Haiti’s earthquake sounded like thunder as buildings tumbled to the ground in the town of Grand Goâve, says an earthquake survivor.
Marc Honorat, who runs Haiti ARISE Ministries technical school in Grand Goâve, and who will speak in Central Alberta this weekend, said the earthquake experience is still hard to put into words.
“It was really terrible, loud and frightening,” said Honorat who was in the school yard on the afternoon of Jan. 12 when the earthquake hit about 20 km away near Port-au-Prince.
“It threw me up in the air. I saw the trees going like crazy, and the houses,” Honorat said from Calgary where he is visiting his wife Lisa Honorat and their children.
A group of 26 adults and teens from Nelson, B.C., had just arrived to volunteer at the school in the community of about 30,000. Some volunteers were showering when the earthquake struck and one member was injured when a mirror fell down.
No one else was injured at the school that offers classes in carpentry, animal husbandry, computers, theological studies, English and more to about 350 students.
With mass destruction of homes and buildings, and several aftershocks, people had nowhere to seek shelter.
“Nobody would go inside any buildings. All the injured were in the fields, suffering, with no medical help.”
Honorat recalled how a family asked him to pray for their young boy, about three, who was struck down by falling debris. The boy’s left leg was “totally flattened.”
“With no medical attention, the baby didn’t make it.”
That night three more people died in the camp where Honorat and others tried to tend to the wounded.
“I felt useless and hopeless.”
Honorat, who founded Haiti ARISE Ministries seven years ago with his wife Lisa, will speak about disaster relief efforts in Haiti in Lacombe at College Heights Church at 6915 Maple Drive at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, and at 9 and 11 a.m. on Sunday at CrossRoads Church, 32nd Street and Hwy 2.
Lacombe humanitarian organization A Better World and CrossRoads Church are looking to partner with Haiti ARISE to assist survivors in Haiti.
Honorat, who grew up in Haiti, left there on Sunday with the volunteers from Nelson. His wife is due to give birth to their third child in Calgary in the next few days.
He intends to return as soon as possible to help develop proper shelters for Haitians before the rainy season begins in late February.
Honorat wants to focus on reconstruction.
“We’re not just going to rebuild the technical school. We want to rebuild the houses and rebuild other schools in town.”
He’s not sure how much it will cost, only that it will require “a bunch of money.”
“We had one of the best computer labs in the country and now it’s totally destroyed.
“We have to start over.”
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com
