The Haiti Earthquake Response: A view from the trenches

It all changed in an instant

Last Monday, my job was to run a small cross-border conflict program. Today, I am running a relief program for the largest disaster to hit the Americas. Last week, I was actively looking for a non-profit that I could direct.  Now I don't know what I want to do. It is hard to remember life before the earthquake.

I have worked a number of disasters, but mainly floods and hurricanes. Earthquakes are much harder. They come without warning and change everything. I'm not ready to write about the impact on people. It is just amazing that everyone's life was changed in an instant.

I don't know where we will go from here. I don't know how Haiti will change. I don't know what will happen next. I do know that everything can change in an instant.

 

A personal account of the response to the earthquake in Haiti.

Every now and then, life hands you a chance to make a difference. I am fortunate to be in the right place at the right time  I used to run the Pan American Development's Haiti disaster program before I moved to the Dominican Republic to run the border program. Therefore, when the earthquake hit, I was already in place to respond. With all telephone communication cut off in Haiti, we had no idea what had happened to our staff. Wednesday morning, I was able to get some cash and supplies together and drove from Santo Domingo to Haiti.

It is a seven hour drive and I spent the whole drive talking on the phone and getting updates on the situation. We received a message from our office that our staff was safe, but we were unable to talk directly with anyone. I crossed the border around 6pm and made to the outskirts of Port-au-Prince around 7pm. As I drove into town, I began seeing the first impacts--a cinder block wall that fell here or a damaged wall there. A bit further in, I saw whole walls down, then began seeing collapsed roofs. We made it to our safe house around 7:30pm and settled in for the night.

Everyone in the area was still very shaken. Even though the house was completely intact, the Haitians were sleeping outside in fear of another quake. During the night I felt two strong aftershocks.

In the morning, we headed into town. The damage was amazing. I didn't go near the epicenter, but the damage was everywhere. Many of the buildings that were damaged had been badly built, but others seemed quite solid. We touched base with the Direction de Protection Civile (the Haitian government agency charged with managing the disaster). They had no resources and were beyond swamped. We found some of our staff and began organizing our office again. By this point, I had distributed all of the resources that I had brought and used up a third a tank of gas--their is little fuel available and I knew I could not run out. With no means of communication, I headed back to the Dominican Republic to get more supplies and to get back in touch with my Dominican and Washington offices.

It is a crazy time. We are getting lots of support (www.panamericanrelief.org) both in cash and in supplies. However logistics are such a mess that it is hard to do much. Tomorrow I hope to get our office in Haiti up and running to make it easier to provide supplies. There is so much to be done that the little that we can do seems insignificant. Yet, everyone needs to do their part.

I try to avoid thinking of reconstruction. So little was done after the four hurricanes hit Haiti in 2007. So little was done after the hurricane hit Gonaives in 2005. How will Haiti ever get back on its feet.

 

How to keep your New Year's Resolution to travel more without breaking your budget

How much would it cost to visit every country in the world?

Earlier this year, I met a very remarkable person who is out to visit all 192 countries. Perhaps even more remarkably, Chris Guillebeau is doing it without corporate sponsorship or a trust fund. Although my travel goals are far more modest, I have been a regular reader of both his blog and his "Unconventional Guides" in which he shares his secrets to creating a micro-business, using the social web, and traveling cheaply.

The newest of these guides is the Frequent Flyer Master. I purchased this guide the first day that it was available, based on how much I liked his previous guides. I was also intrigued by his guarantee--that if you don't earn enough miles in your first year, that he will buy the book back from you. At $49, I wanted to be sure that the purchase was worth the investment. Sure enough, within  a day of reading the book, I had signed up to receive 50,000 miles plus elite status with a car rental company. However, the add-ons would be worth the $49 price. Based on what I had learned through the report of Priceline booking (the name your own price hotel website), I was able to book a 3+ star hotel in downtown NYC for $99/night. This guide has saved me hundreds of dollars already. I highly recommend it.

 
Chris also writes a wonderful blog and has two free ebooks: "279 Days to Overnight Success," and  "A Brief Guide to World Domination." All three are excellent resources and and should keep you motivated to travel the world regardless of your budget.

Although I purchased each of these guides, I have since become an affiliate for Chris. This means that if you click on the links above and purchase any of these products, I will receive a commission.  However, I am not blogging to make money. As long as I am in my current position, I will donate 100% of the money that I receive from this blog to the my current non-profit. If you are not comfortable with this arrangement, feel free to Google "Chris Guillebeau ." He is easy to find!