After two weeks in Haiti, many of the 550 rescuers from the Civil Security and the 108 policemen dispatched immediately after the earthquake have returned to France. They will be received Monday by the Prime Minister. Many, like the sergeant-Dubois, confessed having been confronted with scenes and emotions of uncommon violence. “It was like a war film,” recounts Colonel Franck Louvier which has issued from county firefighters Val-d’Oise, coordinated two weeks during the intervention of French physicians in four hospitals Port-au-Prince. Equally shocked, a policeman evokes “a performance comparable to that of cities destroyed by bombing during the Second World War.” Still others describe “a gigantic project in its area”, “terrible injuries”, a “nightmare” …

Committed to 7 am to 20 hours or more each day since their arrival, often inexperienced, some soldiers have sometimes struggled to hide their fatigue. Met January 15 at the foot of the ruins of the Hotel Montana, a master physician had waived such restrain her tears. There was fatigue, frustration and genuine sadness. In the morning, the officer had to admit his impotence. The young woman he had tried for eight hours to save the rubble had died. Yet he had tried everything, still kneeling under tons of concrete to general anesthesia. “Part of his body was crushed by debris,” he explained. She did not survive the extraction. ”

Expert-rescue excavation, Lieutenant Christopher Carrier, assigned to the intervention unit of Nogent-le-Rotrou tempers: “Sure, it’s difficult to spend several days to explore the ruins but could find survivors. Sometimes we even come to say we did not do the job … And then, fortunately, we found the energy to leave each morning and it finally paid off. “In total, the men of the French Civil Security extracted from the rubble 15 of the 134 survivors recovered from the earthquake. On January 28, fifteen days after the earthquake, they have saved such a young girl of 16 who was in a state of extreme dehydration. “At the moment, we were so focused on the need to go fast you did not quite woken up to this miracle,” says Lt. Carrier. Only after quarter of an hour I suddenly was gone chills … ”

A “huge cohesion

Responsible for the field hospital located in the gardens of the Embassy of France, where nearly 140 surgical procedures have been performed since January 17, the physician-Colonel Michel Orcel believes that the “enormous cohesion of his unit is its main asset. “Of course, we all suddenly slack when we lose a patient of 20 years for which we fought for hours using all our means of resuscitation, says he. But whenever one of us falters really, it was immediately supported by the other. “Less categorical, a young lifeguard says that despite years of training, he did not expect to fully “it” – that is to say to the thousands of corpses encountered on his way since his arrival in town. “Whenever we enter the ruins we crossed one or two. In the end it becomes hard. “The awareness of his own limitations has also been a test. “We should take time to rest, it is human. But we also knew that there were dozens of Haitians, perhaps children who were trapped under the ruins, waiting for us and had little time … ”

Faced with an unprecedented wave of open fractures, deep wounds and other ground, the French doctors were often hung up with “beautiful moments of life” occurring here and there. “We have made several deliveries that every time we restore some strength,” smiled the Colonel Louvier. Christophe Carrier testified that he was “stunned” by the ability of people to bounce the reopening of small markets everywhere – while on the roadside, there were still dogs and pigs eating human remains. A military finally welcomed the “great dignity of the Haitians meet their physical pain.”

“Through their training, we at present feel that our staff are pretty well cashed the coup,” says Damien Deluz, the psychologist firefighters Val-de-Marne. For all practical purposes, all the soldiers involved have been imposing a “debrief” of 24 hours in Fort-de-France. An individualized psychological They were also proposed. “For us, the military, it is not obvious to use such support, however, said Chief Warrant Officer Eric Dubois.

The raids of the werewolf in the Champ de Mars, however, have the gift of enervating Max Beauvoir, the supreme head of the Voodoo religion in Haiti. ” “This fable is imported by Western evangelists. There never was a wolf on our island or in Africa where we come from. “Max Beauvoir declared. The gray hair can be spotted all over his head, he wears a robe over his trousers and moccasins quality shoes . He is a hougan, a  Voodoo high priest. Also called ati. “It means the great forest tree whose shadow protects small. Its major branches are used as repository for birds that foul, but fortunately the rain washed, developed the high priest.

The great days, he puts on his costume. The recent holiday season, those Makaya back in late December. They were spent in baths. An opportunity to purify themselves for the coming year. The next, those of Papa Loco, are scheduled for March. We will honor the spirit that operates the peristyle in Mariani,  a place of worship founded by Max Beauvoir.

“Divine justice is implacable”

But this well-ordered schedule is disrupted by the earthquake. Part of the temple collapsed. Luckily, the Potomitan (The main Beam) the sanctuary where the ritual takes place, is intact. The voodoo priest allows visitors to cross. “It is not a desecrate ceremony,” says Max, The “lab”, as called  by Max Beauvoir, a chemist by training, has also taken a blow. The hougan treats in this room, by techniques mysterious, the soul of its visitors. It heals a patient, for example by transferring the disease to an animal. It also conducts offerings. But the aviary was dislocated. The white doves are the sacrifices that have surged.

Sitting on the steps of the temple, a craftsman restores a statue damaged by the earthquake. It depicts a man bent on goat’s head on his shoulders a macaque. “It is very dangerous,” he warns. “He meant that divine justice is inexorable,” corrects the hougan without dwelling on the subject. He prefers to speak of the wooden effigy of Cousin Zaka, the divinity of the work, Ogou, the god of cataclysms and Dambala, the wooden stick representing the serpent god. This is unusual to deprive of speech or the use of his legs a person “owns”.

“It considers himself fortunate. Voodoo temples have fared better than the churches and the cathedral. They are still standing. I presented my condolences to the Catholic and Protestant representatives who have suffered so much, “said Max Beauvoir recalling its counterparts, the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince and the pastor of the Protestant churches, have perished in the disaster. The hougan attributes the resistance of places of worship voodoo to their hardiness, but also natural selection. “Nature has put things afloat by beating us,” says he. We have an unjust society since the death of the Emperor in 1806 (General Dessalines, the first head of state after independence, Ed). The Vatican and the major Western powers have banded together for Christians working in the deletion of voodoo, the religion of origin. All this must change. The earthquake marks the beginning of a new era. ”

Max Beauvoir is often a tone and postures Tribune. He believes, like the bishops, as the senior representative of a religious community that wants to impose on the national scene. In search of fame, he likes to show the gallery of photos that decorate the meeting room of the community. On one shot, he poses alongside Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN. On Monday, President René Préval has received in his office with him to prepare the ecumenical ceremony commemorating the victims provided February 12, one month to the day after the earthquake. “We will hold parallel celebrations around the meditation deities of courage, strength and love,” says the hougan.

Max Beauvoir is part of a reformist current of voodoo. He wants an occult practice exploded into many communities and families an institution like the others. An approach challenged, even feared by many observers. “This decision brings the” Voodoo on the market for competing religions with Christianity, Hinduism or Islam, is Guy Maximilian, a historian of religions. Beauvoir is a hougan that followed an initiation, but it is in its way a usurper, because the voodoo has always worked without a single direction. ”

Voodoo is the survival of the ritual events of former slaves deported from Africa. It is a cult rather complex, with its pantheon of deities, the lwa. “These mysterious and powerful entities are from the first wonder and terror of the first individual to nature. They still evoke the archaic parts of rights which poetry and religion are addressed, “said Guy Maximilian, who is also an expert in Sanskrit.

Measuring the voodoo influence on society, he said, impossible. For he would marry opposites. Confession of the shadow, it attracts and repels. “I think very few Haitians fear to join the voodoo as a religion, but they are afraid of her magic,” says William Seabrook in The Magic Kingdom, a cult novel published in 1929 with a foreword by Paul Morand . That voodoo that opens the fantasies with people turned into zombies, black magic, poisoning her, her dolls stuck with needles, his charges of gunpowder. His defenders see themselves as victims of an enterprise of demonization. “Satan is a Christian creation. We have nothing to do with it, slice Max Beauvoir.

Religion of intimate

Renowned plastic surgeon, Patrick Vilaire outlined some years ago at the Fondation Cartier in Paris. In 2008, he has presented in Amsterdam a work entitled prescient: The Potomitan or the Richter scale. The metal sculpture shows the central axis of the sanctuary of a temple shook. The column that makes the connection between the servant and God is maintained by the outstretched hands. “In conducting this work, I meant they were going to a big problem. It is home to an imbalance in our culture due to a policy and an economy that led to disaster, “he said. He added: “The earthquake has destroyed the physical and moral frame. He crushed the places of worship. It is experienced by the mass of believers as a divine punishment. People think that the voodoo gods have expressed their anger. ”

Patrick Vilaire is a sort of mystic atheism. After the earthquake, he went with some friends in mass graves for the bodies out of mass graves and bury them more acceptable. He mined the corpses, wrapped and covered in earth. Then he planted a cross on the mound. In the voodoo ritual, the dead are regarded as a carnal envelope that deserves respect. Their departure has to do with dignity. According to tradition, the spirit of the dead meets the sea are to believe Max Beauvoir, who built his temple on the coast, “a soul back sixteen times on earth to eight lives as a man and woman in eight lives. Then it becomes a pure spirit who travels at the speed of light and protects the living. ”

The Vaudouism are convinced that some of the lost tragedy of January 12 will be reincarnated in November, the month dedicated to the worship of ancestors. This is an opportunity for the deceased to pass messages to the living and ask questions. Practitioners will meet with the family. The ghost takes possession of a participant. Like every year, these celebrations of the dead will be chaired by Baron Samedi, the god of the dead, and his wife, Brigitte Grande. They are animated by Guede. “These are people who suffer unbearable not regulations. They orchestrate lascivious dances that Catholics disavowing “notes Elizabeth, wife of hougan Port-au-Prince. In the temple, a statue symbolizes the reunion: she is a woman hugging a skeleton.

The possibility of a trial outside of Haiti stems including the destruction of the judiciary, it was noticed in Government: The small building floor in Port-au-Prince is the only building of the Ministry of Justice still standing but his court was filled with tents and victims of the earthquake.

As most components of the Haitian State, the means of Justice had been undermined by the disaster, including the destruction of the courthouse and the death of dean of the Civil Court of First Instance, Rock Cadet.

Ten people, five men and five women, were arrested along with 31 children, aged 2 months to 12 years, a Haitian police officer while they were crossing the Dominican border, said Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Yves Christallin.

“This flight is not an adoption,” he said, adding that “to leave Haiti a child needs a permit from the Institute of Social Welfare, which handles cases adoption.

According to him, two pastors, one in Haiti and one in Atlanta (Southeast U.S.), are also involved in this case.

American citizens have been brought to justice and were held Saturday evening at the Central Directorate of Judicial Police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti with two alleged accomplices, confirmed to AFP Chief of Police Mario Andresol .

An investigation was initiated to determine under what circumstances ten Americans came into possession of the children, said Andresol “is now in justice to his work,” he said, adding that children were transferred to a shelter in Croix-des-Bouquets, north of Port-au-Prince.

“It’s a shame that this is the Americans who are involved in this case because they are helping us like other countries do,” said the commerce minister.

In an interview with U.S. television network NBC, a relative of Americans said they arrested were charged with trafficking in children, and that this case was, they said, a misunderstanding administration.

The Americans were presented as part of a charity called “The Refuge for a new life for children, based in the state of Idaho (north-western United States).

Many children have been adopted since the earthquake that devastated Haiti January 12.

The U.S. administration on Wednesday urged the prospective adoptive parents of Haitian children to be patient, pending the establishment of “transparent” procedures to avoid mistakes and trafficking of children.

Britney Gengel

Christine Gianacaci

Courtney-Hayes

Stephanie Crispinelli

Lynn University President Kevin A. Ross said the search for “Journey of Hope” students and faculty will continue.  So far 8 students who escaped the Hotel Montana in Petion Ville, Haiti after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake,  have returned to the United States. 6 more remain missing including two professors.  The missing students & staff who were staying at the now destroyed Hotel Montana have not been heard from since the earthquake on January 12, 2010.  False intelligence have angered the parents of Britney Gengel who swiftly flew to South Florida to meet with their daughter after they were told that she was found.  The parents remain banded together and hopeful that their children are alive and well.

Patrick Hartwick

Richard Bruno

Courtney Elizabeth Hayes, My former student was NOT found as reported. She’s still missing in Haiti. plz pray 4 her

Veronique Alphonse & her two daughters missing in Port Au Prince, contact @hertzog #Haiti”