In a Haitian village, five local sailors find a way ahead

GRAND GOÂVE, HAITI

Navy Lt. Joel Castillo pulled a notebook from under his arm Friday afternoon and studied his list: The main water distillery broke down during the earthquake. The biggest church in town is half-collapsed and the rubble is blocking roads. The hospital survived but has only three patients; even the severely wounded are too afraid to step indoors for treatment.

Castillo, who goes by the nickname Cash when he’s at home in Suffolk, looked to his partner, a Navy master chief from Norfolk named Douglas Berger. “I don’t want to make any promises we can’t keep, but I think we can help on a lot of these,” he said.

Berger turned to survey the crowd of curious Haitians who’d gathered behind them in this hard-hit area west of Port-au-Prince. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Castillo and Berger, who are assigned to the Norfolk-based amphibious assault ship Bataan, had learned of their mission that morning, and it had come straight from the ship’s commanding officer: We know Grand Goâve is in bad shape but no one’s really been into town yet. Go see what they need.

Within a few hours they’d assembled a five-man team that included a Navy photographer and a Creole-speaking chaplain who’d been communicating by e-mail with American missionaries in the area. From the Bataan they boarded an amphibious hover craft vessel headed for shore. By 11 a.m. they were on the beach, asking the locals who’d come out to meet them where they could find Grand Goâve’s mayor.

“I wasn’t sure what it would be like when we left Virginia,” Castillo, who usually works as an onboard air-traffic controller, said later. “But I hoped it would be like this – us on the ground, taking that initiative as individuals so we can do what’s really needed.”

Capt. Tom Negus, the commander overseeing the Bataan relief effort, said it’s that individual initiative that’s setting the Haitian mission apart from so many other Navy deployments.

“This absolutely is not business as usual,” he said earlier this week. “This is all hands on deck to get the help out there.”

For Grand Goâve, that help can’t come soon enough.

“We are happy to see you,” said Laport Wilfrid, a 26-year-old construction worker who stood watching on the beach when Castillo’s team came ashore. “Many people died here. Many buildings fell down. But no one has come to help.”

One of the few English-speakers in town, Wilfrid quickly offered his services. “I can take you to the mayor,” he said. “This way.”

As they walked, Castillo asked Wilfrid to describe the needs in his area of Grand Goâve, where locals said about 10,000 people live.

“I think we need food the most,” Wilfrid said, guiding the team down a narrow dirt road, past chickens and goats, leveled buildings and camps of newly erected bed-sheet tents. A growing crowd of locals trailed behind them.

A few minutes later, Wilfrid stopped at a small outdoor market where women sat on the side of the road selling fish and vegetables. Munching on a package of Fruit Loops that Berger had given him, Wilfrid said something in Creole to a man carrying a baby. The Navy chaplain, Lt. Andre Trofort, listened in and then announced that the man knew the mayor and had his number saved in his cell phone.

“We’re going to call to see if he can come meet us,” Trofort said. Castillo nodded and told him to stay and wait for the mayor while he and Berger surveyed the area’s hospital, a short walk away.

A Cuban doctor there said she had almost no patients because people were afraid to set foot inside. Behind her another Cuban volunteer tended to one of their three wards, a toddler who’d been badly burned when a pot of boiling water tipped over on her during the earthquake.

“We think the building is safe,” the doctor said in Spanish. “But the people see the cracks in the walls and they get scared.”

On the way back, as they passed the half-collapsed church, Castillo pointed. “See, here’s a project we could do right here,” he said to Berger. “We could at least get all this rubble cleared out of the way.”

As they approached the market where they’d left Trofort, he motioned for them to hurry. “We’ve got the mayor,” he reported. A middle-aged man wearing a clean white polo shirt stepped forward and explained that he was the director of the mayor’s office. He introduced three others – the first mayor, the second mayor and the area’s judge.

“Do you have time to talk with us today?” Castillo asked. “I know we’re kind of just barging in but we want to see how we can help you all out.”

The mayors led their visitors across a courtyard, a crowd of onlookers in tow, to some wooden benches marked with UNICEF stamps that had been pulled from a crumbled school house. “They want us to sit here,” Trofort said.

Then Castillo made his pitch: “We can clean up rubble, fix the hospital so people feel safe there, bring food and water. Is there something specific you’d like us to help with?”

The four Haitians whispered among themselves, then looked to Trofort. “They want a few minutes,” he said. The judge pulled a blue notebook from his bag and they began making a list: food, water, tents, portable toilets, supplies for the hospital and help fixing their broken water distillery. 

Castillo made his own list, then shook their hands. “Thank you for letting us come to your town,” he said. “I’ll take this information back to my commander and we’ll be back to provide you what we can. We’ll try to come back tomorrow.”

As they walked away, Castillo told Berger that he thought repairing the distillery made sense. “They have the people to run it,” he said. “Fixing it would be way better than just bringing in water – you know, the whole 'teach a man to fish’ thing.”

Berger agreed.

They made one more stop, at a gated Christian missionary compound run by a couple from Ohio. “Do these people all live here?” Castillo asked, motioning toward hundreds of makeshift tents that packed the property.

“They do now,” answered Bob DeVoe, the mission’s president. He introduced his wife, Gretchen, who listed off many of the same needs as the mayors – food, water, sanitation.

Castillo explained that he wanted to send sailors and Marines ashore to help clear rubble and rebuild. “Think about what might be the best use of our labor and then shoot us an e-mail,” he said. “We want to get going really soon.”

As the team headed to the beach to catch their ride back to the Bataan, Castillo said he thought it had been a good day.

“We know what they need,” he said. “Now let’s get going.”