Haiti aid worker diary

Naeem Muhammad is a U.S. staff-member with the Islamic Relief delegation in Haiti. Reflecting on some of his experiences from the field, on Tuesday January 19 Muhammad wrote:

I barely got any sleep last night. I could feel the cold, sharp rocks through my tent floor as I lay there, but at least I had something to sleep in. Compared to the victims we saw, I was in great shape.

It‘s freezing at night, and only God knows how the 1.5 million homeless Haitians are coping.

Just yesterday, the team’s first day in Port-au-Prince, I met a man who told me that
he refused to sleep indoors because he’s scared of being flattened in another aftershock, or an even bigger quake.

“I won’t sleep under bricks,” he told me. “No bricks, no cement.”

His voice echoed in my head all day, until I met Imam Muhammad Zakariya, a local imam in Port-au-Prince. He took the Islamic Relief team to a mosque which had been almost entirely spared from the earthquake, but the neighboring area was devastated.

Hundreds of people had set up makeshift shelters out of sheets and plastic just outside the mosque’s doors, and the mosque was providing water for all the homeless victims in the area.

The people were really suffering, and they had nothing. But at least the mosque was caring for them, regardless of their background. This is exactly what Islam is about, and this is exactly what Islamic Relief is about: helping those in need regardless of their religion, race or gender.

Walking past the mosque, I met a woman named Joanne, who was carrying a baby. She told me the child’s parents were killed, and she is having trouble finding food and water for the child. I looked around and saw my team members talking to people just like Joanne and I realized, there are so many people in need right in front of us.

My team and I are proposing to launch distributions at the very site in front of this mosque, in addition to launching a widespread campaign that will provide shelter, food, and clean drinking water for neighborhoods all around Port-au-Prince.

Driving back to our U.N.-administered campsite, I realized how was lucky I was to sleep in a safe and secure campsite.

But it’s hard to sleep when I know that 1.5 million of my neighbors are going to sleep hungry, thirsty and scared. It’s really hard to sleep.