Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Ti Riviere and the Quake

Amid the chaos in Haiti, there is good and bad news from our twin parish in Ti Riviere.  The following is from an email from Father Rebecca received about a week ago:  In the town of Ti Riviere 7 houses were completely flattened.  In the overall parish, there was one death, and two of the "mountain" chapels and one mountain school destroyed ( the Cholette and Sillegue areas for those of you that have been there).  In the mountain areas there are over 800 home damaged and about 50 that were destroyed.

The good news is that the main Church and Rectory, and the new hospital are all o.k.  The school and staff house built by the good people at OLMC are fine as well!  Praise God!

Our Haitian builder/engineer/friend Abdou Fall visited Ti Riviere last week and sent the following pictures of some of these buildings.  The people had noticed some cracks in plaster and some of the block-work, and were apparently sleeping outdoors for fear of the buildings falling.  Abdou has assured us that the cracks are normal settling and probably not as a result of the earthquake, and in any case are not structural, or cause for concern.  We are thankful to have formed a successful partnership with Abdou, and for passing the earthquake test with these buildings!

The first picture is of the completed Staff House for the Visitation Hospital (pre-quake photo), and then the other pictures were taken last week after the quake, of the Hospital, Staff House, School, and Church/Rectory: