Local volunteer reported safe after Haiti disaster

Shortly after the massive earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday evening, Gary Freebury of West Valley got a call from his neighbor. He spent the next hour watching the news and worrying about his 71-year-old wife Pat.

“I got an e-mail from her around 6 (p.m.) that said “I’m OK,” he said. “They got shook up pretty good.”

Pat, who retired from the library at Flathead High School, left Jan. 6 to work with an orphanage in Pignon, a desperately poor area 50 miles north of Port-au-Prince, the area most severely damaged.

She had planned to leave Jan. 20 from the Port-au-Prince airport but now has no idea when or how she may return home. News reports say the air-traffic control tower and landing lights were damaged but the runways remain mostly intact, so service may be restored on a limited basis soon.

Gary said the children at the orphanage are fine and the recently constructed buildings also survived. He said questions remain about how the orphanage will receive food and other supplies that come through the Port-au-Prince airport.

“They get fresh food weekly,” he said. “They’ve got water.”

GARY SAID that Pat isn’t looking to jump on the first evacuation flight available.

“If she knows she’s needed, she’ll stay there.” he said. “She said she’ll just have to figure out how to survive on her own.”

To leave, she would have to take a small plane out from Pignon and then take a jet out from a major airport to get home. There are no roads connecting this very rural town in Haiti to the outside world.

Gary said the orphanage starts up a gas generator to sporadically provide electricity for using computers and appliances. If and when the gas runs out, the e-mails will also stop.

“When she gets back, she will really have some stories to tell,” Gary said.

He’s gotten just a few details so far.

When the shaking began, Pat was down the road at the river where people wash their clothes. Gary said she rushed back to the orphanage to find the children were outside the building and not hurt.

“It’s been an adventure,” he said.

THIS TRIP was Pat’s second arranged through the Epworth United Methodist Church to help the facility, which is operated by Haiti Mercy Mission, a nondenominational Christian nonprofit group.

She went for about a week in November 2008 with two other local women. Pat was the only person from the Flathead to go this year as one of a group of about six volunteers from various churches around the country.

Gary said that benefactors financially sponsor the children for just $20 a month. More sponsors are needed, according to the Website haitimercymission.com.

Some of the children have lost their parents. Others came to the orphanage because their parents were too poor to take care of them.

“We sponsor a couple, and my son sponsors one,” Gary said. By going to Haiti personally, Pat has been able “to see those kids — it’s really special.”

One of the children they sponsored has just finished high school and had planned to attend nursing school in Port-au-Prince. The other children are still youngsters.

He said the volunteers throw parties and do special projects with the children such as teaching them sewing and woodworking. Gary said they speak a special dialect of Creole but that his wife has no problem connecting with them, particularly through music and dancing.

“They love music,” he said. “Every morning they come in and sing” to the volunteers.

Living conditions in Haiti are poor beyond description, according to Gary. He said that his wife feels guilty when she comes back and realizes how much we have and how well we live.

“And yet, they are very happy people,” he said.

Volunteers at the orphanage live like the local people. It’s difficult without hot water and other conveniences. As an example, the Website lists new outhouses as among pressing needs for the school and orphanage.

Gary said that his wife describes her introduction to the poverty in Haiti as an eye-opening experience. Yet, even at 71, the living conditions have not stopped her from returning to help at the orphanage.

He said the earthquake won’t stop her either.

“She’s pretty tough — she takes it in stride,” he said. “She just loves those kids.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com