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Mercy & Sharing UPDATE February 21, 2010 Has Haiti been forgotten just five weeks after an estimated 230,000 people were killed, millions left homeless, the country and infrastructure in ruins? The need for medical facilities in Port-au-Prince remains critical. Food is scarce. Other relief organizations have had supplies diverted or stolen because of inadequate protection. The Government itself has estimated that it will take 1,000 trucks at least 1,000 days to clear all the debris. Fortunately, Mercy & Sharing continues to make incredible progress. Just yesterday we received the Government of Haiti customs approval to release the six containers of approximately 120 tons of relief supplies that have been in the port at Saint Marc for over a week. In quintessential fashion, after going to the Customs office numerous occasions only to be told that we were required to place a “deposit” (read bribe) of close to $40,000.00 to get the containers released, yesterday the same government official who was requiring the deposit agreed to release the containers without the deposit! We celebrate being able to get these relief supplies to the site at Williamson, where we will be working with other organizations who have on the ground distribution facilities to distribute these relief supplies to so many who remain in harm’s way. Thank you to all our generous supporters! We are undergoing a major reorganization of operations, working on interviewing and hiring new staff, organizing medical volunteers, updating the training of our current staff and we have joined various cluster groups organized by USAID so we are better able to coordinate with the work of other NGOs in Haiti. We are working on determining how many more orphans we may be able to take it Williamson, depending on what our budget will allow. We have obtained cost estimates for rebuilding our facilities once the government allows rebuilding to proceed. We just received incredible news about Falee who is the precious little girl that was the subject of the update sent last week. As you know she was taken aboard to USNS Comfort - The US Navy vessel that is moored in the harbor outside of Port-au-Prince. While we speculated that she actually had an eye that was pushed back into the socket, after a two hour operation today by an Italian doctor aboard the USNS Comfort they completed the operation in she has sight in both eyes and will have a complete recovery!!! Thank you to our friends at World of Children and everyone else who helped make this happen! We have resumed feeding programs at the Cite de Soliel school and at the Cazeau project. A beach landing and temporary dock facility has been opened at Lafiteau which is about 10 miles from Williamson, but the Government of Haiti in its infinite wisdom requires all the supplies arriving there to be trucked into Port-au-Prince to clear customs and then trucked back out, which obviously exposes the shipments to looting. There have been a number of supply trucks of other organizations which have been stuck in traffic, and once the locals realize they are stuck in traffic, they loot the supplies. We have had to hire armed guards to protect our supplies. Adoptions have been completely shut down by the Government of Haiti. We find it extremely ironic that foreigners were charged with child abduction when we know and have known for many years that the Government of Haiti has beencomplicit in trafficking in children for years. Thank you for all your support, but the work is just beginning. Joe and Susie Krabacher |