Cover story

Thousands of Haitians stand in line for hours for food near a destroyed government building on the presidential palace grounds.

By Donna Boen '83 MTSC '96

Minutes before the Jan. 12 earthquake hit Haiti, U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merten '83 joined Gen. Ken Keen on the open porch of the ambassador's residence to enjoy the balmy, late-afternoon weather.

Merten's wife and two teenage daughters were upstairs preparing for a reception for the general and his staff, visiting from U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Fla.

Once the house began shaking, Merten screamed for his wife and daughters while struggling to stay on his feet. His voice joined thousands of others as the 7.0 quake destroyed lives. Unlike so many, though, Merten and his family were among the fortunate. They came through unscathed – physically, at least. They were also among the privileged since, as visitors, they could return home.

The same was true for Mallory Holding '09, volunteering in Port-au-Prince through the Episcopal Young Adults Service Corps. In the weeks following, Merten, Holding, and Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer '87, in Haiti within hours of the disaster, shared their stories and perspectives.


The Ambassador

With 22 years in the Foreign Service and on his third tour in Haiti, Merten has dealt with many crises, but nothing to this extent. He immediately tried to call the U.S. State Department on his cell phone. When that failed, he ran back into the house and upstairs to grab his two-way radio. Stuck at the residence with no way to get to the U.S. Embassy, Merten, usually unflappable, felt increasingly frustrated. He spent the night helping to look after the 30 or so people at the residence, including some of the injured from the nearby Hotel Montana.

He made it to his office the next day. The wreckage was unimaginable and utterly disorienting.

"It's as if all of Sept. 11 happened in Washington. The equivalent of the White House, the equivalent of the Capitol, the equivalent of the Supreme Court, the treasury buildings, the cathedral – they're all gone. None of these landmarks are left."

Once at the embassy, he and his staff decided all American children and those American adults not critical to the relief mission should return to the U.S.

"We didn't know what people's houses were like. We didn't know what the security situation was going to be like. There were a lot of unknowns, and we thought it was best to get as many people out of the country as possible.

"Between 40 to 50 percent of the people here at the embassy either lost their houses and all their belongings in them or had houses that were very badly damaged. And yet many of them were here every day, sometimes working 20 hours a day, helping to evacuate American citizens. It's pretty amazing when people are that dedicated and are able to focus despite very difficult situations themselves."

A month later Merten remained amazed – this time at the Haitian people's resilience and dignity. The feared riots had not materialized and their patience had not diminished.

"Things are definitely better," he said. "The people are beginning to go about their lives, certainly during the day. In the outdoor markets, people are selling on the street again. They're selling rice, they're selling beans, vegetables, fruits, meat. The stores are opening one by one."

Yet, he reported, people with undamaged houses were still not sleeping in them for fear of another quake. He calls life in Haiti these days "surrealistic."

Still, he stays, representing the United States to the Haitian government. Despite all he has seen, the St. Louis native who moved to Hudson, Ohio, at age 12 can't imagine another career. This was always what the diplomacy and foreign affairs major was meant to do.

"President Obama called me the day after the earthquake, and he said, ‘We're going to mount an aggressive relief operation,' which we have done in concert with a lot of other countries and members of the international community. I will be here working with the Haitian government during the period of reconstruction and as they make decisions about what their vision for their country is in the coming two, five, 10, 20 years. This is an important humanitarian event and we need to stick with it. I don't mean just through our governments but through our charities and other organizations. The needs here will continue."

The Reporter

Veteran reporter Bill Hemmer '87 has seen the worst of the worst, from wars to refugee camps, while covering news for CNN and now Fox. But nothing compares to what he experienced in Haiti when he and his crew landed at the airport the morning after the quake.

"A lot was made of the bodies ... the human bodies. Yes, it was horrific. But it isn't so much the dead that haunt you. It's the living and the fact that a week after such a tragedy there were still people walking the streets looking for a doctor to set their bone or for someone to stitch an enormous gash and to do it without anesthesia or proper medical tools. This is Civil War medicine. I think, in general, I have thick skin, and I'm able to shut out a certain portion in order for me to do my job. However, on this story, it was as haunting an experience as I have likely ever had. At nighttime when you close your eyes and all those images come running back through your brain, you throw your eyes open again as if not to go there ... don't go to that dark place."

Another, brighter image the Cincinnati native won't forget is the smiling throughout the suffering. He sees the Haitians as strong, resilient, extraordinary. And hopeful.

This amid a country thrown back in time a hundred years in 30 seconds. With roads blocked and communications destroyed that first week, the sole form of communication was face to face, making this the most inaccessible story Hemmer, a mass communication major, has ever covered. His first challenge was getting into the country.

"As you know, there is just one air strip and that was a point of contention. So many people wanted to help from so many corners of the world ... different countries, organizations, governments, and the military. But there was only so much space to put planes down. What the U.S. military did, especially the Air Force, was most impressive. The way they got in. The way they took control. These guys have been in war for nine years. When they step off the plane, they make everyone else look like the minor leagues."

Three weeks after the quake, Hemmer and his crew, back in New York, were already discussing when they might return.

"A lot of what we want to know is what the U.S. contribution will be and whether or not the military will continue to have a lasting role there."

The Volunteer

"It's not just about the buildings or the people that have been injured. People's lives have been put on pause. My students don't know when they will be able to go back to school again and when they will accomplish their dreams."

Now back home in Chicago, Mallory Holding '09 had planned to be in Haiti through the end of summer teaching English to seminarians and volunteering on development projects for the Episcopal Seminary and the Diocese of Haiti.

Holding, who graduated in May with a double major in international studies and political science, was disappointed when she was placed in Haiti last September. She'd wanted to return to Uganda, where she'd studied development during the fall semester of her senior year. It took only a few weeks to realize Haiti was a good place for her.

Haitians rush to get in Catholic Relief Services' food distribution line.   Kim Hairston '80, a Western College Program graduate, has been a photographer at The Baltimore Sun for 21 years. She took this Miamian's front cover photo as well as the photo on this page and on Page 6 when she and Sun reporter Robert Little traveled to Haiti aboard the Baltimore-based Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort. To see more of her Haiti pictures, click here.

A 23-year-old from the Midwest is unlikely to have experience with earthquakes, so when Holding's apartment building started shaking, she didn't realize what was happening. She hid under her desk, her lesson plans for the next day sitting on top unfinished. As soon as her apartment settled, she left to find her students. Although covered in white dust from the collapsing buildings, all 17 of them were safe.

She spent the night in a nearby soccer field, sharing a jug of water, a loaf of bread, and her limited first-aid supplies and skills.

"As close as I was to my students, and even though I had gone through this experience with them, it's still different because it's not your country, and you don't have to worry about what's happened to your own family. In some ways it felt like I was intruding on a private moment for the country. It's difficult to know what to do and how best to comfort people who don't have answers as to whether their parents are still alive."

Her feelings about returning to the States are mixed. She believes she would have been a burden if she had stayed because she doesn't have the training they now need or what she calls "the right connections to resources." Still, it was painful leaving her friends and knowing they did not have the same option.

Maybe the only thing she is sure of is her desire, stronger now than ever, to help people in poverty.

"I am still with the organization that sent me to Haiti, so I am working with them to see if there is a way I can go back. I don't want to be in a situation where I am taking food and water out of other people's mouths. But, I would go back as soon as I got the chance."

Editor's note: Retired faculty member Kay Walla MEd '65 EdD '77 and eight others with Family Health Ministries landed in Haiti the day before the quake to work on a local school and orphanage. In "One more thing", she tells of surviving the aftermath in "Aching for all Haitians."

Donna Boen '83 MTSC '96 is the editor of Miamian.