The Foreign Service Journal, April 2010

A P R I L 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 Port-au-Prince. We greeted and assisted hundreds of evac- uees throughout the day and night. Our most important job was to let evacuees know that they were now safe. Some of them still had debris from the earthquake on their clothes, and many had not eaten in days. But once on the ground, their transformation was amazing — from a look of fright and bewilderment when they got off the plane to smiles and kids chasing each other in play around the airport hangar a half-hour later. It was the source of my energy to keep going. One incident gives a graphic idea of the kind of ex- hausting work involved in trying to deal with such a fluid situation. On the third day after the earthquake, there were rumors about a group of missionaries stranded on a beach in Haiti who were due to be evacuated to San Isidro. They were supposedly arranging a charter flight on to Or- lando that would have some empty seats. We were wel- come to fill the empty seats at no cost, but anyone wanting to go had to be at the airport in just a few hours. Consid- erable confusion ensued, during which the missionary flight time kept changing, and we made and remade plans to get evacuees lodged in local hotels on it. Finally, after we had decided that the 69 evacuees who had just arrived should be taken to that flight, we discov- ered that they had already boarded buses headed for the hotels! I had to rush outside, stop the buses and inform the passengers that they were going to Orlando that night. Some said they did not want to go. It was now 7:30 p.m., and it was at least a half-hour drive to the airport. We managed to convince everyone to get on the plane, and I dispatched two colleagues to ac- company them to the flight. Then I went home to get some sleep, happy I’d helped another group reach safety. Among the many thanks I received, one stands out: A self-described libertarian who normally thinks very nega- tively about bureaucrats doing anything said he was im- pressed by our setup and wished that all government functions could work so well. Manav Jain Deputy Immigrant Visa Chief F O C U S