My Story

At 5.30am I awoke to 20-30 e-mails, texts and BB (blackberry) messages. I had not heard them buzzing through the night.

My sister, who lives in Montreal was quick to start making contact with our large family in Haiti and overseas.(My father is one of 6 and his father has many siblings too -last count our family tree was over 150). Of the 17 immediate family, we were able to account for 15.

As second hand news and occasional FB (face book) connections allowed us we were able to start understanding the extent of devestation. Having lived in Sri Lanka and experienced the tsunami, I was ready for the worst.

It took my aunt 8 hours to walk back home. The roads were blocked with bodies, rubble, personal belongings or some had slipped away into the ravines. Haiti is mountainous and Port-au-Prince is no exception. Unregulated building and houses being built in ravines and valleys means that with the slightest rain, buildings slide down the hill. An earthquake as large as 7.0 and then after shocks as large as 5.0 .. .. you can only imagine !(see image above).

Many of our home are located just below Hotel Montana and we understand, most of the 5 homes are badly (if not totally) damaged.

The came the conflicting words about my unlce / Godfather. Was he buried alive ? Did he make it out of the house? Those were the long long hours. The silence. The phones going dead. The fb messages slowing as batteries died... Eventually it was confirmed that though Gerlad Haig had successfuly fought off cancer, he was an Earthquake victim.

Most of my family is not back in there homes, and many have not even been able to get back home to see how it is.

I am yet to get through to Haiti on the phone. At the best of times, it is near impossible to connect to Haiti by phone.

We are lucky. We know hundreds of people who are still looking for their loved ones.