Just inside the gated entrance to Eglise Wesleyenne, a one-room church tucked well back from the dusty Rue La Comédie, a new sign appeared recently on a carefully cut scrap of corrugated cardboard.
Etched on it in thick green marker are two words: Shelter Box.
Implied are two more: Thank you.
For more than a month after the massive earthquake, the 300 or so residents of an encampment that sprang up in the quiet churchyard were living in a makeshift communal tent with tree branches for a frame, sleeping on salvaged mattresses placed on the bare ground. With nothing stronger than bedsheets for walls, the mattresses quickly grew sodden on rainy nights.
And so the arrival one morning of tents from the international relief agency Shelter Box – widely considered by locals to be a step up in quality from the lightweight Colemans that dot Jacmel’s streets – was a cause for gratitude.
While the tents were being portioned out – one for every three families – the camp organizing committee went to work on the sign. Although it doesn’t look like much, its position on a window ledge high above a white board listing all of the other aid groups at work in Jacmel is a statement about the value of shelter.
Since Jan. 12, nobody in the camp at Eglise Wesleyenne has had a home to call their own.
“When the earthquake happened, the neighbourhood asked me for this place,” explained Robert Noel, the pastor at Eglise Wesleyenne, who oversees several churches in Haiti’s southeast.
Because they were a small, orderly community, he allowed them to occupy the churchyard. Throughout the third week of January, about 500 people moved in.
Among them was Midi Jackson, a 30-year-old father of six who, before his house collapsed, supported his family by working at the law courts and as an assistant to a notary. The courts were damaged in the quake. He has since made the transition to permanent camper, trading his polished black loafers – which he still wears on Sundays and for meetings with city officials – for the sandals and T-shirts he wears to push wheelbarrow loads of rubble into the low spots of the campsite where rainwater collects.
The churchyard isn’t ideal, but he and his family prefer it to the larger camps in Jacmel, which together hold about 15,000 people and get more attention from aid organizations, but have a host of problems related to overcrowding.
“In order to live anywhere else, you have to have means and a place to relocate to,” Mr. Jackson said. “Even if I had somewhere else to go, I don’t have anything.”
Like so many others, the Jackson family’s belongings were buried when the earthquake brought down their home, a few streets away from the camp.
“The reason we stay so close to the destroyed houses is because our belongings are under the debris,” Mr. Jackson explained, adding that he makes regular visits to the site of his house. “If we leave, thieves will come.”
When Mr. Jackson isn’t at his house, he spends most of his waking hours – and some when he should be sleeping – working as an all-purpose community organizer for the camp.
Because the camp is an unofficial site, residents have had to figure out for themselves how to arrange for supplies of food and water, as well as other necessities, such as medical care and a large tent to use as a school. Some of the men spend their days lounging in the shade drinking beer and playing dominoes. But others, such as Mr. Jackson, seem always to have a shovel in hand or an appointment to go to.
“We are tired almost every day because we’re working hard and fast to put the people in a better condition,” Mr. Jackson said.
The quickest way of doing that, he said, was to set up a series of committees to manage the various functions of the camp, including cooking, security, education and the procurement of food and medical services.
While the camp has made some progress – such as acquiring the Shelter Box tents – it is a place of little joy. Children blow up condoms for balloons and use crumpled plastic bottles and other garbage for toys.
“Although from time to time we get a little aid, there is no vision of seeing if tomorrow will be a better day,” Mr. Jackson said. “I’m living for the moment right now.”
