'I really wish I could go down and help them'

Want to help?

People who are interested in supporting Mirlande Auguste, Patrick Choucouloute and their families should e-mail their sister-in-law at crystal.auguste@verizon.net.

By Matthew E. Milliken

mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM -- When the ground shook in Haiti on Jan. 12, Patrick Choucouloute seemed to disappear.

Choucouloute, his wife and their 2-year-old son lived near the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, the sprawling capital city that was hard hit by the deadly earthquake. For days, siblings Mirlande Auguste, who lived elsewhere in Port-au-Prince, and Daniel Auguste, a Durham resident, worried about what had happened to their 29-year-old brother and his family.

Crystal Auguste, Daniel's wife, is a Pittsburgh native who teaches English as a second language at Burton Elementary School.

"The first two weeks after the earthquake, before we knew that his brother was alive, were the hardest, because we really didn't know what to think about his brother," she said. "I was kind of watching on CNN, seeing the mass graves ... being filled with people, and I would think, 'Oh, that could just be Daniel's brother.' "

Choucouloute and his family survived, unlike so many others. After days of sleeping outside their ruined home, bereft of shelter and food, they made their way about 30 miles from the downtown area to a neighborhood called Marin. There the trio reunited with Mirlande Auguste, her boyfriend and their children.

Mirlande, 33, was hardly better off. Her home, too, collapsed, as did the bakery where she and her boyfriend worked. They also lacked shelter, employment and relief from aid agencies.

"I'm glad they are alive, but really [I'm] working every day to know how I can help them recover," said Daniel Auguste, a 31-year-old recent graduate of Covenant College.

Although the circumstances are dire for Auguste's family, they were able to obtain a key bit of help thanks to Duke University Health System and some serendipity.

After Crystal and Daniel reached out to several aid groups and other organizations, to no avail, Daniel was connected to Ian Greenwald, Duke's chief medical officer for disaster preparedness and response. On Feb. 25, a day before Duke was about to send its second medical relief team to the stricken Caribbean nation, Greenwald was e-mailed Daniel's plea for tents for his family.

That evening, Greenwald determined that the aid team's flight would have room for tents. Larry Moneta, Duke's vice president for student affairs, made some late-night phone calls that resulted in REI opening its Durham outlet a few hours early on Feb. 26. A shipment of tents and tarps, paid for by an individual who asked not to be named, were packed up and delivered to the medical aid team. Daniel met them, too, and handed over an envelope containing photos taken at his and Crystal's June wedding, which none of his biological relatives were able to attend.

"It was a heart-warming moment," Moneta said of Daniel's meeting with the medical team. "We wish we could do more for a lot more people, but it was really nice to be able to support his family and get the tents and tarps down there."

Video of the delivery to Mirlande and Patrick show them having a flimsy shelter that provided almost no protection from wind or rain. Daniel Auguste's siblings were touched by both the tents and tarps and by pictures of their sibling and his wife. Choucouloute pulled out family pictures from his own wallet and showed them to a cameraman shooting video for Pioneer Consulting, the security and logistics firm that worked with Duke's medical team.

"I can't explain to you how difficult the situation is right now," Choucouloute said in the video, according to captions. "It's very depressing -- very, very depressing."

Tony Roche, a Duke anesthesiologist, was part of the team that helped make the delivery to Auguste and Choucouloute.

"I don't think it can compensate for the loss of a house," Roche said. "I don't think it can compensate for not having a living room. But if you consider that when it rains they should be dry at night, they should have shelter from the elements, I think it's huge."

But more remains to be done. In the video, Choucouloute said, "If we didn't have people helping us, we would die."

Daniel Auguste seems to be keenly aware of that. He, his wife and some friends have been trying to send at least $100 a week by Western Union to his relatives in Haiti.

The family's biggest need is food. But they are also trying to scrape up money to get treatment for Choucouloute's son, Leevendjy, whom they say is gravely ill after weeks of malnutrition and exposure to the elements.

"It's just been really hard for me as his wife to watch him walk through this valley of sorrow," Crystal Auguste said. "It's really been like a weight that's been on him."

Daniel Auguste, who is working part-time as a tutor, thinks of himself as not just the best but the only hope for his family in Haiti.

"I really feel like I'm not helping them enough," Daniel Auguste said, "and I wish I could really go down and help them, just finding them a place and help them rebuild their house and help them restock their business and just do it so they ... can have a chance in life and their children can have a better chance in life."