Utah mom is staying in Haiti

While desperate Americans jam the drab Port-au-Prince air terminal in Haiti, intent on escaping a spreading rebellion before international flights are cut off, Utahn Rebecca Maesato fights her own battle.

The woman from Hyde Park, Cache County, drove by the frantically bustling airport on an errand Friday, but she will not heed the U.S. State Department's appeal to flee the troubled country.

"I'm here because I've got kids of my own that are here. And I'm not quite ready to flee them," Maesato told KSL-TV Friday. Those she claims as her own are Haitian orphans, four of whom she is working to adopt. There are three more she hopes will be able to emigrate with her help. Two slated for adoption in Idaho and a 10th young man hoping to serve The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before emigrating also are part of her cobbled-together family at the moment.

She is determined to bring all 10 to the United States eventually, despite civil war and a dozen other seemingly insurmountable challenges.

In a two-part story in April 2003, the Deseret Morning News, in cooperation with KSL-TV, told the story of the Utahn's determination to make some small contribution to better the lives of Haiti's children, countless numbers of whom struggle for mere existence. The story has been ongoing since.

Maesato arrived in Haiti a year and a half ago with a dream and a resolve to make a difference in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and her work isn't yet finished. She means to hold on, despite the crumbling government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which is threatened by growing rebellion.

"I feel that even if I got stuck here, I would be OK," she said. "I don't think it would be so bad that I couldn't survive and live. One thing I've learned being in the middle of something like this is that life goes on."

Meanwhile, American and other diplomats on Friday handed Aristide a peace plan that calls for an interim governing council to advise him and appoint a prime minister agreeable to both sides in the two-week rebellion that has overwhelmed the impoverished country's north.

But both sides were almost certain to reject it — Aristide because he has said he will not negotiate with the opposition, and the rival leaders because they want Aristide to step down.

Maesato and her two youngest daughters, Leah, 20, Orem, and Ann, 18, began their crusade with the intent of bringing relief to some of Haiti's thousands of orphans. The daughters rapidly picked up Haitian Creole.