Haitians line up outside the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince after Haitian radio reports that Quebec will open its doors to earthquake refugees. (Angela Naus/CBC)

---

Calm amid the madness

The immediate expectation after the earthquake was that Haiti would quickly descend into rioting and violent mayhem.

That has not happened.

People fight for goods, taken from collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince on Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010. UN peacekeepers warn of impending unrest but CBC reporters say the situation has been remarkably calm so far. (Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press)

Yes there have been reports of looting, but what is the line between looting and scavenging for something to eat by people who've lost everything.

And, yes, there have been reports of occasional gunshots. But the fact is, Port-au-Prince has been full-on peaceful.

CBC's constant experience here has been to be welcomed warmly by everyone we've encountered —be it in tent cities or amid the rubble of downtown streets, and both day and night.

It's a singularly spiritually uplifting aspect to the nightmare of everything else here.

— Paul Hunter

---

Songs in the night

With little or no electricity in Port-au-Prince, you might think the place shuts down at night. It does not.

The otherwise pitch-black evenings are lit up with candles while people gather in small groups along sidewalks to sit and talk and think.

On Sunday, the nighttime streets were alive with people.

Later, past midnight, the candles went out and the singing began. A hymn-like chorus could be heard off in the distance one night, rhythmic chanting from a group in another direction last night.

—Paul Hunter

---

Bodies, flies, slime, fire

One of the countless worries in Port-au-Prince now is disease. Six days after the quake and the bodies have begun to rot — everywhere.

There are bodies still on sidewalks and on the streets covered by bits of cloth, cardboard or plywood.

You can walk around and see limbs sticking out from crushed buildings and wrecked cars.

There are bodies that haven’t yet been found under the rubble and there are bodies simply lying uncovered in the open air.

Many of the dead have been gathered and taken away but many more have not.

So there are flies everywhere and slime and filthy dust blowing in the air.

In the face of government inaction — and to stop the spread of disease — people have begun getting rid of the bodies themselves by burning them on the streets or where they lay wedged in crumpled buildings.

Tires from abandoned vehicles are put near the bodies, set aflame and will burn until all that’s left is the charred shape of whoever died on that spot.

---

Warnings on the bathroom wall

They have been steaming straight south for four days now and will soon see the coast of Haiti. But for those aboard HMCS Athabaskan they still don't know where they will take their first steps or what exactly they will see.

As commanders finalize a plan, crew members are learning about the people of Haiti from a place they visit every day: On the back of almost every washroom stall door on the ship there is a piece of paper with the title, "A brief introduction to Haiti."

It tells of a long history of anarchy, government instability and chaos.

It also notes that even before the earthquake, Haiti's health system was poor, disease is common and relatively few attend schools. Crew members are warned it is not appropriate to touch the heads of Haitians: that is considered an insult.

This sailors are told that because they are foreigners, it will be assumed they have money. "If going ashore it is advisable to remove all valuables (wallets, rings, watches), as they will most likely be snatched away in plain sight. It is not considered rude to decline any water or other beverages offered as very often they were made from unclean water."

They've been told personal greetings such as handshakes or some type of physical contact are very important to Haitians. Though as one sailor told me "we will learn more in the first minute on the ground, than the countless briefings we have been given."

They certainly hope that's the case. Because, right now, all they have to rely on is what's posted on the door of the bathroom stall.

—Craig Paisley

---

Vignettes from Port-au-Prince

Bodies burning in the streets — set on fire by those worried about disease and frustrated that authorities have yet to gather all the dead.

An open-air medical clinic — foreign aid workers treating wounded people still bleeding five days after the earthquake.

A hand sticking out of rubble, legs sticking out of rubble and flies on a bloated body stuck in the rubble.

People walking past a dead body rotting on a sidewalk.

Children living in tent cities, bathing, urinating, sleeping and playing.

Adults bathing on sidewalks.

A man with orange peels in his nostrils to mask the smell of rotting flesh.

A crowd of people fighting to get on a bus out of town.

-Paul Hunter

---

When the tapping stops

We spent much of Sunday waiting in front of a collapsed hotel in the old city centre of Port-au-Prince. It’s the hardest hit area and there is destruction and rubble.

A team of rescue workers from Los Angeles was inside the building because they’d found someone alive, even after all this time — a woman, whom they eventually rescued.

Saving her had extra meaning for the rescuers, because the day before they’d suffered a setback. They’d found someone alive in another building because they heard a tapping noise, the only cry for help the person could make.

As they were trying to get through to the person, the rescuers kept listening for the tapping. Then it stopped.

The team has a rule: three members have to agree that the tapping has stopped. Only then will they abandon the rescue and move on.

So the first designated listener put an ear to the wall and said, “I don’t hear anything.”

The second person did likewise, leaving the call up to the third listener, who put an ear to the wall, and listened long and hard before finally saying, “Maybe I hear something — you guys listen again.”

He did not want to be the one to say "give up." But there was indeed no more tapping. So they stopped.

The team was heartbroken. But doubly glad on Sunday.

-Paul Hunter

---

Haiti: The flight in

When I headed for CFB Trenton, Ont., late at night, I didn't know whether I was actually going to be on a flight to Port-au-Prince. The plane was full, we were told by the military, and there's only room for 12 members of the media. In the end, they managed to squeeze in quite a few more, including me and all of our gear.

By dawn, three planes had taken off — two old Hercules turbo-props, and a new C-17 cargo jet that was stuffed full of soldiers, media, boxes and crates — oh, and a search-and-rescue helicopter that fit comfortably in the middle of the huge cavern.

The enormous jet engines roared to life and easily lifted it all. We zoomed down the continent in a little over three hours and then we spent another three circling over Haiti. There was no room to land on the crowded tarmac at Port-au-Prince, where dozens of planes from across the globe had converged.

There were U.S. Coast Guard cargo planes, jets from Belgium and Mexico, and search and rescue teams from China and France with their dogs, of course. All the teams were unloading huge flats of — well, of stuff. Wrapped in plastic, it was impossible to tell what was what. Still, a lot of it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Too much of a good thing, all at once, caught in a relief traffic jam.

By this point, the Canadian Department of National Defence plane was at the back, and guarded by heavily armed soldiers at the front. The only threat here seemed to be from the pile of photographers, jostling to get an iconic picture of Canada, positioning itself on the front lines of the war against humanitarian indifference. We were here, and ready to help.

Another group of Canadians was eager to leave. They had been here during earthquake and had had enough of the devastation. On this afternoon, they sat under a large tree at the edge of the tarmac.

I talked to quite a few of them, listening to stories of buildings collapsed, people panicking, friends lost. Nurse Marilyn Mackilroy told me how she saw her friend Yvonne Martin killed when the guesthouse she was in was flattened. She was saddened by the loss, saddened also by the fact that she had not been able to call the woman's family to tell them what had happened. Tears came to her eyes.

Another Canadian told me about the horror of seeing people dead and dying and of the living growing increasingly frustrated — angry, even — at what they considered delays in getting aid. Get ready, she said, it's going to get ugly out there.

-Sasa Petricic

---

A front-end loader parked at what's left of the Montana Hotel. (Paul Hunter/CBC)

But wait, there IS heavy equipment

It's worth noting that the only heavy equipment capable of digging through concrete rubble that CBC has seen since we got here Friday was at the luxury Montana Hotel frequented by westerners.

No doubt there's other gear out there somewhere, but that's all we've seen.

Draw your own conclusions.

-Paul Hunter

---

3:43 a.m. Sunday

We experienced our first big aftershock overnight. There’d been a couple of small vibrating tremors since we got here two days ago but this was different. In the middle of the pitch black and otherwise silent night, a sudden and massive thunderstorm-like bang cracked out, shaking the Port-au-Prince house in which CBC is camping. Everyone bolted upright and wide-eyed. It was super scary and it was hard to sleep afterward. Can’t imagine what the millions of Haitians out there who suffered through the actual quake last week were thinking.

It lasted only about a second and a half.

-Paul Hunter

---

Catch 22 – Haitian gas pump variety

Haitians line up in Port-au-Prince for gasoline. (Paul Hunter/CBC)Four days after the earthquake and vast areas of Port-au-Prince remain without the little electricity they had access to beforehand.

Without electricity, Haitians need gasoline to run generators to create power. There’s plenty of gas, but it’s in the gas stations’ underground tanks. And to get the gas out of the tanks, the stations need electricity to run the pumps. But there’s no electricity.

And repeat.

Occasionally someone will find enough gas to run a generator to fire up the pumps. Word spreads quickly and the lineups are almost instant.

-Paul Hunter

---

“My baby is buried in my house!”

One of the unspeakable difficulties of reporting in Port-au-Prince this week is being directly confronted with urgent despair.

People begging for food or water that you don’t have. Or wanting a ride in your vehicle to get out of the hell they’ve found themselves in. And there are three million people in trouble here.

Today we experienced another form of that.

After spending a few hours at the former Montana Hotel (with its own countless tales of misery) we bumped into a desperate young couple trying to get into the Montana compound.

Just down the street, their house had collapsed in the quake and their two-year-old baby was buried inside. The husband and pregnant wife were frantic and wanted the help of rescuers working at the hotel.

We advised them how to talk their way past guards at the Montana then we went to the house on our own for a look. It was a mess.

Shortly, other rescuers with sniffer dogs happened to walk by. The parents were nowhere to be seen so we told them what we knew. But when they looked at the piles of concrete they just shook their heads.

"Not a chance," they said, making the death motion with hands cutting across their necks. "No chance of survival. We’re very sorry." And they moved on.

We stood there for a long while. Then quietly left.

-Paul Hunter

---

The indignity of death in Haiti

Unidentified bodies in the streets of Port-au-Prince. (Susan Ormiston/CBC)The first body was the worst. A woman lying on her back, only partly covered, her limbs bloated and stiff. Not so different from others we saw. But it was where she lay that was so disturbing. In the middle of a busy congested road, her body creating a roundabout as the traffic rushed and swerved.

Five days after the earthquake bodies still lie by the curbs, waiting to be picked up. They are lined up, loosely wrapped, some on makeshift stretchers, most missing limbs. Someone has laid them down, unsure what to do other than get them out of the neighbourhoods where life is trying to resume.

On a primary road leaving Port au Prince today, some of those bodies became props in an angry protest. Men piled them together, making a body barricade. The barrier was reinforced by rebars and cement debris; there is plenty of that. They forced traffic to come to a complete halt.

Edison (he didn’t give us a last name) told us his house is flattened. Many people died in his neighbourhood and they’re still there.

“They stink,” he said. “That’s why we’ve called on the community service to do something for these people”.

At the barricade, UN soldiers stand and watch — hoping the frustration doesn’t evolve into violence. The barricade builders tell us yesterday they did the same thing and a truck finally came to take away the bodies. That’s why they brought more today.

-Susan Ormiston