CORAIL-CESSELESSE, Haiti -- It was after midnight in a remote annex of this isolated tent camp on a windswept gravel plain. Marjorie Saint Hilaire's three boys were fast asleep, but her mind was racing.
Jake Price for The New York Times
Ms. Felicien read one appeal for help as other camp residents listened. "It is like we are bobbing along on the waves of the ocean, waiting to be saved," she said.
The camp leader had proposed writing letters to the nongovernment authorities, and she had so much to say. She lighted a candle and summoned a gracious sentiment with which to begin.
"To all the members of concerned organizations, I thank you first for feeling our pain," she wrote slowly in pencil on what became an eraser-smudged page. "I note that you have taken on almost all our problems and some of our greatest needs."