plans to start cash for work programs. Haitians who lost their homes will start clearing rubble in their former neighbourhoods to make space for new, longer-lasting temporary shelters.

But the urgent need right now is food. Close to 200 tons of food will be brought into the Petionville Club and stored on the tennis courts. The food is packed in 100-pound sacks. It’s offloaded from 10-ton trucks and boosted onto the heads of Haitians one sack at a time.

From there, the food is divided up by volunteers sitting on the ground measuring out rations for each family. It’s then repackaged and prepared for distribution. But getting that food to all the people in the camp is the challenge.

When Caritas distributed more than 1,000 food kits a few days ago at the golf course, thousands of Haitians thronged to the site, pushing against the rope cordon, wanting food.

Thanks to Haitian volunteers, Caritas staff and the US Army’s 82 Airborne, order was maintained, but the frustration was palpable. It could have turned unruly quickly with that many hungry people.

Caritas knows from years of experience you can’t just back up a truck full of food and fling open the doors. There needs to be structure to keep people safe. That’s why a group of Caritas staff and volunteers have fanned out in the camp.

Some have cans of spray paint, others hold on to about 100 yards of blue rope. A handful of volunteers circles a collection of makeshift tents with the rope. Every shelter in that circle will receive a ticket. Then an X will be painted on the shelter.

There are so many shelters, so close together, the volunteers want to make sure they reach everyone.

 Then the team goes tent to tent, pulling back curtains and asking who is the head of the house, then giving them a voucher for two weeks worth of food, stuff like vegetable oil, lentils and bulgar.

It’s a rudimentary method, but it works. And at this point, that’s what’s most important: Finding something that works.

By LaneH, Caritas USA (CRS)

Please support the relief effort in Haiti – our partners are helping