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 41 “A IDE A YITI ” On Jan. 27, the 148th A-100 class teamed up with Tony and Abigail Opare, owners of a Washington, D.C. restau- rant, to host a fundraiser for two different charities: Doc- tors Without Borders and the Foreign Service National Emergency Relief Fund. The “Aide Ayiti” event at the Ghana Café, raised more than $3,600 in just one night; more than 300 people attended the benefit. “This event was wildly successful and we are so happy we were able to come together as a Foreign Service com- munity to help bring financial support to our FSN col- leagues and to two very worthy organizations,” said Justin Davis, one of the event’s organizers. The Opares agreed to donate 20 percent of the profits from all alcoholic beverages sold during the night to the Haiti relief fund. The A-100 class also collected donations at the door, ran a coatcheck and operated its own bar in the restaurant. All the tips from that also went to the Haiti support fund. Lauren Dunn, one of the event’s organizers, said the 148th A-100 class was glad to be able to increase the prof- its and support a small, local business in addition to raising funds for Haiti. Natalie Laber 148th A-100 Class Consulate General Hermosillo T HOSE W HO M OST N EEDED O UR H ELP Our house in Port-au-Prince had not even stopped shaking when my wife and I made it out onto the street. The instinct to act kicked in immediately: we ran from door to door, checking on our neighbors and guards, and shutting off broken water pipes. Our neighborhood sus- tained remarkably little damage, and only one colleague was injured. Within an hour, we traveled to the embassy, hoping to communicate the events to Washington. The earthquake destroyed many of the major hospitals throughout the capital. Without a place to turn to, Amer- ican citizens began arriving at the embassy seeking treat- ment. We ransacked the medical unit and, with the expertise of Dr. Steve Harris, our courageous Centers for Disease Control country chief, treated many people in the parking lot. By the next morning, all of the chancery’s cafeteria ta- bles had become stretchers holding patients awaiting med- ical evacuation. One very memorable patient arrived with two broken legs and was in shock. Another survived the collapse of a five-story building, but lost three friends who had been standing at her side. Their lives and those of sev- eral others were saved that night by the efforts of our em- bassy team. Some of what I experienced continues to haunt me. While driving to the airport to check if it was operational, my driver and I came across an embassy bodyguard stand- ing next to his broken-down car. Crying violently, he told me that his concrete house had collapsed with his family inside, killing his wife and two of his children. Sitting in the car was his only surviving son, his chest covered in blood. I helped the man push his vehicle more than half a mile to one of the few hospitals still standing, only to find out that it refused to take patients. The scene was something from a nightmare: dozens of bleeding victims lying at the hospital’s gates, pleading with the doctors on the other side of the fence to treat them. Knowing that the guard and his son would not receive treatment there, we quickly returned to the embassy, where I watched my wife scrub the open wounds on the bodyguard’s broken hand with a brush. While he and his son both survived, I am unable to drive past the hospital without thinking of those who lost their lives that night, just feet away from medical care. I never ended up participating in the phone calls with Washington. But I know that what we did that night made a real difference in the lives of many of those who most needed our help. Dominic Randazzo Vice Consul Embassy Port-au-Prince P ARTNERSHIPS AND T ECHNOLOGY H ELP S AVE L IVES In a development speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on Jan. 6, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton invited the world to assist devel- oping nations not only with material contributions, but also with talent and ideas. Less than a week later, the earth- quake hit Haiti, and the world’s response vividly demon- strated this new paradigm. One of those who answered the Secretary’s call was 23- year-old Josh Nesbit. The head of a sub-Saharan nonprofit F O C U S