I’ve received some news from Haiti. Our director’s wife Marjorie has suffered a broken leg and lost her dear mother who was a surrogate “grandma” to 250 little ones. She will be sorely missed, a truly sweet soul. We also lost one of our drivers and a woman who was a caretaker both of whom have been with us for some time.
The children from all three houses seem to be alright though the report was that “the children of Petionville are alive and in a safe location” which suggests that their house may have suffered sufficient damage to render it unsafe. The phone call was very short and the connection, terrible. It was very difficult to understand everything Guesno (our director) was saying. His English is excellent but he has a heavy accent and compounded with the lousy connection it was nearly impossible to communicate clearly.
Anyway, our news could have been much worse with regards to loss of life and injuries. It appears that we may have lost one house and I have no news about the new orphanage we’re building outside of town.
Thanks to all who have sent emails and private messages or who have made donations or have been mindful of us in other ways. We are grateful to be in the thoughts and prayers of such wonderful friends.
Robertson’s great consistency is that he always blames the victims, and then asks his supporters for more money. I understand he has saved our region, SE Virginia, from several major natural disasters.
All the best from me, Doc, for the excellent work you’re doing. You positively put me to shame, old chap, sitting here as I do prattling on about this, that and the other.
I spend more time wondering how it is that morons like that get TV shows, and attract millions of followers in my enlightened nation. But alas, the Proctology Cafe has been closed, so we’ll return to the discussion in progress. It’s looking grim, indeed.
Hispanola - the island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic has a little under half the land area of California (76k square km v 163k suare km).
The Dominican Republic is much further away from the epicentre of the earthquake than the heavily-populated areas of Haiti, which were very close to it. The epicentre was less than ten miles from Port au Prince and was to the west of it, putting it at an even greater distance from the Dominican Republic, which is the eastern end of the island. Living where you do, Weeks, and having had a strong earthquake off your coast only a few days ago, I’d have thought you’d have had a better understanding of these things.
It was felt as far north as Orlando and Tarpon Springs, Florida, which is just north of St Petersburg, and apparently also in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I’m not so sure about the reports in New Jersey and New Hampshire, but . . .
He has confirmed that one of our houses is indeed destroyed. Thankfully our new building fared well though the wall surrounding it was badly damaged. He has moved the kids from the damaged house to the other two. Crowding is a terrible problem. We are going to move all the children to the new building site as soon as we can get the wall repaired (the wall is essential for security). He is looking for tents to set up a camp for the kids. Port au Prnce is just to dangerous and we need to get the little bugs out to the country asap.
They will soon be out of food and water at their PaP locations. THere is some food stored at the new facility and there are large gardens we’ve been using for produce for the kids. We still need to drill a well at the site and do some electrical work etc…
He said that even with money one can’t acquire acquire food or water in PaP for now as there is simply none to be had and nowhere to buy it if it could be had.
Thanks to all who have expressed encouragement, offered prayers or sent money or instruments to be sold through The Irish Flute Store to raise funds. Your friendship is a great blessing at the best of times and more so at the worst.
We’re looking into getting some of the children into the country as refugees or with emergency visas or some such. Many of them are in the process of being adopted (a long and tedious process in the best of times) anyway.
If anyone knows anything about going about such things i’d be much obliged if you could PM or email me.
Patrick, I love your attitude (and your general approach to life). No matter how much worse it could be, I know it still hurts, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through.
The size of the tectonic shift governs the intensity of an earthquake, but the area affected is governed by the depth in the earth’s crust at which the shift happened. The deeper it is, the wider the area affected. This quake was quite shallow, and apparently located 10 miles off the Port au Prince coast. It was a big move, so the earthquake was intense, but the shallowness meant that the intensity dropped off quite rapidly the farther you were from the epicenter. Thus, the Dominican Republic felt the shock but it was a lot less intense.
LDS Humanitarian Services showed up at one of the facilities that’s housing a lot of the kids tonight with food and water and medical supplies…Full bellies!
Still trying to figure out a way to bring the kids to the States under some sort of refugee provision. Every child we get out of the orphanage makes a spot in our facilities to get another off the streets.
If there are any immigration “legal eagles” (or if anyone knows one). I’d sure love your input.
Thanks again to all who continue to generously support these little guys. You’ve been a great blessing.
