Some survived the 7.0 quake of January 12

Remember Beverly Bell? On November 13 we profiled this visitor to Sonoma who’d gone to a church camp in Haiti at age 14 and responded to the abject poverty with a commitment to somehow become part of the solution.

She’s spent the rest of her life in Haiti and many other world destinations making a huge difference as she empowers folks to bring life-giving change to their communities. Many of Bev’s friends and co-workers perished in Haiti’s earthquake. And, of course, many did not. From Haiti, Bev sends some survivor stories of which I share just three:

Nico is eleven, as thin as a blade of grass. He is standing outside his new home, this one made of a blue tarp and sticks. One wall is completely open to his tens of thousands of neighbors who live in the same park beside the collapsed palace. His voice is so soft I have to lean against his ear to hear. He tells me his story in single lines, each in response to my next question. His story is this: “I was trapped in the house all day long, until nighttime. My house was in a three-story building and I was on the first floor. We all started running toward the garage. Some people got out but I didn’t. I couldn’t move because when the building collapsed, cement blocks fell on my legs. My godmother was in the room with me, and I called to her but she was dead. 

I kept calling out for help but no one heard me.  Finally that night, after 10:00, my father pulled some blocks up and found me there. He’s a coffin-maker and he got back from work. My mother helped him. They pulled me out.” 

Nico admitted he’d been scared and when asked what he was thinking about while he waited for help, he said, “I was lying there calling for someone and I thought I might die.  But I didn’t want to die, and I thought maybe God would save me.”

Bishop André Pierre recounted for Bev what happened to him. “I was on my way to a meeting…in the Port-au-Prince Cathedral.  I waved to a friend up on the gallery and started running up the stairs.  Someone stopped me to say, ‘Oh hey, I haven’t gotten to wish you happy new year yet.’ That greeting saved my life, because at that second everything went black.  I thought I was having a heart attack.  I shifted to the left, I shifted to the right, and then I went up in the air.  I said, ‘Oh no, it’s an earthquake.’

“Then the building fell on top of me.  I said, ‘André, move.’ I rolled and crawled.  I couldn’t see anything; it was black. It was like being under water except it was earth.  I ate so much dirt I can’t tell you. It took me about 45 minutes to get out.

“You couldn’t see my clothes, my face, anything – I was just one solid mass of earth.  Someone came by to wipe my face off and said, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

“There were wounded people everywhere. I shouted ‘Bring the wounded.’ I couldn’t open the front door of my car – the car was damaged – but I got in through the back. We loaded people up, a lot of them, to take to the hospital, but there was no more hospital. So I took them to my neighborhood and we created a clinic there.  I called my brother who’s a doctor, and he came over and treated people.”

Gerin Mathieu told Bev his story: “I felt the ground shake and I knew an earthquake was coming. I’d heard you were supposed to get under a solid structure, but the best I could do was jump into my baby’s cradle.  When the shock hit, it turned the cradle sideways and shot me out into the air. I landed and was about to run, and then I suddenly had the idea that if I ran, I could die.  I stopped and let the dust settle until I could see, and that’s when I saw that I wasn’t on the ground, I was on a roof. If I had run I would have fallen off and maybe died. I was standing there in just my boxers, holding my cell phone, which I had in my hand when the event happened.  I pulled two big shards of glass out of my feet, which I hadn’t even felt.

“That night I slept on the sidewalk on Delmas Street without a sheet or anything.  When it started to rain, everyone jumped up.  The man next to me didn’t get up, so I shook his shoulder, ‘Hey, come on. It’s going to rain.’ That’s when I realized he was dead.

You may want to follow up on Beverly Bell’s insightful blogs being published on various sites: Michael Moore, Yes! Magazine, Common Dreams, and other sites. For all of her blogs, go to her journal on Pulsewire.

To learn more about one of the important organizations Ms. Bell has founded and/or donate, contact: www.otherworldsarepossible.org.