Did you see the before and after pictures of the palace? Just wow.

Logging in for the first time in a long while to say that, at the reccommedation of one of my favorite bloggers, I'm making an Emergency Relief/undirected donation to Doctors Without Borders. Their facilities in Haiti have apparently been damaged (just like all the other buildings!) and it looks like they are currently treating the wounded in open-air tents with no surgical facilities at all.

The US site for donations is here. Non-US folks can find their country-specific page here.

Thanks for the round-up of links to giving resources, serazin and muddgirl.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. I covered the US intervention in Haiti back in 1993 for NBC and altogether spent about 2 months there. The poverty I saw, not just in Port au Prince but in many of the rural villages, was just so heartbreaking. I remember one tiny village called I think Luli, where many of the so-called Haitian boat people left from, and how some little children there tried to sell me shells off the beach. Standing there talking to them with my not-great French and their Creole, I felt very overfed and over-privileged and just very helpless to make any real difference.

I've always donated to Doctors Without Borders and will continue to do so as I know they have a presence there. It's just so incredibly sad to see these people who already have very difficult lives with little hope for the future to be so devastated by the earthquake. It's just very very sad.

Oh, god.

I don't get any tv broadcasts, so I've been insulated from worst of the news and the images until I went looking. Oh, oh, dear.

Again: thank you, thank you for the links and suggestions of places to send relief.

I donated directly to Doctors Without Borders.

If your employer has a matching funds program, be sure to check first to see which are eligible for a match from your company.