News from Léogâne etc.

Those of you following news of the Episcopal Church’s activity in Haiti have almost certainly found the national Church’s dedicated news page and Lauren Stanley’s blog. For news from Léogâne I’ve also been watching FSIL’s site, which is being updated regularly. The National Association of Episcopal Schools has also been posting updates about the state of the parish schools in Haiti.

The main news we’ve received recently is a report directly from Suzi Parker, who has been running the guest house at l’Hôpital Sainte Croix with her husband, John. She provides some more details about their situation and the state of the Sainte Croix compound:

Hopital Ste. Croix is standing. John and I are fine. The administration [office] collapsed under the guesthouse, and our apartment collapsed under the story above. [...] John was caught under the wreckage for about 4 hours, but the roof above was supported [b]y the lintel of the slinding glass door, [...] so he was uninjured except for a small cut on the top of his head.

[...] The Ste. Croix church is cracked, I don’t know how badly. Eye clinic looks fine. Pere Ker[w]in’s [the Priest-in-Charge of Ste Croix] house looks OK, Pere FanFan’s [the hospital administrator] house looks OK with some damage, Pere Pierre’s house is damaged, but st[i]ll standing. Doctor’s quarters and penthouse are fine. If we can get it open, John and I may try to move in there for a while.

At night we sleep in the yard behind the hospital where the bandstand was. It has fallen, as has the Episcopal school. The[r]e are 2–300 people who sleep in that field at night. Th[e]y sing [h]ymns until almost midnight, and we wake up to a church service, with hymns, a morning prayer, and the apostle’s creed. The evening sky is glorious. In the field there is a real sense of community. Of course, we are the only blancs [white people] there.

She also reports that there are doctors treating injuries there. They have seen upwards of “300 people with cuts, fractures, etc.”.

I’ve been poring through photos of Léogâne that were posted today (warning: some are graphic), looking for any hint of Sainte Croix. If I’m not mistaken, these three photos are of the compound. If you can confirm this, leave a comment.

FSIL’s facility has also become a major treatment center for the Léogâne area. (FSIL, the Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de Léogâne, is the nursing school of the Episcopal University of Haiti, and is funded by the Haiti Nursing Foundation based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.) From the sound of updates posted to their website, they have plenty of staff but are running extremely short on supplies.

We still haven’t heard anything about the Delicats aside from Roosnel’s short note from yesterday.

Elsewhere

On past St. John’s trips to Haiti, we have visited the Sisters of St. Margaret, an Episcopal order based in Boston, whose convent in Port-au-Prince was destroyed along with the rest of the Sainte Trinité cathedral and school complex. As I posted earlier today as an update to my initial entry on the quake, the Sisters are alive and well, and have provided news of Foyer Notre Dame, a home for elderly Haitians who had been homeless.

The Foyer has partially collapsed, but at least some of the residents survived and are camped out with the Sisters. The Foyer also has a guest house that was completed in 2006(?)—no word on whether it has also been damaged.

We have also heard from multiple sources that Carmel Valdema, the nurse who runs the Lespwa Timoun nutrition program in Crochu and other remote communities and with whom people from St. John’s have done mobile clinics, is safe, along with her husband, Pere Val, the priest of St. Simeon in Croix-des-Bouquets.

I’ve also just noticed on Lauren Stanley’s site that Epiphanie in L’Acul, which is partnered with Messiah in St. Paul, as well as the CODEP (Haiti Fund) compound across the road from Epiphanie, are largely unharmed.