Gabriola’s personal Haiti connection
Janina Stajic
janina@soundernews.com
Monday, February 1 2010
“I was off on an adventure and I found my soul mate,” says Gabriolan artist Carl Billington. Unfortunately, his soul mate, Denise Sintima, was in Port-au-Prince on January 12th, when the earthquake hit Haiti.
“For two days we didn’t hear anything. We were going crazy because we didn’t know what had happened.”
And then, at 3am Pacific Standard Time, Denise called to say she had survived, although the home she’d been living in was completely destroyed and she had found refuge in a survivors’ camp in the hills. She has now left Port-au-Prince and is staying with her mother and father on their farm in the countryside.
“There’s been one blessing that’s come out of this,” says Carl, “when they fixed the satellite link they did it better than before so now communication is easier.”
This could help him in his goal to get Denise onto Canadian soil where he hopes to marry her. For three years Karl and his family have been trying to help Denise immigrate. Ironically, five hours before the earthquake hit, Denise had emailed to say she had received a letter from their new immigration agent and, excited that things were starting to move forward, mailed it that afternoon back to the agent.
“We finally found an agent who was honest. It took a long time to do this. But we finally found one, and the paperwork had reached Denise and then the earthquake hit.”
There is still hope that he and Denise will be reunited, but it is dependent on the infrastructure being rebuilt in Haiti.
“Probably Denise’s best bet is to get to the Dominican Republic where she can have easy Internet access to communicate with the immigration agent and ourselves.” In order to do that, she needs to get back to Port-au-Prince to withdraw funds and then travel to the Dominican Republic, something that will be tricky if the infrastructure is not rebuilt in a timely fashion. But, if she makes it there, the immigration process might be expedited.
“She’s such a smart, strong, caring woman,” says Karl. “She’s done her university degree and gone as far as she can in her own country. And she really wants to be part of our family.”
Karl is doing all he can to help Denise and looks forward to the day when he can welcome her to Gabriola. “When this beautiful soul comes to our island I hope Gabriolans will embrace her. I want her to enjoy the dream of being in Canada.”
Various organizations are still taking donations for Haiti relief; see www.canadahelps.org for more information. And, on Gabriola, Florence Dedame has organized a yoga fundraiser to take place next Sunday, February 7th, from 9:30am-12:30 in the Phoenix Auditorium at the Haven.
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