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A 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on 12 January at 1653 local time, killing over 230,000 – more than the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami – and left over 1 million people homeless. This and a series of aftershocks saw schools, homes and hospitals destroyed in areas near the capital, Port au Prince. The UN headquarters, the presidential palace and head offices of international NGOs were flattened. An unstable country already heavily dependent on aid suddenly needed more. The United Nations appealed for nearly $1.5 billion in February 2010 – this was half met by April.

Over 40,000 people had limbs amputated in field hospitals much like the one I worked in a couple of weeks after the quake. Medical emergency relief charity Merlin’s setup was in a disused tennis court in one of Port au Prince’s hardest hit areas, Delmas 33. My role was media coordinator, the press monkey charged with finding stories amongst the patients and doctors on site to raise Merlin’s profile. One of my ‘case studies’ was a gregarious 8-year-old girl called Dayana. With her was a woman called Nadije, 23. Not her mother, but a guardian whose story has been taking hold of my life.

Our meeting was unremarkable. She was the adult-ish figure behind the little girl I was getting to know so I could offer her story to interested journalists. I have frames of her in video I shot and in photographs I took. As I moved along the wards, she asked me for my email address. I gave her my business card and moved on. A month later, she emailed me with what I thought was a begging letter. My reply was “Sorry, I have no money to give but perhaps you would like to tell me your story.” What followed is a continuing exchange of emails and online chats – the reality of poverty told in the virtual ether.

Marcel Izard from the International Committee of the Red Cross says, “Rape is common for migrants and there are many refugee camps in the Dominican Republic where people living in them have been deported. It’s quite hard gauging numbers of Haitian refugees pouring into the DR. We mainly work in conflict zones so we don’t have an official programme to cope with this influx.”

Finding figures for Haitian refugees has been difficult. The US Coastguard only holds stats for those they find at sea – around 400 as of April 2010. Other NGOs and aid agencies say their statistics only reflect the real people they see on the ground because clocking illegal migration from a country that kept less than accurate census stats is like asking how long a piece of string is.

So with that blur of facts, figures, statistics – all the things that impress people who like Powerpoint presentations, I bring you the letter I received from Nadije. And her picture. It says more than anything I could help to collate – and more than anything you could help to understand about a natural disaster that’s shafted a people shafted by its own.

“Before 12 January, we all had dreams. I was always told that I could be somebody…for my family, my country. Now there are no more dreams. No future for us. The conditions in which I was living became so critical I could no longer bear them. There was no support.

One thing happened after another. I couldn’t find anything to eat. I had nothing to wear. The whole world sleeps under beautiful stars, but we young girls cannot because rapists lurk in the day to day. This is another disaster. I spoke with a French coordinator who worked for an NGO. I told him everything. He told me “Lady, let me be frank with you. I am here as a doctor. But I can speak to someone who knows more about aid and tell him your story. Your situation is very unfortunate but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

So I spoke with this other man. Told him my life. I started crying. He said, “Don’t cry. There’s always tomorrow.”

I told him “I know there will be a tomorrow. But this is not my future. I will not have a chance to see my future because I have reached my end.” He said I shouldn’t lose hope because life is good. He asked, “What do you want to do with your life?” I said I wanted to continue with my studies. He noted this down. So…I got the same response of nothing. I’m always on the lookout to see if there’s anything new. But it is always the same.

One beautiful morning, I woke up with the idea of leaving my country to go to the Dominican Republic. I spent the day walking through the markets. I met a lady who gave me work washing dishes, washing everything. Just for something to eat and somewhere to sleep. I got to know some of the people in the area and they offered me more work. Cash in hand. One day, one of these people said he wanted to take me to Santo Domingo. I said yes. I thought he liked me and simply wanted to help me. So I thanked the lady I was working for and left.

What disappointed me deeply was that I was raped and beaten by three men. It is the most deathly pain I have ever known. Afterwards, I spent two days wandering, telling everybody I met my story. Like a blessing from God, I found a job as a maid at an apartment. I thought things were getting better for me. Then one morning, Hernandez, the husband of the woman who hired me offered me 100 pesos to fuck him. I refused. That evening, I didn’t know how to tell his wife that I no longer wanted to work there. So I threw myself out into the street.

So there we are. I might as well not exist. If I have a future, I dare not dream or imagine it. My life is completely destroyed. I know misery. Pain. Ignorance. I now know it all and I have survived it all. Please help me. Help me by any means. I have a life like everybody else. I want to study. I cannot be abandoned like this. I want to be someone in my life, for I know what is misery.

Thank you and all those who reach for the skies.”

Her first email was in Spanish. Subsequent ones have been in French. She wants to learn finance or journalism. Bilingual with a knack for turning a phrase, she’s clearly no idiot.

I have nothing but photos and the fading memory of a meeting to remind me that this woman is real. Naïve trust borne from her persistent communications about her day-to-day and a gut feeling to tell me she’s genuine. She’s also one of thousands – but she is still someone. What would you do?

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I’ve submitted this to the Guardian International Development Journalism Competition. The first time I’ve ever entered any sort of “hey look at me” shizzle. It won’t win.

It has also been selected out of over 1500 contributions for the first issue of 48hrmag and republished on The Comment Factory.

UPDATE: 48hrmag has won the Knight-Batten Innovation in Journalism award. [19 July 2010]

UPDATE: Contributors and readers to 48hrmag had two days to vote for the pieces they thought were best in Issue Zero. This was one of them. Thanks. [13 August 2010]