More news on conditions in Haiti

Check this out from today's New York Times.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The 22-year-old woman, wearing a gauzy blue dress that she had changed into after her release, spoke in a whispery voice. Perhaps the worst part of the whole ordeal, she said, was the place where her kidnappers had chosen to imprison her. That they abducted her was terrifying. That they raped her, repeatedly, was too horrendous to absorb just yet. But stashing her in the ruins of a home? Making her crawl on her stomach beneath a collapsed slab into a destroyed house where they hid her in a pocket of rubble? That was torture, she said.

“Since I had not slept under any roof since the earthquake, I was so scared I could not breathe,” said the woman, Rose, who requested that her full name be withheld.

Rose’s kidnappers told her brother-in-law, who delivered the ransom of about $2,000, that they would kill her if she talked. She had no intention of doing so. But police investigators showed up at the family house in the Delmas 33 neighborhood shortly after her release, and a reporter from The New York Times happened upon the scene, later accompanying Rose to a women’s health clinic at the family’s request.

Being present when Rose and her family were grappling with the horror of her ordeal offered a firsthand glimpse inside the vulnerability that many Haitians, and particularly women, feel right now. Sleeping in camps, on the street and in yards, many feel themselves at the mercy not only of the elements but of those who prey on others’ misery.

So many cases of rape go unrecorded here that statistics tell only a piece of the story. But existing numbers, from the police or women’s groups, indicate that violence against women has escalated in the months after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Kidnappings are rare, but they, too, have increased, and “the threat is constant,” said Antoine Lerbours, a spokesman for the Haitian National Police.

Malya Villard, director of Kofaviv, a grass-roots organization that supports rape victims, said that the presence of thousands of prisoners who escaped during the earthquake aggravated an environment where insecurity and despair feed on each other.
“It’s an ideal climate for rape,” she said.

Ms. Villard said that Kofaviv’s two dozen case workers, in Port-au-Prince, had counseled 264 victims since the earthquake, triple the number in an equivalent period last year. Arrests for rape are fewer — 169 countrywide through May, but more arrests have been made in the last few months than during the same period last year.

Since the earthquake, international relief groups have expressed concerns about violence against women, especially in the camps under their watch. Poor or nonexistent lighting, unlockable latrines, adjacent men’s and women’s showers and inadequate police protection have all been problems.

Recently, security in eight big camps has improved, with joint Haitian police posts or patrols; about 100 Bangladeshi policewomen arrived late last month to deal with gender-based violence at three of them. But there are about 1,200 encampments throughout Haiti, and this city’s battered neighborhoods are largely left to their own defenses, too.

Rose and her relatives recently moved back to their properties when the owner of the property where they were squatting threatened the tent city residents with eviction. Their homes have been marked with a yellow stamp by surveyors, meaning they are damaged but fixable. Rose and her relatives sleep outside them, fitfully. They were scared of the “young thugs in Mafia sunglasses,” Rose’s cousin said, even before Rose’s abduction.

On May 10, Rose, a statuesque woman who is learning to be a beautician, went out to buy some cookies. A police officer whom she knew beckoned her to sit in his unmarked car, she said. She did. Then two men ordered the officer out of the car, taking his gun and driving off with Rose.

The men shoved her into the back, and made her lie face down. She does not know what neighborhood they took her to; it was empty and rubble-filled, and had many destroyed houses. When she protested entering one, they slapped her, she said, and forced her to squeeze through the collapsed entrance. They pushed her into a crawl space beneath a fallen ceiling.

“I was scared mute,” she said. “Only when they raped me did I scream. It hurt.”
Clutching her pelvis as she talked, Rose said that the men had taken turns, raping her seven times. “Or maybe eight,” she said, shutting her eyes.

The police officer showed up at Rose’s house the morning after she was kidnapped to tell the family what had happened. “He waited all night while we lay awake terrified,” her brother-in-law said. “He was looking for his car. We said, ‘What about Rose?’ He said, ‘We’ll look for her, but, you know, you will hear from them first.’ ”

The kidnappers used Rose’s cellphone to call. They put it on speaker phone and hit her repeatedly so her family could listen to her cry out in pain.

“They demanded $50,000 American,” her uncle, a vendor, said. “That’s crazy. I don’t have 10 gourdes to my name. But they said, ‘Don’t bother going to a voodoo priest. He can’t help you. Don’t bother calling Obama. He can’t help you, either. Just give us money, or we will kill the girl.’ ”

Over the next few days, the family managed to raise $2,000 in gourdes, the Haitian currency, from neighbors. The money was left at a drop site on Sunday evening. At 3 a.m. Monday, Rose was blindfolded and put on the back of a mototaxi. When she arrived home, she collapsed into a fetal position at the door to her house and knocked weakly.

Several hours later, the police investigators arrived. Family members encircled Rose as she answered questions in a monotone. Occasionally they peered out at the street through the cracks in their home, fearful that the kidnappers were watching.

Rose had already changed her clothes and bathed, which she did not know would frustrate the collection of evidence. But the police did not raise the issue, anyway, her family said.

When the police left, Rose rode in the back of a car to a Doctors Without Bordersclinic, wincing in pain as it bumped over rutted roads. At the tented clinic, she was instructed to take a seat on a bench. Another woman, slim and poised, entered the open-air waiting room and told a nurse she needed to see a gynecologist.

“Infection?” the nurse asked. “A case of rape,” the young woman answered, in clipped French. She had been invited to a “literary circle” in a tent city the previous evening, she said. “No books were discussed,” she said. The two victims sat side by side and stared straight ahead. The nurse said that the clinic had treated about 60 victims in May.

When Rose was called into an examining tent, she stumbled, woozy from hunger. The nurse gave her a couple of packages of crackers. Rose said, “I don’t have any money for those.” The nurse told her they were free. Rose offered one of the packages to a Times reporter, who declined and left her to be examined privately.

Rose was discharged with an armful of condoms and pill boxes: antibiotics for sexually transmitted diseases, anti-H.I.V. treatment, pills for vaginitis and over-the-counter painkillers.
As she emerged, her uncle — whom Rose calls Papa — watched her from a distance, tears streaming down his face.

“Beautiful child, oh beautiful child,” he said. “Look into my eyes and you will know how I feel. When is this all going to end? Haven’t we suffered enough?”

A version of this article appeared in print on June 24, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Jim Dykhuis

Great Pictures Debby, good story too!

More pics from conference..

OOOOOOOOOOOOps, that' my new dooooo!!!!

More conference pics..anyone have anymore? I wanna see them..

Conference with Dr. Morquette in Naperville

Had a really nice time catching up with everyone last night at dinner and Morquettes conference.. He did a great job!! Great story teller:) Anyone else have more pictures?

More World Relief News from Haiti

From the Ashes
Pastor Gerald Bataille looks weary. His voice cracks with the hoarse edge of someone who has not slept well for some time.

In the weeks following the January earthquake, the leader of the Tabernacle of Glory Pentecostal Church in Port-au-Prince has been working around the clock every day. But Pastor Bataille is not in the frame of mind to give up. His name means “fighter.” And that, say those who know him the best, is exactly what Pastor Bataille has shown himself to be. In the face of massive – even overwhelming – odds, Pastor Bataille has rallied his people to respond with energy, with compassion, with grace.

Less than three weeks after the quake, Pastor Bataille led a funeral service for 30 of his church members killed in the disaster. Some of their bodies had not even been recovered from the rubble. There were moments, he admits, that he felt like dissolving into tears. But he kept it together – not just for himself, but for all those looking to him for strength and leadership.

With such a heavy weight on his shoulders, it is remarkable, perhaps, that Pastor Bataille can stay buoyant. Yet he exudes genuine optimism, genuine hope.“People are seeing the love of Christ in us,” he says, barely pausing to talk as he helps to unload rice and beans at his church. “With World Relief’s help, we’re showing people the love of Jesus, not just telling them… and their hearts are touched.

The love of Christ is something that everybody needs and I believe this love can draw people to find hope and peace.“I pray: ‘Lord, this is the time… it is the time for change for Haiti.’ If we will turn to God, He will hear us. We have known so much pain, so much sorrow, but I really believe this is the time for a big change.”

Within hours of the most cataclysmic earthquake in Haiti’s history, the Tabernacle of Glory Pentecostal Church in Port-au-Prince became a place of refuge for thousands. The church – an impressive half-completed mini-amphitheater – became a central food distribution point for World Relief. Inside, thousands of bags of rice and beans – enough to feed more than 100,000 people – were readied for distribution to the neediest families.

World Relief set up a system with the church to distribute the food in bulk, primarily to trusted local pastors. Word soon got out. Hundreds of pastors and others lined up in the sun in the hope of receiving some rice to take back to their families and their churches. Meanwhile, children were served hot meals of rice and beans at the church’s feeding station – a lifeline for many families struggling to find any food.

Pastor Louis Ricot came to the church every day after the quake, looking for food. “My people have nothing,” he said with a slight shrug. “We have no help from anywhere else…”Pastor Ricot was just one of thousands of pastors desperate to help his people who were living in tents made out of sticks and torn sheets. “It’s very difficult because there are many people in Port-au-Prince who are hungry right now,” said Michael Jean Baptiste, a church mobilization officer with World Relief, working alongside the church. “I thank God that we’re able to serve Christian and non-Christian alike, because everybody needs help.”

Like many quake survivors at the Tabernacle of Glory, Baptiste questioned God: ‘Lord, thousands have died… why am I not one of them?’God gave him the answer: ‘I have given you the opportunity to live to help your brothers and sisters in this hour.’ “Pastors come to us and say: ‘I have to feed 500 people… can you help me?’” explained Baptiste. “These people love Jesus… Jesus taught us to give to those who are hungry and it is a grace for me to serve them.”

Meanwhile, in the church grounds, hundreds received medical care at a clinic set up under a shelter. Moms with their babies in their arms waited patiently, while a doctor and nurses from Colorado treated and bandaged wounds, checked eye infections and gave out vitamins.

“I feel that God is at work here,” one mother said. “Who else would do this for us?”

Jim Dykhuis