Kenyan who lived to tell survival tale

Were it not for an illness and subsequent admission to a hospital in Haiti, perhaps the Kenyan survivor of last week’s devastating earthquake would not have lived to tell his improbable tale.

Mr Humphreys Munai, a Kenyan living and working in America, arrived in Haiti on Monday January 11, on routine assignment. Having spent the night in the now famished country, Mr Munai was taken ill and had to seek treatment.

“I went to hospital for a check up before going back to the office. That was the beginning of God’s miracles,” Mr Munai said. “The hospital was swinging. Every building around went down but that one.”

Medical tests

In an interview with the Nation, he said medical tests delayed his immediate discharge. But the doctor said he was fine and recommended his discharge, but the quake hit before the nurse could release him. “We spent the night in the parking lot of the hospital, seeing people dying, wailing, screaming, mourning, being operated on while in the parking lot,” he recalls.

Mr Munai is an International Finance Coordinator for World Neighbours, an international organisation working to reduce hunger, diseases and poverty around the world, including East Africa. He counts himself lucky after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake levelled most of Port-au-Prince. About 300,000 people are feared dead. “It’s just a miracle. I saw bodies on the streets, their dreams shattered,” he said.

Together with a colleague from Guatemala, Conrado Vargas, he spent the following night on the tarmac road in front of their World Neighbours office because buildings were not safe. In the morning, he walked back to his hotel, only to find it had collapsed. “It was depressing, and reality struck. What we were wearing is what we would wear for some time. We had to go back to the office because at least it was still standing.”

Hunger pangs were at work, but after trying to get food, all they could get was water, juice and biscuits, Munai says. They realised it was time to leave Haiti. “I wanted my wife and mother to know I was alive. I could not let them suffer from the lack of information,” he said in an e-mail interview from Oklahoma, where he lives.

But his escape was frustrated by a closed airport. The only way out was to travel by road to neighbouring Dominican Republic. On the boarder, they were ushered through by Haiti guards to Dominican side where they cleared with passport control. They did not have an exit stamp from Haiti, but the officials understood.

“How we were able to spend the night outside in a foreign land, make our way through the Dominican Republic and on to the US still confounds me,” Mr Munai admits. Once in, he embarked on an incredible 300-kilometre journey by road. They hired a pick-up to Santo Domingo from where they flew into America. “It did not matter the cost, all we wanted was to get to a place where we could be safe.”

Three days after surviving a horrendous quake, Munai and his colleague arrived at Santo Domingo. “As soon as we saw the sign FREE Wi-Fi, we took out lap tops and made the calls to our loved ones. I called my wife and we cried on the phone. I then called my brother Alex and asked him to pass the message to my family until I got access to power source to charge my computer,” he said.

“Thanks to my praying family led by my parents Rev Wellington and Mrs Eunice Munai. You raised me to make quick decisions,” he said of his parents living in Bunyore, Western Province. His brother, Alex Munai, in an e-mail exchange, summed up this rare tale thus: “Had you been well, or had you been discharged, you would most likely have been at the hotel which was flattened out. Thank God for what happened.”

Mr Munai, in Bible-speak, says that his ordeal has given him a new perspective on life. “It’s a second chance at life. I should not be alive today. I should be dead in Haiti and maybe never to be found again. I thank God for everything. I may have emotional scars, physical pain but I can recover from that.” He rejoined his wife, Judith, and their two children.