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| Alumna Starry Sprenkle with husband Erlantz Hyppolite and daughter Jasmine |
Sprenkle, her husband, Dr. Erlantz Hyppolite, and their 20-month-old daughter Jasmine live in Deschappelle, about 2½ hours away by car from Port-au-Prince. Sprenkle said she did not feel the initial quake because she had just taken off to drive to the capital where her husband had traveled that morning because his mother had just died.
As she drove closer the extent of the devastation became clear. It was overwhelming. Now, three weeks after the 7.0 quake destroyed much of Port-au-Prince and killed as many as 200,000 people, Sprenkle says aid is beginning to reach the affected population.
"Slowly but surely," she said in an e-mail interview. "On Sunday (Jan. 23) I saw water trucks in the tent cities. There is no way medical aid will be able to be enough because the patients are mainly amputees (because their wounds festered for days before any doctors could respond) and they have no aftercare, and must return to homeless and unsanitary conditions," she wrote.
"The aid distribution has been horrible — it's all centralized in a warehouse and people mass outside. We're very frustrated with the way it's going ... But trying to make the system work better (especially my husband who is a Haitian public health specialist)."
Initially, there was concern for her family's safety because she hadn't been heard from after exchanging a text message with her father in Salinas at 1:53 p.m. PST that Tuesday, the exact moment the quake struck. She was able to reach her parents by phone 37 hours later to say she, her husband and daughter were safe.
Sprenkle, 28, is working on a community-based project in Haiti involving replenishing soil and rebuilding orchards as she pursues her doctorate in ecology from UC Davis. She said her interest in tropical forest restoration stems from research as a UC Santa Cruz undergraduate.
She took part in the Tropical Biology education abroad program, which "changed my whole perspective on conservation," she said. "I realized we had to work with the people who are trying to survive near the forests."
Based on that experience, she returned to do research with environmental studies professor Karen Holl in Costa Rica, which reinforced her interest. "Costa Rica is where I learned about agroforestry, and what ultimately led to my work here," she said. "I've taken that to a whole new level here in Haiti, working with people to try to recreate working forests that will help them economically."
Sprenkle graduated with highest honors in plant sciences and environmental studies. She also played on the UC Santa Cruz women's basketball team.
Holl remembers that Sprenkle's senior thesis from her six months of field work in Costa Rica was the equivalent of a master's. "She talked with farmers, she ran an experimental plantation, she was very involved in the community," Holl said.
Sprenkle remembers her UC Santa Cruz years fondly. "I absolutely loved the relaxed learning atmosphere at UCSC, and I thrived in it," she said.
She said she hopes to continue her work in Haiti. "We're staying as long as possible. We're rationing our electricity and our food, but we've got decent access to food and fuel at the moment."
She's been collecting data fiercely, she said, in case she is forced to evacuate if the situation gets worse. Her area in Deschappelle is undamaged but "we're facing a huge refugee influx and the environmental pressures that go with that.
"I think, hope, we can wait it out, and that's what we're planning to try to do. Evacuation will be a last resort, since our lives are here right now. We would have to start over if we left."