Seated at the nursing station at Holy Redeemer Hospital at 10 p.m., Ntoso reached behind her oval gold-rimmed glasses and rubbed her puffy eyes. Behind her, a bank of computer screens beamed squiggly lines monitoring patients' contractions and their nearly born babies' heartbeats.
Ntoso had not received any updates in the last 12 hours since her sister Michou in New York called to report that all but four of their relatives were accounted for and safe.
"We were a little bit relieved, but cautious," Ntoso said.
The earthquake respected no boundaries, inflicting its deadly, even-handed wrath upon the powerful and poor, the devout and the godless, the educated and illiterate.
With electricity scarce and access to computers and cell phones limited in Haiti, Ntoso's family had designated an aunt who lives in Miami as the point person for all communication. The one and only e-mail since the quake had arrived late Wednesday morning with a partial accounting.
Cousin Fabienne, a retired flight attendant with American Airlines, and her daughter were both fine, the note said. So was Aunt Yolaine and her husband, Valerio, whose family owned the Pharmacie Vital-Herne. Ntoso's cousin Valerio Jr., an ob-gyn in Petionville, a relatively wealthy suburb east of the capital, had also escaped injury.
But the note did not mention Uncle Max or Aunt Jeanne. And there was nothing about cousins Reginald and Henri-Claude, who shared a house on the outskirts of the capital. Reginald had moved back to Haiti several years ago after living in Montreal and New Hampshire. So had Henri-Claude, a former model who had lived in Los Angeles for several years and is said to have once dated Oprah.
"Nobody has any information," Ntoso said. "All you can do is pray and hope."
Although Ntoso left Haiti as a teenager, she visits occasionally and remains close to her relatives there.
