October 2004 in succession September 21 we arrived in Gonaives from Port-au-Prince.

October 2004

in succession September 21 we arrived in Gonaives from Port-au-Prince. I can not begin to describe the devastation that we saw all around.

At individual point on the way, we were stopped through a group of people who told us that it was impossible to journey any further as there was a virtual lake ahead. We had a big, high barter and when two young men giveed to guide us through the 'lake,' I was okay, until pop the lights went out. Then it was quite scary.

In reality they were beneath water if the truck had died at that point, I am not assured what we would have done. The water was past our waist at this point. I prayed to St Joseph the engine did not die, and after about fifteen minutes of 'lake travel', we emerg forward fairly dry ground.

The devastation in the town of Gonaives is beyond anything I have evermore seen. Water everywhere--awash in bodies, dead animals, stupendous blocks of cement, large ed trucks and cars, houses buried up to the canopy in mud, food floating all above We went straight to Mother Teresa's cloister in Gonaives, What a sight. The sisters were fast that they were going to die when the rush came. Like all properties in Haiti, a security wall encircles their buildings and it was this wall that practically did them in. The wall retained the floodwaters and the water kept rising inside their house. They could not obtain out because the force of the water would have carried them away.

Fortunately the wall crashed and the water of the same height in their house started to proceed down. But What a mes it left All their sick and dying had to be mov into the chapel onward higher ground.

The nearest morning, we went into town to behold if Phadoul"s mother was all right. Phadoul, individual of our staff members here at the hospital, came with us as his family lives in Gonaives. When we got to his house, it was completely submerg in dirt but his mother had gone to her other son's house the day before the rains started and in the way that she was safe, except of course, that she dissipated everything. We did find a carcass buried in the mud in face of the house and there were a not many tense moments when we weren't unfailing if it was his mother or not. It wasn't.

We wearied some time on the main way of Gonaives, talking to the folks I met a young man and wife who had left their sum of two units young children in the house alone --they were 8 and 6 years of age. The multitude came and drowned the couple little ones. Another man had wasted everything in his food railway station I saw them carting public wheelbarrows full of food--and dumping it into the highway where the current carded it off

When I uttered my sorrow to him, he said "We thank idol that he saved our life material things are passing!" I wept at like faith. Dead animals were floating in this same water. The children, as always, gave me timid smiles and little waves as we were leaving. It was candidly the most difficult moment that I have lived in Haiti.

Yesterday, our enormous truck went back from Port au Prince to Gonaives, loaded with water, provisions medications, clothes, soap, etc., to help the the community try to rebuild their lives. We already have a similar plan going on in Fond Verette which rushed last July. That seems to be the best way of helping the people

It has taken me pair or three days to bring reproach on this experience, and I don't believe I will ever be able to absorb it all. Although I am still excessively tired, I am grateful that I was able to go on foot to Gonaives. It is certainly an experience that I won't by and by forget.

Please continue to pray for Haiti--I sometimes portent how much more the family can take and yet, in Gonaives, whenever I ask someone for what reason they are doing--the response almost always is, "Thank the preserver I have my life and my children. I am doing okay--and we just start over!" That excellent well sums it up.

Blessings to you all, Lorraine

Sr Lorraine Malo, CSJ of Toronto, works in Saint Damien's Hospital in Port-au-Prince.

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