Sandren has 7 children, and her husband died. She is from Thomazeau. Her house by the lake has been flooded and she has no place to live. For now, we were able to give her some food and some used clothes. Her story didn't quite fit together, but she is obviously very needy.
Derimen and her 4 year old boy Edward are from Nan Plezi. Deriman says that her husband is handicapped and can't work. She has been talking to us for quite some time, asking us to put her boy in the children's home. We are not exactly sure if her husband is actually handicapped, because once when I was making an appointment to go to her house, he wouldn't have been home because he was out tending the animals. This morning though, Edward was sick, so we sent him to see the doctor for free.
Lifet Fanfan lives in the poor village across the lake. She has 5 children and the children's dad was killed (gunshot). She was living in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake. Her house collasped in the one of the major aftershocks from the earthquake. She lost all of her belongings. One of her children was was injured and sent to the hospital in Jimani, DR. It was there that she met Yaya who is originally from Peyi Pouri. Yaya is letting Lifet and her children stay with her in her thatch hut. Even though Lifet has lots of needs, her main concern is to redo the children's birth certificate's that were lost in the earthquake.
Sonita Neristan has 2 children. She says that the children's dad was killed in the earthquake. Unfortanely she was unable to give me any names and phone numbers of friends that could verify that her children's dad had died in the earthquake.
Mirlande is 20 years old and 7 months pregnant. Her family from Fond Verrettes sent her to Port-au-Prince to go to school. One of the other classmates got her pregnant and then died in the earthquake. The person with whom she was living here in Fond Parisien, has kicked her out. Either she is ashamed to go back to her family, or her family doesn't have resources to take care of her. Most likely her family won't take her back because she wasted her education by getting pregnant.
The most difficult aspect of listening to these stories, is that I have no idea if there is any truth to any of them, but at the same time knowing that they are very needy.Ideally we would verify there stories to see if they qualify for help. And then the question is, "How do you really help?" We don't have the desire or funds to put them on a welfare type program. But really, "How can a single mom provide for her children in a country where there is very few jobs?"
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