Paris, USA - Haiti First Responder Report

Having just returned from Haiti, I would like thank you for all the kind words and messages I have received. I am very grateful for them and for your support and friendship.

My adventure in Haiti was an arduous one but very interesting and worthwhile. I went as a first responder and Scientology Volunteer Minister, along with about 100 other VMs and approx 160 medical personnel on aircraft (737’s) chartered by the IAS (International Association of Scientologists).

Later there were also a couple of small charters out of Miami and of course, John Travolta (along with wife, Kelly Preston) flew his 707 down there with about 20 medical people, some VMs and about 6 tons of supplies and medicine. Additionally, many other Scientologists made their own way to Port au Prince, from faraway places, like Thailand, Scotland, France, Western USA, etc.

One girl spent about ten days getting there from LA, spending time in Miami trying to catch a flight and finally flying to Santo Domingo and taking the difficult overland route to Port au Prince from the Dominican Republic.

I drove my car to Miami with three other VMs. There I picked up the communications gear that I was to install upon arrival. Originally, there was to be a technical guy coming along to set it up, but he never arrived. We spent a few hours at the home of the VMs Mercedes and Bo, who were a tremendous help and very kind to us. We unpacked and briefly tested our satellite phones and satellite data uplinks. Then we drove to the Miami airport and boarded a Vision Airlines charter to Port au Prince.

We arrived late at night on 21Jan10 and were met by some VMs and some trucks. After unloading the baggage and supplies by hand out of the plane’s cargo holds and we got trucked to our base, about half a mile away, along the main (and only) runway of the airport. We pitched tents in the dark, crawled into our sleeping bags and went to sleep. The doctors and nurses we had brought with us were taken to some houses in the city that had been donated by a local Scientologist. A small team of VMs was based at this place - soon to be called “the compound” - to care for them while they were in-country. Our base consisted of a big yellow VM tent that served as our headquarters, kitchen, communication center and supplies storage. Behind it, stretching toward the runway, we had a series of six-man tents for our housing. In the early days, military cargo jets (C17s, etc.) were landing and taking off every few minutes, day and night. The noise level was almost painful and made communication impossible when they passed us.

Sylvain from Thailand: Haiti - Another Tour of Duty

After a few years as a Scientology Volunteer Minister (VM for short, a.k.a. "yellow shirt"), your name moves to the top of the address book. Next to it, it probably says something like "Call if all hell breaks loose". Wouldn't be so bad, except that hell is such a fragile place, these days, and with Haiti's earthquake, phones were ringing off the hook.

At least, that's how I imagine things. As I was packing my bags, I couldn't help but think how things had changed since my first VM operation. First the Tsunami in Thailand and in Banda Aceh, then Yogyakarta's earthquake and more recently the cyclone in Myanmar: I went from wide-eyed "newbie" to regular Scientology Volunteer Minister. I had seen blood, corpses, pain and despair, and it changed me, but more than anything, knowing that I could do something about it changed me. When you know that, you can't just say "That's sad" and flip to the next TV channel.

After the fact, a lot of people ask "What was it like, in Haiti?" so on my way back, I wrote this short (ok, not so short) report to describe my experience in Haiti. It’s written from my point of view only. Readers beware. ;-)

Flying from Thailand to Haiti took me a couple days. First to Los Angeles, and then boarding a charter plane with the rest of the Scientology team to land in Port au Prince in the middle of the night. Coming off straight on the tarmac and unloading your own plane is an interesting experience. No passport control, no metal detectors... and no baggage service. You jump down the ramp and go grab the supplies. Several tons of food and medical equipment and whatnot crammed in the cargo hold which you have to unload by hand, box by box, bag by bag.