Wednesday, January 27, 2010

It Helps to Have Friends in Haiti

Now I understand the Globe's obsessive focus on the girl.

"Gengel spearheaded the one-day trip to Haiti with the help of US Representative James McGovern, who is a family friend.... Gengel and two other Lynn University families flew in a private jet from Florida to the Dominican Republic, where they met McGovern. Together, they traveled by van to Haiti"

Everything is political in AmeriKa.


Where all missing Americans and their families accorded such attention?


"Father sought closure in Haiti; Gengel returns without Britney" by Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | January 25, 2010

The parents had returned home to Rutland on Friday after a nine-day vigil at their daughter’s college in Florida, resigned that little hope remained of seeing their eldest child alive again.

Of course, none of it lessens the absolute anguish they must be feeling.

Ten days had passed since a magnitude-7.0 earthquake violently shook Haiti and trapped Britney Gengel, a Lynn University sophomore, in the rubble of her hotel.

On Saturday, Leonard Gengel headed to Haiti, to bring his daughter home.

“We needed closure. We needed to come here. We needed to see with our own eyes,’’ Gengel said in front of television cameras as he toured the devastated hillside compound with the families of another missing student and a professor.

Yesterday afternoon, he came back, still without his daughter.

“You have to have a little hope still,’’ he told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette yesterday after returning to New England.

Gengel’s odyssey epitomizes the frustration and heartbreak of people trying to discover the fate of lost loved ones in the tragedy that has claimed more than 150,000 lives. Even as hope fades to resignation, the search for news yields more questions than answers.

I know those feelings when it comes to the newspapers.

And his is the story of tens of thousands of lives put on hold as they wait for news - even the worst news. Leonard Gengel and his wife, Cherylann, rode an emotional roller coaster, racing to Florida two days after the quake upon receiving word that their daughter had been rescued. But there had been a mistake. Britney Gengel, along with three classmates and two professors, was still missing, believed to have been trapped amid the ruins of the once stately Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince. “We’ve had one of life’s dirtiest tricks played upon us,’’ Leonard Gen gel said between shaking the hands of rescue workers Saturday. “This isn’t a reality TV show. This is real life and real pain and real suffering.’’

So why is the Globe protecting that security company?

Why do they OMIT and CONCEAL things?

************************

Gengel spearheaded the one-day trip to Haiti with the help of US Representative James McGovern, who is a family friend.... Gengel and two other Lynn University families flew in a private jet from Florida to the Dominican Republic, where they met McGovern. Together, they traveled by van to Haiti, stopping at the US Embassy to transfer into SUVs before traveling to the ruins of the hotel. Scent dogs were at work at the site yesterday, Hughes said. Although the Haitian government had switched the focus from rescue to recovery, that had not officially started at the Hotel Montana, he said....

After returning to his Worcester home yesterday, McGovern said it was a comfort for Gengel to see rescuers working around the clock, doing everything they could to find his daughter. It was also helpful, he said, for rescuers to have met the families, who thanked them, grateful for their tireless efforts.

It's been over two weeks and they haven't found anything?

But Britney Gengel remains missing. Leonard Gengel told NECN that he had spoken to someone at the hotel who confirmed that his daughter could not be found in her room. “She is in the rubble,’’ he said, as night fell.

Or is she a CIA agent who is going to be given a new identity?

I know it SOUNDS TERRIBLE, but that is HOW THEY DO IT SOMETIMES?

People just DISAPPEAR EVERY DAY, right?

Britney Gengel had arrived in the Caribbean nation Jan. 11, just one day before devastation struck. She was among a dozen Lynn students on a service mission for the semester, volunteering to feed the poor. Her brief time in Haiti had already made an impact, said her mother yesterday. After visiting an orphanage, Gengel, a communication major, told her mother she was considering changing her major to human services. “She was at a crossroads deciding what she wanted to do,’’ said Cherylann Gengel in a phone interview as she waited in their Rutland home for her husband’s return yesterday.

Leonard Gengel spent about two hours at the hotel Saturday, trying to capture his daughter’s final days. Thursday was Britney Gengel’s 20th birthday. “We’re preparing for the worst right now,’’ Gengel said. “And we’re praying for a miracle. But it’s 11 days, and we have to move forward.’’ Then, before leaving, he hugged a rescue worker and said softly, “Bring my baby home.’’

As long as it is not with a bunch of Haitian kids, huh?

--more--"

Also see
: Haiti Becomes Hell on Earth

Boston Globe Working the Phones For Haiti

Sunday Globe Censorship: Guilfoil's Girl

Missing Girl Buried in Haitian Hotel

Haiti Now a Happy Place