By Blaine Bookey, Esq., IJDH/BAI Legal Fellow

Just a quick note to say I landed in Ayiti with­out a glitch. It is wretched hot. Thank good­ness the other del­e­ga­tion mem­bers don’t arrive until Sun­day, so I can hog the fan with­out the guilt.

I arrived at our office (the Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux or the BAI) this after­noon where a grass­roots women’s group was host­ing a press con­fer­ence to denounce the government’s response (or lack thereof) to the rapes and poor con­di­tions in the camps. One of the lead­ers put me on the spot and had me intro­duce myself (yes, in kreyol). Sev­eral women came up and hugged me after. I’m pretty sure they mis­un­der­stood what I said. Either way, I was grate­ful for the love. I had been fight­ing off tears ever since I laid eyes on the BAI’s secu­rity guard who lost his wife in the earthquake.

I left for a meet­ing and came back to the office where I found lead­er­ship for another women’s group dis­cussing plans for their meet­ing tomor­row. Their office build­ing was destroyed.

I walked to the back of the office to find yet another women’s group host­ing an inter­ac­tive train­ing on the rights of chil­dren. They quickly made a place for me on the tarp, a makeshift shel­ter area out­side the back­door of the office. The women spoke about the mean­ing of the illus­tra­tions in the book and acted out scenes, most are illit­er­ate. The whole group, at least 30 women, broke into song and the late­com­ers had to dance before they could sit down.

My first 5 hours in Port au Prince con­firmed for me what I already knew. The BAI really is a sanc­tu­ary, a safe space for women. I was sad to see them leave. I don’t know where they will be sleep­ing tonight. But glad to know they’ll be back tomorrow.

Nap kenbe (we’re hold­ing on)

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Sign peti­tion to help Hait­ian women fight against rape