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Happening ... in the Local Church
Jim Altepeter, a parishioner of St. Thomas Aquinas, West Lafayette, was in Haiti in the days following the Jan. 12 earthquake. He recently shared his journey and experiences in a personal story he titled “The Journey.”
The Journey
We left the Christ Roi encampment at about three in the afternoon, leaving behind the death and destruction, the smells and painful sounds. Some guilt and sadness followed us. My family had the opportunity to move to a safe, unaffected area above Petionville … Martin drove the pickup; his sister, Tatoo, rode in the front with him. The girls – Martin’s daughter, Angie; Tatoo’s girls, Melanie and Lala; niece Kathleen and Lele -- rode in the back seat. Tom and I rode in the back of the truck, sitting on a mattress on top of the stuff we had pulled from the house. I thought of John Steinbeck.
During the hour’s drive up into the mountains, we stopped at a market and bought some food. The house seemed big, built on the side of a hill. We would call it a "split-level." We walked up several steps to enter the kitchen and living area and then up several more to the bedrooms and baths. Lele and the girls decided we would cook and eat in this house, but another friend had a one-story house nearby. It was on flatter ground and had more than one way in and out. That house would be sleeping quarters. A pad on the cement floor would do just fine. Martin, Tom and I would sleep in the big house.
That very special dinner was soon ready and we all gathered around the table, joined hands, and I prayed. Of course, only Martin, Tom and Tatoo understood my prayer, spoken in English. Suddenly, Martin’s mom, Lele, began to scream, "Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Mesi Jesus! Mesi Jesus! Mesi Jesus!" It was a most beautiful prayer of thanksgiving, of hope, of gratitude, of fear and charity, and longing and despair. The children automatically and simultaneously sang a short song of thanksgiving and we ate mostly in silence. This was so real. I’ve always found myself a bit suspect of the evangelical that I sometimes watch and hear scream on TV. There was no doubting this prayer.
I hadn't noticed, but at some point Martin had left the table. A mutual friend ran in and whispered to me that Martin needed me outside. I hurried out and found Martin sitting on a wall by the road sobbing. I realized that since arriving in Port-au-Prince a few days earlier, I had been in a sort of dream world of my own, trying to get my head around all that I was seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling. I was now finally aware that this remarkable, strong man had played a role in and witnessed things that were surely way beyond belief. Tom came out to help me and it was, perhaps, 30 or 40 minutes before Martin was consoled enough to return to the house.
This journey really began on Jan. 12 at about 5:30 in the afternoon. I was in flight near Miami, where I was to meet Tom Newett. Our plan was to stay overnight in Miami and fly together to Port-au-Prince the next morning and join up with Sue Alexander, a nurse practitioner, and Martin Glesil, our co-worker and translator. Martin had arranged this "Trio Trip." We were to go to an "un-served" village near Croix Des Bouquet, not terribly far from Port-au-Prince. Martin and I were to have Marten, a contractor who works for us on cement floors, go along, as we planned to install 10 or 15 cement floors in and around that village. We would all be carrying medical supplies for Sue, forming a sort of mobile clinic. Tom would, with the help of the contractor, find a good location to build the water collection cistern that he had designed. My friend, Ti Boss, would be with us also for real "heavy lifting."
Sue had arrived early on the 12th, a day ahead of Tom and I, so that she and Martin could go to the pharmacy and supply store and run any other errands in preparation for our arrival on the 13th. We had hoped to head soon to that “un-served” village.
Tom had arrived in Miami on an earlier flight from Indy, and met me coming off the plane. He told me there had been an earthquake in Haiti and that our flight for the next day had been canceled, but that we would probably fly on to Port-au-Prince on Thursday or Friday. We checked into the Red Roof Inn near the airport. We watched the news and our spirits deteriorated. We stayed in close touch with our wives and families at home and tried to keep our spirits up concerning conditions in Haiti. We really did not know what to do. We rented a car at noon on Wednesday and drove out of town and stewed and worried and prayed over our inability to connect with our family in Haiti or to learn anything of their well-being. The news continued to worsen. It was all bad. The airline continued to back off on when they might fly to Port-au-Prince and it became fairly clear that it might not happen at all. Our wives were suggesting turning back and I could not think of that. When I asked Tom what he thought , he simply said, “I’m with you, dude.”
Tom and I returned to the airport Wednesday evening and met “Martha the Agent.” At first she wondered why we wanted to go to the Dominican Republic, but after hearing our story she said she would get us there as soon as possible. The goal then became to find and see our companion Sue Alexander and my Glesil family in Port-au-Prince. I cannot recall a time in my life being more frightened for the well-being of people I love.
Tom and I spent Thursday night in a Santo Domingo hotel not far from the bus that we would finally board at about 11:00 Friday morning. At that time, we learned that the Glesil family was OK, the house was broken, but we had yet to hear about Sue Alexander. I could not go over all the scenarios that I played out in my mind during those 72 hours. Sadly, many were negative, and I prayed they were wrong. The last bus stop was Petionville. With the devoted help of Widney, a young man to whom we will always be grateful, we got a taxi to take us to a guest house on Delmas. We were told it was far too dangerous to go to Christ Roi. At the guest house, we learned that they had seen Sue go to the Embassy and on to the airport that morning, to wait for a cargo plane trip back to Florida. Although I was near a damaged building and wall, I did sleep.
On Saturday morning, Tom and I left the guest house and soon found bikers willing to take us into Christ Roi. I know now that what I saw in the light of day was all too real, but in fact for me, it redefined surreal. Remember that this was now three and a half days after the actual 35-second devastating quake. If I had not known better, I might have guessed that perhaps it had happened in the last 24 hours -- people digging through the rubble of fallen buildings, looking, scrambling, crying. There were bodies on the streets, and legs and arms reaching out from piles of broken cement and block buildings. It was as if I had walked onto the set of a movie being filmed right at that very moment. It seemed too awful to be real and yet so very real. It was as if I could not find the appropriate way to act or respond. I even wondered if I should be crying or praying or shouting “stop this.” I just looked in stunned silence. I didn’t try to speak to the guy driving the bike. He mostly knew where to go. When I saw the turn up Acacia, I pointed and said “la.”
As we went up that too steep hill on Acacia from Christ Roi to the corner at Moies, I began to see the faces of the people I came to find. They seemed to be drifting out of clouds. I was almost surprised to see so many that I knew. My godchild, James, his dad, Eddy, Maxime, Rodrick, Tatoo, Lele, the children and grandchildren were there and, finally driving up in the green pickup, my son and good friend, Martin. Martin said only, “What are you doing here?” When he saw I couldn’t answer, he said, “I know, I know.”
The next 10 days become somewhat of a blur. Had it not been for the good humor and great spirit of Tom Newett and Martin and another friend, Apolo, who spent some time with us, I might have drifted into some kind of depression. However, we kept very busy. We worked in mobile clinics, both Haitian and American, outside a hospital for a DR triage unit; we consoled some very sick and injured people and we visited friends in neighborhoods as well as the huge encampment on Chand Mas. I assisted docs and nurses doing things I had not done before as well as things I had not done in many years.
Martin and I quickly redesigned Foundations for Haitians as a fund to help people who have family in safer parts of Haiti to get their stuff together, get on a tap-tap, and go. Try to begin again. We agreed that it truly seems unreasonable to try to rebuild a slum in the same area of the slum made worse by this devastating quake. To ask these people to go back to such places as Cite de Soleil is unconscionable.
Finally, I can only say that I will forever do what I can to serve the people of Haiti. God is in Haiti and places like it. I believe that through the people of Haiti he gives us the opportunity to put on our sandals and be his Jesus to serve our fellow human beings. It is not just the Christian thing to do, but it is the human and right thing to do.
I thought my life changed 18 years ago when I first went to Haiti. I know now that change is a process. Let we who know and love Haiti make a promise that we won’t forget.