from Amber Lynn Munger

The gun­fire spread last night to our zone.  At 1 am it started.  It
was off in the dis­tance a ways when it first started but got closer
and closer up until about 2:30 and then it seemed to stop.  All of the
home­less on the streets and in the refugee camps again met the chaos
with loud singing, clap­ping and prayers.

I am at the Matthew 25 house in Del­mas 33.  Here we have set up a
triage hos­pi­tal with more than 1,300 refugees on a soc­cer field.  The
peo­ple at Matthew 25 have been trav­el­ing all over the city try­ing to
fig­ure out what clin­ics and hos­pitls are oper­a­tional, what ser­vices
they can pro­vide and what the needs are.

There is no vis­i­ble coor­di­na­tion effort from inter­na­tional agen­cies on
the ground. There were no planes com­ing in yes­ter­day.  One of my
coor­di­nat­ing part­ners, AMURT-Haiti, worked to find a plane of 30–40
doc­tors and sup­plies that could come, but the plane was not allowed to
land in the PAP air­port.  We have teams in the Domi­ican Repub­lic with
truck­loads of sup­plies, but they were stopped at the bor­der and were
not allowed entry.

The sit­u­a­tion here is des­per­ate and get­ting rest­less.  The John
Hop­kins Stu­dents who were vis­it­ing Rights based Haiti and AMURT when
the earth­quake hit, have been doing sur­veys and assess­ments of the
clin­ics and refuggee camps in the nearby zones.  The sur­veys that they
con­ducted two days ago show that none of the peo­ple in the camps had
food or water to last them more than a day.

Here at Matthew 25, we have been doign ampu­ta­tions, and other painful
surg­eries, with no painkillers, no anes­the­sia, noth­ing to work with.
There are no tools for our doc­tors.  We have numer­ous Hait­ian doc­tors
and nurses here but no sup­plies!  We have run out of antibi­otics twice
but then found them by search­ing at nearby clin­ics run by mis­sions and
NGOs.

We have heard noth­ing from MINUSTAH.  I have not seen any of the
inter­na­tional agen­cies on the ground.  I have seen bel­gian doc­tors and
cuban doc­tors all doing amaz­ing work — but we have not seen or
received any con­tact or assis­tance from higher agen­cies ourselves.

The city has run out of water and food — but the biggest prob­lem is
gas and diesel.  The lit­tle that trick­les in to the one or two gas
sta­tions is the sub­ject of fights that will soon become riot­ing.  At
matthew 25, there no diesel to run the gen­er­a­tor.  We are using the
last power that the inverter has that may cut out at any time.  Our
vehi­cles are all on their last ounce of fuel.  I have sent one of my
trusted staff and friends who worked closely with me dur­ing the
gonaives emer­gency in 2008 to find gas this morn­ing.  I am afraid for
him.  There is no way for him to com­mu­ni­cate with me because there is
no phone ser­vice in the coun­try.  Now we are also run­ning out of
money.  I gave my last cash today to pay for gas, a lit­tle bit of
food, and a spare tire for one of our vehi­cles to replace one that was
stolen.  The near­est west­ern union is two hours north in St. Marc and
we are not sure if that is still functioning.

An added pres­sure on the city right now is that, due to the lack of
com­mu­ni­ca­tions, many peo­ple from the provinces are com­ing to search
for their loved ones.  They then add to the num­bers of peo­ple stuck in
PAP with no way out, no food, or water.

All of the prob­lems that exist in cat­a­stro­phes, we are expere­in­ce­ing
now.  how to dis­pose of the bod­ies, the human waste, how to move
peo­ple out of the city.  Every­one here is fear­ing rain because they
think that the first rain will move the earth under the stand­ing
houses caus­ing those build­ings to fall as well.  Each day more things
fall.

I am coor­di­nat­ing with AMURT, KONPAY, Beyond Bor­ders, Matthew 25, and
many other part­ners on an inte­grated response that will help us get
through the next week as well as pre­pare us to deal with the com­ing
months of inse­cu­rity.  We have coor­di­nated the ship­ment of diesel from
the open port in cap-haitian, the use of a ship­ping com­pany to haul
fuel from the DR to PAP, the use of a large pro­tected stor­age com­pound
to store the fuel.  We have Hait­ian vol­un­teers work­ing with the John
Hop­kin team to con­duct the sur­veys to pro­vide us impor­tant data on the
num­bers and loca­tions of peo­ple who are in need of med­ical care, so
that when help and sup­plies arrive, we are able to effi­ciently get
peo­ple to where they need to go.  We have worked with grass­roots
lead­ers in Com­mune Anse ROuge to gather infor­ma­tion through­out the
com­mune on fam­ily names and loca­tions in PAP so that each vil­lage can
send on e or two peo­ple to ser­ach for loved ones in PAP rather than
every­one from the vil­lages going into the dis­as­ter zone.

in gen­eral, we are being used as a place for infor­ma­tion exchange.
jour­nal­ists, and orga­ni­za­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tives are check­ing in daily
to give updates and share infor­ma­tion which i then share with my
con­tact at KONPAY who then shares the infor­ma­tion with the larger
net­work of NGOS that we are coor­di­nat­ing with.  until MINUSTAH is able
to re-establish a coor­di­na­tion base, we are mak­ing the MAtthew 25
house the coor­di­na­tion head­quar­ters for our operations.

Haitians are help­ing each other in glo­ri­ous acts of com­pas­sion and
kind­ness every where you look.  These peo­ple have endured so much
unspeak­able and unnec­es­sary suf­fer­ing.  I am today, as always, blessed
to be walk­ing with them in their strug­gle to over­come their awful and
unfair cir­cum­stances, and am even more blessed to be shar­ing in the
strength of spirit that makes each one of them my hero.