Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Of all the dangers facing U.S. forces in Haiti, perhaps none is more feared than the tarantula spider. Except perhaps the poisonous centipede. Or the banana spider, a nasty little critter with a yellow body and a painful bite. Not to mention the millions of mosquitoes and fleas, which can make life impossibly irritating."I've seen tarantulas as big as footballs when they're spread out," said Master Sgt. Timothy McMahon, 37, a veteran of 18 years' service with the Air Force.

Two years ago, an enormous earthquake devastated Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding areas. While the cameras are gone, Haiti's recovery continues. Having recently visited Port-au-Prince, we can report that much has been accomplished - though the most important successes are not so obvious. As images of death and destruction dominated the post-disaster news coverage, compassionate Americans donated hundreds of millions of dollars to humanitarian organizations like ours, Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services.

T he world has responded with tremendous generosity to the destruction in Haiti after last week's earthquake, but the breakdown of security and order there threatens to multiply the already terrible death toll if the food, water and medicine pouring into the country can't be distributed properly. Relief officials now estimate that the death toll could rise as high as 200,000, with hundreds of thousands more left seriously injured or homeless. With people desperate for food, water and shelter, looting has broken out in the country's shattered capital, Port-au-Prince, and thousands of residents are trying to flee the destruction for outlying areas, some of which are in even worse shape.

Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen and Bryan Voltaggio of Volt are lending their support to a Wednesday night benefit for Up From Under, a project for building homes in Haiti. The Up From Under benefit dinner and silent action, which is being held at Washington, D.C.'s Long View Gallery on Wednesday, will help raise awareness and funding to build homes for the homeless and those devastated by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The Volt staff is preparing is preparing food for the benefit, alongside Gjerde, R.J. Copper of Rogue 24, Matt Hill of Charlie Palmer Steakhouse and Mike Isabella of Graffiato.

O n Jan. 12, 206 years after rattling the world by becoming the first (and only) black republic to win its independence by overthrowing a slave system, Haiti made history again. This time, the forces of nature dealt Haiti a cataclysmic blow, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, affecting at least 3 million people - a third of its population. As I turned on CNN and saw the devastation and the loss of human lives, the shock in the eyes of men, women and children, I thought about Haiti's history: the fall of slavery on its shores, the rise of a free nation and the innumerable barriers and challenges that seemed to accompany its unique, glorious legacy.

The simulated pregnant woman with a traumatic leg amputation didn't create any chaos, nor did the plastic patient who went into cardiac arrest on the way to surgery. The excitement arose only when the ship's first full-scale medical rehearsal was nearly finished, and the vessel's Master ordered an abandon-ship drill for everyone onboard &mdash fictional patients included. With their arrival within helicopter range of Haiti expected overnight, the crew of the Navy's Baltimore-based hospital ship began a series of exercises Tuesday, using dummies and a fake medical script, trying to locate holes in the assessment and treatment plan they've put together during the last three days at sea. They found some holes but say they're ready to begin treating earthquake victims, who arrived on the ship Tuesday night.

As I watch the horror unfold in Haiti, I find solace in the immeasurable generosity of so many countries and individuals. The United States was foremost in its efforts to aid this stricken country. On the heels of the U.S., Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, immediately sent enough people and supplies to set up a 100-bed field hospital. Many other countries and individuals have followed suit. Although constantly belittled by the religious right and ultra conservatives as not being real Americans, many celebrities are setting up telethons and raising millions of dollars.

A Baltimore County church's effort to assist one of its own ended up benefiting the victims of the Haiti earthquake, thanks to the generosity of a congregation and a contractor. The story began early last month, when a member of the White Marsh Baptist Church visited a fellow member to drop off some reading materials. The elderly woman answered the door in a heavy coat and hat. She explained that she needed to dress in layers, since her furnace had stopped working three years earlier.

Of the many deeply moving images from the earthquake in Haiti that have flooded TV and computer screens in recent days, one of the most-discussed has been that of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, treating a 15-day-old infant for severe head cuts. The video has raised questions for some in the news media as to how Dr. Gupta handles his dual roles of reporter and medical doctor. But in an interview late Friday, Gupta says he is a doctor first when confronted with people in medical need.

T he horrific images of collapsed buildings and rows of decomposing bodies lying in the streets of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, have left no doubt as to the magnitude of the human catastrophe that occurred there. One of the worst natural disasters this hemisphere has seen in recent memory, the most powerful earthquake to strike Haiti in 200 years, has hit squarely in the nation least able to cope with it. Haiti has long been the poorest nation in the Americas, and years of dictatorship and corruption have made it especially vulnerable to such a calamity and unable to recover on its own. Within hours of Tuesday's quake, President Barack Obama pledged to assist in the massive international relief effort now under way. Owing to Haiti's proximity and the country's long historical ties to America, it's clear the U.S. must take the lead in search-and-rescue operations and in the reconstruction of Haiti's devastated infrastructure.

Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen and Bryan Voltaggio of Volt are lending their support to a benefit for Up From Under, a project for building homes in Hait The Up From Under benefit dinner and silent acution, which is being held at Washington, D.C.'s Long View Gallery on Wednesday, will help raise awareness and funding to build homes for the homeless and those devastated by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The Volt staff is preparing is preparing food for the benefit, alongside Gjerde, RJ Copper of Rogue 24, Matt Hill of Charie Palmer Steahouse and Mike Isabella of Graffiato.

Four-year-old Ila Yslande Ann Hubner waddled into the Frederick County Courthouse the other morning, arms flailing, legs kicking this way and that, babbling about the Cookie Monster. "Everything is 'Cookie Monster,' I don't know why," said Christie Hubner. A year ago, when Hubner and her husband, Dave, took custody of Ila, the child knew nothing about the Cookie Monster. She was an orphan in Port-au-Prince, Haiti — frightened, hungry and stranded in the rubble after last January's massive earthquake.

Fabienne Doucet is haunted by the stories of the women and children she has met who are still living in camps one year after an earthquake reduced the island nation of Haiti to rubble. There's the former accounting student who apologizes for crying as she describes being gang-raped by four men. There's the young girl who was beaten so brutally she can no longer have children. And there's the mother who was so grateful to receive clothing for her babies that she insisted on washing Doucet's feet.

The earthquake robbed Huguens Jean and Clifford Muse of the ability to fulfill a final promise to their grandfather. Fly to Haiti, he told the brothers as cancer ate away his health, and carry my coffin, garbed in white. The color meant something. The old man wanted them to find joy, even in the sadness that accompanies death. But the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed 230,000 and leveled Port-au-Prince made it impossible for Jean and Muse, both students at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, to return for their grandfather's funeral a month after the disaster.

Recent news coverage of the six-month anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake overlooked a terrible tragedy: the destruction of a nursing school filled with more than 100 students and teachers. The horrific event is significant not only because of the appalling loss of life but because it diminished Haiti's current and future nursing workforce — already severely understaffed — at a time when nursing skills are needed most. Haiti's loss underscored a larger problem plaguing countries worldwide.

Nicholas J. Carroll, a former civil rights specialist with the U.S. Department of Education whose life was defined by fighting for social justice, died July 30 of a heart attack at his Crofton home. He was 87. Mr. Carroll, whose father was a purveyor of altar wine and mother was a homemaker, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Overbrook, Pa. He attended Waldron Mercy Academy in Merion Station, Pa., and graduated in 1941 from St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia.

Six months ago, when the earthquake hit Haiti, approximately 2 million people were living in the metropolitan area of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. (The country's total population is almost 10 million.) The capital city was overcrowded. Haitians have always moved from the outlying departments to Port-au-Prince because it's the only place in the country with jobs and most basic services. The biggest employer in Haiti, the Haitian government, has most of its offices in Port-au-Prince.

Chris Milligan had less than two days to pack up and get himself to Port-au-Prince. "I bought some shirts, paid my bills and went," the Baltimore native says over the telephone from the Haitian capital. It was far from Milligan's first visit to a crisis zone — the U.S. Agency for International Development veteran has worked in Iraq, Zimbabwe and more than 50 other countries. Still, he says, he was struck by the devastation the January earthquake had wrought. "The scale of the destruction can't be overstated," says Milligan, 44. "It's overwhelming, even today."