By Suzanne Hodgson
Staff Writer

Gabidson Boisrond feels guilty he is not in his home country of Haiti.
“Inside of me I know I can be safe anywhere I go, I’m safe, I will survive,” he said. “I feel bad I wasn’t there. What happened, what should I do, what can I do?”
In 2007 Gabidson saved his mother from a flood and was forced to stand 18 hours on a roof waiting to be rescued. This time he wasn’t there to help, but his family was lucky.
Text messages, Twitter feeds and Internet chat rooms are helping to relay messages back to Maine about friends and family in Haiti.
With more than 200,000 estimated dead in Haiti, Kennebunk resident Lisa Lassey and Kennebunkport resident Boisrond received good news this week.
Boisrond heard his mother, four brothers, two sisters as well as his daughter are all alive.
Roshlyne, Gabidson’s 11-month old daughter was living with her mother in Haiti, but Gabidson and his wife Erin Boisrond are planning to bring her to the United States.
“They still aren’t letting anybody go down,” said Erin Boisrond. “We’re trying to hold off until we can bring back our daughter.”
Lassey heard through Boisrond that her three friends and co-workers at Partners in Development also are alive.
Partners in Development works to help those in extreme poverty in Guatemala and Haiti through education and medical centers. The medical center Partners in Development set up in Blanchard, Haiti, is still standing and residents are lining up to wait for a medical staff to arrive. The staff of volunteers has not yet been formed.
But, as of Monday, that’s all they have heard.
“There’s limited communication with staff workers,” said Lassey, although it is known one field worker has a broken leg.
Now Lassey is relying on Twitter messages with Partners in Development founder Gale Hull for information.
“On the way to airport in Guatemala picked up food to send to Haiti on a Guatemalan plane. The extreme poor even donated small bags of rice,” said Hull’s Twitter message on Jan. 16.
Before Gabidson Boisrond heard his family was alive, he was waiting by the phone, reading Haitian Web sites and chatting online with other Haitian friends.
“Our Haitian friends text a couple of friends online. We’re constantly talking to people. It’s a coming together Haitian community,” said Erin Boisrond. “When our Haitian friends call I think ‘Oh God they have news’ but they’re calling to ask if we have news.”
Erin and Gabidson met five years ago while Erin was on a trip with Partners in Development, when she said they fell in love. After many years of trying, in 2008 Gabidson was allowed to return to the United States with Erin.
Now that communication is beginning to trickle in, the Boisronds and Partners in Development are making plans to help survivors.
“We want to be on the first plane when they let citizens on. There are never enough relief workers. Even if our family is fine, other people are not fine,” said Erin Boisrond. “We’d go in through the Dominican Republic, I’d swim there.”
When they are able to get a flight into Haiti, the Boisronds plan to bring food, water and medical supplies. They hope to be able to also contribute to Partners in Development donations.
Partners in Development is in the process of setting up the logistics of taking a volunteer medical team into Haiti.
Lassey heard the medical centers driver was also alive and will be able to transport the team to their center when they arrive, but “food and clean water is really becoming an issue down there,” she said.
While the airport is still not open, Partners in Development has been working with Missionary Flights International to drop off some of the more than 100 medical volunteer requests pouring in to Partners in Development.
Partners in Development’s Web site, www.pidonline.org is also collecting donations online.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.