Day 1 - Thursday 25th February

I finally arrived in Haiti today, getting into Port au Prince in the late afternoon. Travelling through the city from the airport to our accommodation, I saw for the first time the extent of the destruction caused by the earthquake. It was almost too much to take in. Some buildings are completely flattened, others are partially standing but with walls and floors missing or huge cracks. But often the next door building will be miraculously undamaged. It reminds me that unsafe buildings are what has caused this crisis, not simply the earthquake.
The amount of rubble is immense. According to a government official it would take 1,000 trucks working 12 hours per day for a whole year to clear all of the rubble in the city. It has generally been cleared away into huge piles at the sides of the road but the traffic was incredibly slow. When we get to our accommodation, another aid worker tells me that its difficult to sleep after the scare of an aftershock on Tuesday.
Its a sobering reality of the situation Ive come into.

Day 2 - Friday 26th February

I met a Haitain woman today who told me her story so that I could pass it on to people back in the UK. Nana Moncheri was walking along the road to church when the earthquake struck on 12th January. She fell down and clung onto a nearby tree, praying to God for support. As soon as she could, Nana went back to her home to look for her six children including her 10-year old daughter Shana Laurent. She found them all safe but sadly her father and aunt had not survived. The house was flattened and they couldnt rescue anything from inside. Now she lives with her family on the roadside without adequate shelter and no food or water.
Last night it rained and Nana tells me it was so awful she wanted to die. The rainy season will start imminently and life will be impossible.
Nana and her family havent received any help at all from humanitarian organisations.

Day 3 - Saturday 27th February

Three days into our visit to Haiti and we are constantly discovering more stories of destruction and survival. This morning on a way to a meeting I asked the driver to stop at a school called Cete Moh. I had spoken to a woman whose food stall was crushed when the schools wall fell down and wanted to see it for myself. What we discovered was that the school was connected to a huge vocational centre which taught 1,000 students skills ranging from business and marketing to mechanics and plumbing. Ludsen Saint Phar, the school coordinator and teacher, showed us the massive gaping hole where the wall of the school hall used to be.
It was really sad to see an empty school where there should be young people learning. But at the same time we saw new buildings constructed since the earthquake. Some lessons were continuing and mechanics were being trained even on a Saturday, the holy day in Haiti.

Its been raining for the last hour. Our driver Michel-Ange has just arrived. He tells us that people sleeping on the street outside our hotel are moving into the car park and lobby area to shelter from the rain. But what about the thousands of children and their families living in camps throughout the city? What about the women I met yesterday trying to sleep with their families in the road?  This is just one night of rain. In the rainy season it will be like this constantly. I dont know what to say to Michel-Ange. There is nothing to say. But something has to be done.

Day 4 - Sunday 28th February

I spent the morning talking to people living in a camp in the grounds of the Adventist University. There are 2,800 families here – some are in tents, others have made makeshift shelters from plastics sheets, material and sticks. The camp is crowded, dirty and muddy after last night’s rain. But the people are warm and open and happy to share their stories. The children want to have their photos taken and keep shouting “blanche, blanche” (white, white) and looking at my white hands. I talk to a woman called Phillipe Laforest Desir who shows me the small tent she shares with 7 other members of her family – they are all adults. It looks smaller than the two-man tent I have back home. While we are talking Muslim Aid’s partner the GlobalMedic has sent its daily water truck to fill up the tanks that are supplying the community with clean water several times a day. It is good to see that they are receiving assistance but they desperately need more. Two men about 20 years old ask me how they can find work. They want to support their family and improve their situation. It’s hard for me to explain that I can’t offer them a job because I really sympathise with their feelings.

In the afternoon we travelled outside of the city to Petit-Goave, southwest of Port-au-Prince and closer to the epicentre. Driving along the road we saw stunning mountains on one side and the sea on the other. It really is a beautiful country. Along the way we drove over huge cracks where the earthquake had split open the road and swerved to avoid massive rocks and boulders displaced by landslides. The Mayor of Petit-Goave showed us one of the makeshift camps where displaced communities are living in the grounds of a school in terrible conditions. Children can’t go back to school until these families have somewhere else to live.

I come back to the hotel feeling tired and drained from what I’ve seen. It starts raining again and I feel guilty that I’m sleeping in a hotel while most people in the city around me are in tents and under sheets.

Victoria Palmer from Haiti