Sarilia Sally Francois, right, raises her arms in prayer during the morning service at First Haitian Baptist Church March 21 in Gretna, La.
Story by Gabrielle Porter, Photos by Leah Millis
For more of Leah Millis' work, visit http://leahkmillis.wordpress.com/
Singing seeps through the white-washed walls of plain cinder-block building near the industrial sector on Louisiana’s West Bank, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
Entering the sanctuary, the deafening sound is disproportionate to the some 200 regular members of the First Haitian Baptist Church in Gretna, La. A small band in the corner is amplified to an extreme volume, and the people singing are not merely murmuring the words. With heads thrown back, some hands raised and eyes often shut tight, the congregation sways while belting the alternately French and Creole tunes with all its collective lung power.
The March 21 service is a special event for the church — the pastor, Rev. Joseph Blanchard, has just returned, along with three others, from a five-day relief trip back to Haiti. Blanchard and his small team delivered about $7,000 collected during previous weeks from church members and people from the community to Haitian churches and individuals recuperating from the recent earthquake in Port-au-Prince.
The Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti’s capital and the surrounding area has personally impacted every attendant of the church, church and community leaders said.
“All of us have somebody,” said Jean Wesner, a real estate agent and leader in the Haitian community in Louisiana. Wesner himself lost a cousin in the disaster.
The U.S. Geological Survey website states that the 7.0 magnitude quake killed an estimated 222,570 people, injured 300,000 others and left about 1.3 million displaced.
Yvenine Nerval, center, is mobbed by a crowd of children after the evening service at First Haitian Baptist Church March 21 in Gretna, La. The children hugged her goodbye after the congregation prayed for her, wishing her luck and safe journeys before her expected departure to culinary school in Florida.
Recalling the days after: trying to make contact
Jean-Renel Jeudy said he believes he was the probably first Haitian in New Orleans to hear the news about the earthquake when he turned on CNN around 5:45 the next morning. He immediately started calling friends to let them know what had happened.
“When I called them, they tried to contact Haiti automatically,” Jeudy said. “Everybody tried to call their parents.”
Phone lines were still down the next day but news agencies had a little more information — none of it comforting, Jeudy said.
“People begging for their lives under the bricks, and people lose other people, the people missing each other,” Jeudy recalled of what he saw on the news. “I called my sister, I called all our family here… My daughter tried to get on Facebook and so many other things to try and contact them.”
Between two and three weeks passed before Jeudy heard from family members in Haiti letting him know they were safe.
Impact on the church
Gerlanie Jean-Pierre, a Harvey, La., resident and native Haitian, described the scene at the church the Sunday following the quake as one of uncontrolled grief.
“Everybody was crying… We went to church, everybody was right there on the floor. Nobody was sitting in the chairs,” Jean-Pierre said. “Nobody was sitting in the benches. Everybody was down.”
People couldn't even bring themselves to pray, Jean-Pierre said
“Everybody was crying, even the pastor,” she said.
Private grief
Jean-Pierre and her husband lost seven family members between them. Jean-Pierre, who moved to the U.S. from Haiti almost 19 years ago, said her family was mostly in Carrefour, one of the worst affected areas of Port-au-Prince.
Jean-Pierre’s husband’s aunt lived nearby in Harvey, and had been on a month-long visit to family in Haiti. She died when the earthquake hit just five days before her return flight to the U.S. Jean-Pierre said there are some days she can’t face the woman’s five adult children who live in Louisiana.
“They cry every day. Sometimes I can’t even call them. When I call them, they cry about mama. ‘Do you hear from my mama,’” Jean-Pierre said. “When you have your mama die, no funeral or nothing, you’re still thinking, ‘My mama might come back.’”
Millions still displaced
Jean-Pierre now lives with her husband, her two children and her elderly mother. From her home, she said knowing her family in Port-au-Prince is still homeless is as painful as the actual earthquake was.
“They live like animals right now. They live outside all day and sleep outside,” Jean-Pierre said. “It’s very bad.”
Since the earthquake, Jean-Pierre said she has been haunted by the knowledge of the people still in the middle of the tragedy.
“I lost five pounds. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep,” she said. “I stay away from the television and I try to pray too. That’s what helps me.”
Anita Richards sings passionately during the evening service at First Haitian Baptist Church March 21 in Gretna, La. Richard has been living in New Orleans for 30 years and has been a member of the church since 1985.
Jeudy said the aid coming from different agencies is not reaching Carrefour, where he also has family.
He too said he finds it frustrating to see the images on TV of people waiting in line for food, knowing his family members are among them and being powerless to help them.
“That makes us cry, because we have food here,” Jeudy said. “We got food, we got water, we got juice.”
Jeudy is also worried about his family’s health as they live in the streets with the rainy season fast approaching, and sickness bound to start spreading.
Jeudy’s 16-year-old niece Douneba Thamard came to the U.S. with two of her sisters after the earthquake.
The rest of her family is still in Port-au-Prince. Though their house wasn’t leveled, it is too dangerously damaged to live in, Thamard said.
Thamard's father tells her in his occasional phone calls that he is happy she can be in the U.S., but the family’s situation is still precarious.
“He’s still sleeping in the street,” Thamard said through an interpreter. “They can’t sleep in their house.”
Thamard is enrolled in school in Louisiana, and would go back to Haiti if the schools were rebuilt.
“But if they don’t build yet, I can’t go,” she said. “I’m scared to go back again and to live in the street again.”
Immigration delays frustrate
Jean-Pierre and her husbands are U.S. citizens, and have been trying to get her visas for her sister-in-law and her family since 1999, but the paperwork still hasn’t gone through. Jean-Pierre thought after the earthquake, immigration would push them through the system faster, but there’s still no word. Meanwhile, her sister-in-law is growing desperate for her seven children.
Deacon Jean W. Alexis, center, prays for Heroine Neval, lower right, and her daughter, Yvenine Nerval, with other members of the congregation at the end of the evening service at First Haitian Baptist Church March 21 in Gretna, La. The community was blessing Yvenine before her expected journey to culinary school in Florida
“It’s very terrible, they have no school, nothing,” Jean-Pierre said. “[My sister-in-law] calls us every time, every week… she says, ‘I’m going to die down here with my children because they still didn’t call yet?’”
Jeudy and his sister, who also lives in Louisiana, are also both U.S. citizens. They recently started applications for visas for three of their family members, but have no idea how long the process will take.
“I’d leave tomorrow if they [would] tell us to go back and pick them up [from Haiti],” Jeudy said. “I’d pay for my flight ticket and come pick them up. But it’s not easy that way.”
Wesner said he and other community leaders are still trying to deal with post-earthquake immigration policies. Whereas in the past, a Haitian living in the U.S. might have had to wait a year or so to bring a parent over, and around 10 years for a sibling or another relative, Wesner said he hopes wait times will be shorter now.
Those who are able to relocate to the U.S. remain unemployed
Those who have been able to come to the U.S. don’t find their problems solved, however. Stanley Adam, a 27-year-old Haitian, came to the U.S. just 12 days after the earthquake by escorting his young nephew, a U.S. citizen. Adam is from Croix-des-Bouquets, a town about 8 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, and his girlfriend and two young children are still there.
Adam was a taxi driver in Haiti, but he cannot work in the U.S. He lives with his brother and sister-in-law in Louisiana, and increasingly feels like a burden on them. He’s worked his whole life, Adam said, and hates having to be dependent, all the while knowing that his family back home is without him.
Jeudy’s brother-in-law Fortuné Jean-Louis is in a similar situation. A father of five, one of his sons is a U.S. citizen, born while Jean-Louis’ wife was on a business trip in the U.S. Now Jean-Louis, a former union supervisor for a transportation company, finds himself in the U.S. without anything to do.
“I’m so young, [but] I can’t work,” Jean-Louis said through an interpreter. “I am just sitting, doing nothing... I have to go back to my country, even the way it is, because I have to work and take care of the rest of my family… I don’t have any choice, I have to go back. I can’t stay here like this.”
Where to from here
As everybody at the church was impacted they all have lists of family members they want to bring to the U.S., Wesner said.
“We have more people coming,” Wesner said, “We’re trying to get ready.”
Wesner said the community here wants to take this process one step at a time — they’re not worrying about where family members will work just yet. Dealing with immigration is their priority right now; jobs and homes will be sorted out later.
Ignoring long-term resettlement issues will not be an option for long, though, Wesner said. With the impending Haitian population spike in Louisiana will come the matters of support, employment and housing.
“It’s not going to be easy for them,” Wesner said.
