In Haiti, tragedy, a way of life, is redefined
I was sitting on my bed surfing the Internet when I noticed silence, followed by a weird groaning sound. I figured it was a passing water truck. But funny, I thought — sounds more like an earthquake. The house started shaking. Then it really started shaking. I walked out of my room and kneeled slowly to the undulating floor, laptop in hand, as windows, two years' worth of haitian art and a picture of my grandfather smashed around me. I was not hurt. Not only that, the staircase in the house where I live and work, while completely invisible behind a choking white cloud of drywall and dust, was still standing. I yelled out for Evens, the AP's all-in-one driver/translator/bodyguard here. To my shock and delight he answered: "Let's go."
Sure, Haiti is no stranger to suffering: For most people here, tragedy is more common than lunch. And yet this nation has never faced anything on such a cataclysmic scale. Less than two years ago, the country's fourth-largest city, Gonaives, was left underwater by a limping tropical storm that would have barely disrupted traffic in Miami. Barely two months later, a school fell down in the slum-and-mansion suburb of Petionville, and about 100 people died. The first sign was a noise that sounded like sirens coming from over the hill. They were the voices of screaming parents. The city is a ruin. Fuel, food and water are running in short supply. Mothers have lost their children. Children have lost their families. Entire neighborhoods are sleeping in the streets. People walk miles up and down mountains, carrying everything they own, with no real place to go.
Imagine if nearly all the institutions in your life — flawed, but still the only ones — disappeared, all at once. In a life where the next meal is uncertain, where the next rain may claim your home, where the next election may happen or not — where that is the normal. Think of having those institutions smashed all around you. At the very moment when you have lost someone, perhaps many people, you loved. An entire city is screaming for help. I've finally logged onto the Internet long enough to see that some of those calls will be answered, at least in some way.
But what will happen after that help, like so much here, has vanished? Will there be an after?
God bless Haiti people. May they receive helps as soon as possible.
omg, this is scaryy mannn, ahhhh! okay took tht story frm yahoo news actually but i found it interesting and touching so decided to post it up here. =D
k bye.
