They’ve been here for less than two weeks, but some of the Haitian refugees housed in the Port Antonio Infirmary seem right at home. One man chatters away, in creole, on a cell phone as others pass the time playing card games and dominoes.

The 10 who landed at Manchioneal, just six miles from Hector’s River, seem in good health and good spirits. They have the benefit of viewing programmes on a 13″ television set, and if mosquitoes get too pesky they can retreat to their beds arranged on the floor, dormitory-style, each protected by a mosquito net.

“They are well taken care of,” said a police officer inside the Port Antonio Police Station who wished to remain anonymous. “They get a lot of things from people.”

Meanwhile, back in the Fairy Hill section of the parish, several of the more recent refugees who arrived last Thursday used the morning to wash their clothes in wash pans, then laid them on the thick grass for the mid-day sun to dry.

Forty-eight hours after beaching their small boat at Hector’s River and being transferred to Port Antonio, the parish capital 30 miles west, the Haitians were moved another 10 miles east to the Winnifred Rest Home in Fairy Hill, an area that has become inundated with multi-million-dollar homes since the 1990s.

After spending their first night at the rest home that sits adjacent to Winnifred Beach, one of the parish’s favourite aquatic sojourns, Saturday morning greeted them with a light drizzle, which quickly gave way to brilliant sunshine.

A football made its way to the grassy front lawn with a few of the younger set skilfully juggling and kicking the ball. Others played dominoes on the verandah. At mid-morning they broke for devotion, conducted in English by a volunteer from the Red Cross. Very few of the refugees, though, sang along, due in part, it seems, to the language barrier. The session ended with one of the Haitians, who has a pretty good command of the English language, offering a word of prayer in creole, invoking God’s presence.

Police assigned to the refugees said they were given strict orders by their superiors to prevent outside communication with the Haitians. Officials at Winnifred Beach were making plans to erect a fence to keep out intruders as efficiently as at the Port Antonio infirmary, even though Winnifred’s vast land space could conceivably make that venture a costly project.

By mid-day Sunday, the Haitians were visited by personnel from the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), the Red Cross, Salvation Army and medical professionals.

“They seem to be in reasonably good health,” said Dr Barbara Carby, director-general of the ODPEM. “But we have to keep them confined because we don’t know who these people are. They can access help from the Red Cross, who can help them cope psychologically.”

One English-speaking Haitian requested the use of a cell phone “so I can call Haiti for two minutes”.