ChristaBrelsford

I was sitting in a house with my brother Julian and three of our Haitian friends, in Darbonne, Haiti when the earthquake struck. The house we were in collapsed, and the roof caved in while I was running down the stairs, so my right leg was caught between the roof and the concrete stairs. Luckily, my brother and our friends weren't too badly injured. One man did get a serious concussion that took a long time to recover from, and my brother broke a few toes.

I'm also really really greatful that the man who we had been staying with during the earthquake was fine, and his wife and two kids were also not injured.

I was in Haiti working with my brother on an adult literacy project, mostly just trying to learn about the groups and people in the region, so that we could understand how to be helpful before charging in on our great white horses to fix things. So, we'd just been tagging along to learn.

I went back once, about 10 months after the earthquake, to attend the inaguration of the newly rebuilt school we'd been working in. After the earthquake, I got kind of a lot of attention, and so we figured we'd us the attention to do something useful for this community. If I can figure out how to post a picture here, I'll show you the school before and after.

Ummm . ... 5 minutes? maybe? ;)

When I was still half buried under a house, I knew of "that guy with no feet trying to run in the olympics" - Oscar Pistorius. I figured that if he thought he could run in the Olympics, I could certianly climb. I didn't know how long it would take or how hard I would be able to climb, but I knew I'd be able to do something.

I could walk without crutches at about 6 months out, and felt like I was doing pretty well within a year. I was climbing at the gym just a few days after I got out of the hospital, and was ice climbing outside 2 months after the earthquake.

Here is a blog post about the inauguration ceremony for the school we were working in:

http://haitipartners.org/2010/11/giving-thanks-inaugural-ceremony-at-cabois-school/

and at this point, I think that I can do the most good for my friends and colleagues in Haiti by continuing to fundraise and push for more services here in the US. There are really really good teachers and educators on the ground in Haiti, and I can do more good by making sure they have the resources to do their important work than I can by trying to teach anyone anything, for example.