So Much for Togetherness

Axel left last Friday for Haiti. He's there documenting the good work being done by Doctors Without Borders. So far, it sounds like it isn't too bad, if you disregard all the dead, dying and injured. The weather is balmy, the people are nice. I've been very nervous about him being there. This morning there was a 6.1 earthquake, and I texted him as soon as I heard to make sure he's alright. Slept through it, so that's not too bad. I just got this funny little email from him about what it's like in Haiti for the DWB organization:

well - the entire thing is pretty much a black comedy out of the chronicles of disorganization...

we were embedded with the Swiss Doctors without Borders - the deal was that we get food, shelter and logistics
and they get the footage for their own use.
Except the Swizzies dumped us with the Dutchies - which we did not even know until we realized that
there are actually an abundance of borders within the doctors without borders: the dutch somewhat get along with the belgians - but they do not
like the swiss and everybody hates the french.

except: all the individual people from those charters are pretty much from all over the world - so Carlos, a Colombian surgeon who lives in the Bronx
is refused a ride with the Belgians because he is considered Swiss. And we are like the unwanted relatives ;-)
So we crashed on the lawn with the Dutchies until they kicked us out - not because we were an inconvenience (we are not there all day
and at night we sleep on the lawn) but because we are swiss :-)

now we are with the swiss, but they did not mention that they do not have a real house so we are in tents with them - and make us rather unwelcome.
As we are IDP's now (internally displaced people) we also plunder as much as we can. We stole a bunch of cookies from the Dutch and Bananas and water
from the swiss :-)

the swiss just realized that Haiti is not on 240 Volts, so all of their equipment is not working (I just looked it up un the internet before I left). The Japanese came with a super
fancy inflatable hospital but distrust everybody and do not speak a word of french or english.

all in all it is rather interesting and i just had some delicious chicken with shallots :-)