Haitian Flood Orphan Tells of Lost Parents as Gonaives Struggles To Survive
GONAIVES, Haiti (AP) -- When the rivers started rising, Serin Huberman stood on a rooftop and looked down at his mother trying to sweep the water from their home, and his father rushing to gather up family photographs. Then he watched them and three siblings disappear under the flood.
The deluge brought by Tropical Storm Jeanne killed at least 1,500 people in Haiti, leaving an army of orphans and countless others to recount heartbreaking tales.
"When it rains now, I get scared _ and sad," said Serin, looking ghostlike from the dried mud caking his 14-year-old body.
Hunched over a table at a home business where a dozen orphans were dyeing hard candy in return for meager pay or food, Serin told of his anguish at losing his family, tears muddying the dirt caked around his almond-shaped eyes.
"I'm all alone," he said. "Everything has changed. I don't know how I'll survive."
Many survivors in Gonaives say there were no warnings the storm would hit the lowlying city ringed by bare mountains. Rains began at night as adults prepared for the weekend and children sat on rooftops playing with friends. Soon water was gushing down the hillsides into the rivers.
Serin was on a roof when he noticed the water rising. He watched as his parents and siblings began a vain battle to sweep back water flowing into their dirt-floored shack. His mother tried to save pictures and furniture. In a matter of 30 minutes, the water rose six feet and his family was swept under and disappeared into the darkness.
Their bodies, along with more than 1,000 other missing people, have not been found.
"I miss them," Serin said. "I can't stand it when it rains now."
Aid agencies continued to man food distribution points Monday, more than a week after the storm, desperately trying to feed people and treat the injured. Psychologists are supposed to arrive this week to help people deal with the trauma, which is etched on the faces of the homeless wandering the streets.
"On the outside, the kids may look fine. But on the inside, they're shattered," said Kate Donovan of UNICEF.
Many homes in Serin's slum, called Raboteau, still have a foot of water. Some people are trying to help the orphans, although food and money is scarce.
"I miss my mother," said Vergela Francois, a 13-year-old taken in by an older woman, Marie Luis Mondestin, who lost her first born son to the flood.
Mondestin, 42, said Dieuseul wanted to be a doctor and the 11th grader was a good student. He was courteous, she added, but she used to scold him for drumming on the end of the family's one bed.
Like many Haitians, he never learned to swim.
"It was around 11 p.m. when all of a sudden the waters just shot up," Mondestin said at her shack, where she burns incense to hide the stench of sewage and mold that hangs over the city. "He was trying to help us save things and then all of a sudden he just panicked and swallowed a bunch of water."
Too poor to own a radio, Mondestin said she knew the storm was coming to Haiti but was not told it could affect Gonaives.
It has been a particularly difficult year for Mondestin, her husband and their 11 children.
The revolt that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last February started in Gonaives. Because of roadblocks and fighting between rebels and Aristide supporters, the city was isolated for weeks, preventing the delivery of food, water and gasoline.
Mondestin's husband, Marc Mondestin, said that after the revolt he struggled to get paid for construction jobs he had done already. He can't find work at all now. Many businesses were destroyed in the flood, and building materials were ruined.
Schools are still closed, but Serin doubts he will return. With no money to pay for his uniform or books, he will keep working as a candymaker to survive.
"It's really hard for me," he said, brushing flecks of splattered mud from his body, which looks more like the frame of an 8-year-old. "I just want to forget."