Rebuilding Haiti
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the world quaked, and in thirty-five seconds, the world changed. A cloud of dust and debris and a cloak of devastation and despair settled across a land of nine million people. Thirty-five seconds, and a third of those nine million were either dead, lost, injured, homeless, poor, hungry, or thrown into the dark.
January 12, 2010: the day that haunts the Haitian people. As the world looked on with sympathy, people wondered why one of the past decade’s most devastating natural disasters must strike the poorest country in the western hemisphere. A 7.0 magnitude quake on the Richter scale, the Haiti earthquake tore apart everything from national monuments to families. Totaling more than $14 million in damages, the quake killed 250,000 people. Of those who survived, 300,000 are injured, 1,000,000 are homeless, and an immeasurable number of families are plagued by sorrow. Among the debris lie the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, and the Port-au-Prince Cathedral: landmarks that have fallen along with the failing spirits of the Haitians.
For the past two months, we have been the spectators. The cameras have captured everything. We have all seen the hollowed faces of the starving people in overflowing food lines, the haunting eyes of the missing, and the orphaned children too shocked to cry.
But we have also seen the pictures of a blind 109-year-old woman saved from the wreckage, a seven-year-old boy who smiled to the world when he emerged out of the debris, and the three-hour-old baby who, after surgical procedures, opened his eyes again. Behind each survival story is the beginning of a light that has emerged out of the crisis.
A candle burns brightest in the dark. In the most hopeless of times, in the darkest of days, in a country where the people’s spirits have been crushed, the devastation has also brought out the faith and the strength of others. Jaques Bazin, 54, after being dug out from beneath the rubble where he was trapped for three days, immediately began to help search for others. While Joanie Yestin, 23, luckily escaped her crumbling house, her father was not as lucky. After burying her father, she donned her girls scout uniform and gave whatever strength she had left to the relief efforts. A Haitian orphanage, Maison de Lumiere, has committed their efforts to tend to the homeless and injured. It has marshaled volunteer nurses and doctors from the streets to come in and do everything within their abilities. Even the kids have pitched in to help by cleaning up and comforting victims.
But it is not just the Haitian population that has united its efforts to help begin a recovery period. When the world heard of the Haiti earthquake, it was brought together by one cause. One call for humanity brought rescue teams from all over the world, from Italy to Taiwan to Libya, flocking to the aid of one small island country. Now, the united willpower of more than 130 nations stands together with Haiti as she faces the dark. While these countries help dig a population out of the darkness, they are also striving to bring light back to a country suffering the hardest of times.
So while people from Hilary Clinton to Angelina Jolie make Haiti their priority here in the United States, the efforts to help Haiti extend far beyond U.S. borders. In London, seven-year-old Charlie Simpson is pedaling his bicycle around the local park to fundraise more than $220,000 for UNICEF to give to Haiti. Others have traveled to Haiti to help on the scene. Volunteers and doctors all around the globe are treating triaged patients out on the streets. Rescues are carried out despite late night hours. No one pauses to take a breath for himself; he is too preoccupied with the measured breaths left in the life of another. One rescue worker shares that “Every time we find a live victim, that’s the energy that keeps us going.” It is the sentiment, the hope, the light, that keeps all of us going: the Haitians, 130 countries, and the millions of witnesses across the world.
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