By Melanie Brooks, CARE International Media Officer in Haiti

Friday, February 12, 2010

While professional rescue teams used heavy equipment to pull people from the rubble, Jacques Wylens' father, Jacques Wilkens, used a sledgehammer and his bare hands in a desperate effort to free his son from the coffin of what was once their home. Next to where two-year-old Jacques lie trapped and crying under the rubble were his dead grandparents.

"I could hear him crying – you have no idea the agony, to see your house collapse with your son inside, and then hear him crying, 'Papa, papa,' said Jacques' father.

Today, the ruins of their home – three concrete slabs sandwiched one on top of the other, what used to be the floors – sits as a solemn reminder of everything they have lost in the earthquake January 12. Jacques and his parents live with five other people in a shack made of salvaged bits of wood and tin. Holes in the ceiling cast pinpricks of dusty beams of light onto the dirty mattresses below. It has rained twice since the quake, sending steady streams of water onto Jacques and his family.

There are 1.2 million others like them, squatting outside their ruined homes, packed into squalid camps on patches of open space in the city center, camped out in the middle of streets hastily blocked off with bits of rubble. A 'shelter' often consists of a faded floral bed sheet strung between poles – hardly enough to block out the fierce Caribbean sun, and useless against the coming rainy season in March.

Today, CARE distributed another 200 shelter kits in Jacques' village of Mellier, in Léogâne. Each shelter kit contains a heavy plastic sheet, poles, rope, a water container, blankets, a kitchen kit with bowls, plates, pots and pans and a hygiene kit with the basics such as shampoo, toothpaste, towels and sanitary napkins – minimum household needs for people who have lost everything.

"Before this, we didn't have money to buy anything. Everything you see here, we pulled from the rubble," said Jacques' father, casting his arm across a small pile of dented metal bowls and dust-covered blankets. "Everything else is trapped in the house. At least with this, we have things to use to cook with, to wash. We can stay dry."

They plan to use the tarp to make the shelter waterproof, so they can survive the rainy season that looms in March. Already, they have pushed bits of rubble, chunks of cement and sand against their shelter to create a kind of dam against the rains, and nearby, people are digging ditches along the roads.

"We need the ditches to funnel the water," said Beliotte Louissaint, a member of the community council who is helping CARE organize distributions of aid in his village. "Before, if it rained and there was water flooding in the streets, it didn't matter. We could just go inside our homes. Now, our homes are in the street."

Between 80-90 percent of the houses in Léogâne, near the epicentre of the quake, were completely destroyed.

"The coming month will be all about the rain. We need to get these people waterproof shelter," said Lizzie Babister, senior shelter advisor for CARE in Haiti. "It's going to be a real push to get this done in time for the rainy season."

CARE is providing 10,000 families with tents or shelter kits, enough for 50,000 people, and will be working with the people of Haiti in the long-term to help them rebuild. So far, aid groups have reached 272,000 with some kind of shelter, but much more needs to be done. And emergency shelter is just the first hurdle; with tens of thousands of homes and buildings completely destroyed, the need for a clear reconstruction plan, along with the resources to implement it, is becoming an increasingly painful reality.

"My son is alive, but what now?" asked Jacques' mother, Jean Mondy. "The schools are destroyed. We have nothing. Our house was our future. The earthquake destroyed our future."

Two-and-a-half-year-old Jacques Wylens with his father, Jacques Wyles.

Two-and-a-half-year-old Jacques Wylens with his mother and father. Young Jacques was trapped for six hours in the rubble of his house before his parents dug him out. His grandparents died in the house when the earthquake hit. CARE provided Jacques' family with a shelter kit. Between 80-90 percent of houses in Leogane were destroyed. Each shelter kit includes plastic sheeting, poles, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, water container, and blankets.

CARE distributes 200 shelter kits to vulnerable families in Mellier, Leogane, the hardes-hit area after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Between 80-90 percent of houses in Leogane were destroyed. Each shelter kit includes plastic sheeting, poles, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, water container, and blankets.

(Photos: 2010 Melanie Brooks/CARE)

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