* Club, stadium, parks and gardens all shelter refugees

* Small markets spring up in midst of makeshift camps

By Patrick Markey

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Where foreigners once played golf and Haitians cheered their favorite soccer teams, Port-au-Prince's open spaces are now carpeted with crude camps housing tens of thousands of survivors after the earthquake that blitzed the capital.

Temporary tents and huts fashioned from sheets, corrugated iron and billboards cover the city's public spaces from the golf course and the soccer stadium to parks and even the once-groomed gardens of the prime minister's building.

Ten days after the magnitude-7 quake, aftershocks still jar the city, leaving many Haitians fearful of returning to cracked and damaged homes. The government says as many as 1.5 million people were left homeless by the huge quake that toppled buildings from the presidential palace to humble shacks.

Camps cannot be avoided in the city, squeezed among crushed concrete offices, churches and supermarkets or spread over whatever open space is available. They shelter Haitians left destitute and seeking aid or just wary of staying in buildings after the disaster that may have killed up to 200,000 people.

The parched grassy slopes of the Pentionville Club, where members teed off or played tennis, are now packed with tents made from blankets, branches and plastic sheeting spread across low hills. US army soldiers have set up base on the tennis courts, their Humvee jeeps parked alongside.

"This was one reason I stayed in Haiti. I came here for work but this was like an oasis. Not the best course in the world, but the only one in Haiti," said retired Swedish factory owner and long-time resident Peter Ostrom, carrying his golf clubs from the clubhouse after deciding to stay in Haiti to help. "It's serving its best purpose now."

Aid has begun to flow into the devastated areas, with the U.S. military distributing food and water and humanitarian agencies tending the injured and needy. Still, life in the camps means little food and no latrines as garbage piles grow.

At the club, U.S. Navy helicopters ferry in water bottles, emergency food rations and soldiers pass out wind-up transistor radios to Haitians waiting in line. Aid group Oxfam supplies water from two pumps at the base of the hills.

More than 20,000 people are packed onto the club grounds. That number swells to as much as 30,000 as people return from their shattered homes at night to escape aftershocks and more victims seek out aid at the camp, the U.S. military says.

"What I want is something to eat," said survivor Phillipe Dufour. "I left my side of town because someone told me there was help here."

ASTROTURF FOR CARPET

Aid workers have struggled to get relief into a shattered city that already lacked infrastructure before the quake. Roads are clogged with rubble and the city's port is only now partially operative for aid shipments.

Down the golf slopes in the camp, a makeshift market now sells oranges, plantains, nail polish, hairbands and charcoal for cooking. Even a barber shop is operating under a roof of plastic sheeting, with music blaring from a stereo.

Another camp fills the parks surrounding the president's white palace, its dome caved in by the quake, and the prime minister's office gardens are also packed with refugees, many believing such an important site would bring immediate help.

The city's Sylvio Cator football stadium has become a mass of shelters made of sheeting, flimsy corrugated iron plates and placards advertising Digicel cellphone service and local Mega rice with the pitch's white-lined Astroturf for their carpet.

"One time they came to give us rice, but that's finished now," said Michelet Horvil, who was hammering in nails to construct build a home for 12 relatives.

Camp refugees say they scramble for food at a local market, selling fruit and vegetables as the city comes back to life.

But even the disaster could not stop young Haitians from taking advantage of the stadium's artificial turf which once hosted local and international matches.

Men and boys fought for the ball on Thursday in a rough-and-tumble game on a clear part of the pitch.

"Everyone has problems, so it's good to play," said Junior Bolivard, a building painter watching the game. (Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Doina Chiacu)

AlertNet news is provided by