November 2010

Sometimes you have to wonder, “When will it end for the country of Haiti?” This year started with the massive earthquake that has taken over 237,000 lives. Recent flooding in and around Port au Prince causing dry creek beds, streams and rivers to overflow, turning city streets into raging rivers, washing away makeshift tents and people. And now, Haiti’s first cholera epidemic in a century is sweeping the region just north of Port-au-Prince.

Although the majority of cholera deaths have come from the Artibonite River valley, near St. Marc (45 miles north of the capital city), confirmed cases have been seen in Croix-des-Bouquet (“Cross of Flowers”), a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

What causes this? A 70-year-old man told reporters he fell sick after drinking water from the public canal. For many years we’ve been teaching the people in the villages that they should never drink directly from the water sources, without boiling it first. These canals are used for everything from washing laundry and bicycles to taking baths and other personal needs. Thankfully, to date, none of these villages has been affected.

A senior Pan-American Health Organization officer says the best hope for minimizing casualties is a public education campaign to tell people to drink only clean water. Those water supplies have been there for decades, and you’d think  they would have thought about this earlier.

Cholera is an intestinal infection causes by bacteria transmitted mainly by contaminated food and water. It causes rapid and severe hydration which can kill within hours, especially if the victim is very young, very old or weak. To date, there have been almost 400 deaths and over 4,000 confirmed cases.

If this were not enough, we have the news that the January earthquake was not caused by the known fault, but by an unmapped “blind” fault near the city of Leogane.

The University of Miami and the U.S. Geological Survey, aided by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Labs, have conducted studies that suggest the January earthquake may not have been the “big one,” and almost certainly was not the last. If anything, the studies conclude, Haiti now faces a heightened risk of repeat quakes along the known fault zone — particularly near the heavily damaged and densely populated capital of Port-au-Prince.

A Purdue University geologist says in Nature Geoscience, “It is locked and loaded. My concern is that we are in the beginning of a new cycle of earthquakes … there is another shoe waiting to drop.”

With all this country has gone through in the last ten months, this is not the news they would have wanted to hear. Now, because of this news, many we know who had returned to their undamaged or slightly damaged homes are back to sleeping in tents. Who can blame them?

At some point you have to stop and wonder when all of this will stop. Why would this poor country have to face one disaster after another? One thing we do know and constantly preach to them: we cannot lose faith, and those of us here cannot stop praying.

To be perfectly honest, it is a very stressful time for anyone living or working in Haiti. But we are very thankful for all of you who continue to give and pray for the country of Haiti. We certainly can’t reach everyone, but if each person that we know or touch passes on what they have heard or seen, the impact of what you help us do will go further than we could ever imagine.

All those we work with have expressed to us their appreciation for all you do to help. We always make sure they know it isn’t “Steve and Terry” who do these things. We are able to do them only because of you. Thank you for all you do.