Hello everyone,

We arrived in PAP and Bonite and Myrlande were waiting for me. We ‘toured’ PAP, saw the medical center that Myrlande’s team is building and saw a lot of the destruction. I cannot even begin to explain what it looks like. Buildings that collapsed still had rubble in the streets where you might see tents set up with cinder blocks in front of them so a car won’t run them over. And these tents are make-shift tents. Children bathing in the streets with filthy water. People living in broken down tents in what we would consider the medium of a busy road. Selling food, or living with garbage right in front of them.

After a while the heart cannot take much more but there is still so much more to see. On the way home we passed through Leogane, the epicenter, where almost every home in sight was destroyed. You would see craters on the street where the ground broke opened all the way home.

As you begin to approach Jacmel, about an hour out, you begin to drive on a mountain road where areas had debris all over it, the roads are extremely narrow, the drivers are crazy and children walk these roads. The cars whip around at 50 – 60 miles an hour with kids walking on the road. And the drop off, should you get off the road, guarantees death.

Today we went to a tent city in Jacmel and spent about 2 hours. We saw two mothers that had delivered on dirt floors the night before. We met a boy who lost both his mother and father in the quake. He told us he ran out but his parents were not lucky. he was a very sweet boy, around 9 years old. We saw an 8 month old who was found in a dumpster. The mother, 18, looked ill herself. The needs their are over whelming!! Where do you begin. The heart can get over whelmed but you know you have to start with one person at a time.

The tent city was said to house around 6 – 7 thousand people. The tents were gov’t tents, donated by Venezula. They have 8 FAMILIES, not people, FAMILIES to a tent. We walked into a few of them and they were around 110 degrees inside of them, no exaggeration. The families are separated by sheets. We went back there tonight to deliver goods .. we are so blessed in America!!!

Bonite and I were ’scoping’ it out for Myrlande’s medical team that arrives tomorrow. THey will set up in a school right next to the tent city on Thursday and Saturday and will set up here on Friday and possibly the rest of the days.

I cannot tell you how apparent our help is to everyone. The car that drives is around is a car donated from Jacmel. The container, which we hope to pick up its contents by Thursday!!!, will cloth so many. Bonite, as we walked the tent city, asked: do you have formula in that container – yes. At another time: do you have diapers – yes. Do you have baby clothing for summertime – yes. How about toiletries – yes.

I am so proud of my town and our surrounding neighbors. What you guys are doing, is a great thing. As I read the updates of the road race, the updates on Toscana, the flip flop drive, your love, your desire to help … believe me we are touching and affecting Jacmel in such a beautiful way. And tomorrow, 50 RR: Hope for Jacmel Haiti t-shirts will be distributed as I film the kids singing for us.

I am taking a lot of pictures. Our electricity was out all day. We are running on a small generator so I need to close soon b/c we will lose power soon.

I love you guys, really I do. What you are doing .. is a wonderful thing!! Bonite thanks you all day and night as she thanks God for each and everyone of you.

Isabel

30 March

First Selectman, Rudy Marconi, will be the Celebrity Bartender this Thursday night, April 1st at Toscana Ristorante from 6 – 9 pm. 10% of the tab and all the tips will go to Ridgefield Responds.  We’ll be selling t-shirts, holding raffles and playing Haitian music.  Toscana’s is located at 43 Danbury Road in Ridgefield, CT.  Tel 203.894.8995. www.toscanaridgefield.com.

We thank Rudy Marconi and Toscana for their support of Ridgefield Responds and for helping to feed the many desperate, hungry children of Jacmel.