Haitians

Marylanders continue to mobilize to join the massive relief effort heading toward Haiti and try to establish contact with colleagues and loved ones in the earthquake-stricken country. Douglas Bright, IMA World Health Vice President, said Thursday that he still had no word from the Carroll County-based relief agency's senior staff members who were in Port au Prince this week, nor have they heard from the five Haitians who worked at IMA's offices in the capital. Three senior staffers, including two Marylanders, had just concluded a meeting at the landmark Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince when it was destroyed.

Orioles outfielder Felix Pie said he immediately felt a deep sadness when he heard about Tuesday's catastrophic earthquake that rocked Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. His emotions quickly turned to worry for his extended family, many of whom live in the Caribbean nation that is considered the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. "It's very sad, and you start, like, worrying. I know my mom has family in Haiti and my pop, too," Pie said. "But my mom called me and told me not to worry, that my family over there is OK. And my pop called me to tell me the same thing."

Four weeks ago, Osly St. Preux arrived in Baltimore from his home in Haiti wearing summer clothes and too-tight shoes and with an ugly, gnarled, cancerous mass - one that ended up weighing 3 1/2 pounds - growing out of his right armpit. The 13-year-old was brought to the United States by Dr. Mojtaba Gashti, chief of vascular surgery at Union Memorial Hospital, who met the boy on a medical pilgrimage he takes to the impoverished nation each spring. Knowing he couldn't help him in Haiti, Gashti slogged through red tape, begged other doctors to volunteer their services and ultimately arranged for Osly and his mother to travel to Baltimore.

Osly St. Preux, the Haitian boy brought to Baltimore by a Union Memorial Hospital surgeon to have a large sarcoma removed, came through yesterday's operation well and was resting comfortably last night, hospital officials said. In a five-hour procedure, surgeons removed an enormous tumor protruding from Osly's right armpit. The size of the wound means Osly, 13, will need surgery today to create a skin flap to cover it. A football-shaped piece of skin will be cut from the back of one of his thighs.

C uddling a stuffed St. Bernard and pink teddy bear in her hospital room, Melissa Cortesi doesn't cry, despite the metal braces, pins and needles that pierce her swollen right leg. Nurses give her valium to help the 5-year old Haitian girl sleep and forget the pain from surgery Monday at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. There, for 11 hours, a team of orthopedic surgeons operated to fix her club foot and straighten her right leg. They hope it will alter a life she has spent crawling on the ground instead of walking.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Christelle-Melenchy Fortius' first chance at a reasonably normal life ended badly, with the surgery on her mouth aborted before it began and a Haitian doctor apologizing that the anesthesia didn't work. Her father, Dieumaitre Fortius, said he tried to earn money to pay for another doctor but never got far, and some days he couldn't even afford food. Last month, Christelle's second chance came unexpectedly, from the United States. The USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, appeared one morning in Port-au-Prince harbor, and three days later 4-year-old Christelle was asleep on an operating table inside, with an oral surgeon and a plastic surgeon taking turns making the tiny cuts and stitches to repair her double cleft lip. "That ship was like a benediction for me," Fortius said.

When Young-chan Han was approached a few months ago by school system administrators who were concerned about the lack of communication between schools and Haitian families, she faced a unique challenge. There was no data that could accurately track the number of Haitian students, so Han, a specialist with the International Student and Family Outreach Office, went to Haitian churches and worked with French and Haitian Creole interpreters. She came up with a program for families that will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. today at Faulkner Ridge Center in Columbia.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haiti's troubled elections were dealt another setback yesterday with the discovery of dozens of ballot boxes and polling materials scattered across a landfill just outside the capital. The discovery seemed to support allegations by front-runner Rene Preval that fraud and "gross errors" undermined the Feb. 7 presidential election, though it was impossible to tell how many votes for Preval ended up in the garbage. "Just look at this - this is what the rich of this country think of our votes," said Renel Duqueres, a landfill worker who said he began noticing the ballot boxes being dumped last week.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haiti's presidential election crisis was shaping into a battle between protesters and polls yesterday. Front-runner Rene Preval announced "gross errors and probably gigantic fraud" in last week's voting and warned that his impoverished followers would keep demonstrating against the results. "If they publish these results as they are, we will contest them," Preval said during a news conference here, a day after tens of thousands of his supporters paralyzed the country with flaming roadblocks and stormed a hotel to demand the interim government declare him the winner.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Across Haiti yesterday, trucks, helicopters and pack mules fanned out to pick up ballot boxes and record voting results that in many cases were still being tabulated in ramshackle classrooms and rural churches as nervous presidential candidates worried about fraud and mismanagement. While several international election observers said they found no signs of fraud, many agreed that poor planning and a lack of resources marred the elections. With only half the number of polling places used in previous elections, many centers were overwhelmed by a massive turnout of Haiti's 3.5 million registered voters.