1.12.10

I don't know how to write about what happened in Haiti a year ago. A ton of emotions rush through me just remembering. Horrific is the best word I can find to describe what we saw on television. Helpless is the one that describes how we felt watching it. My husband and I lived in Haiti for twelve years then moved to Miami. For six more years, we kept a house in Haiti and would go back for a month to six weeks about four or five times a year. We lived through all kinds of disasters, hurricanes and such, but never, ever, anything like what happened in Haiti last year. As we sat in our recliners, in our comfortable home, we felt like dirt. We knew the language and my husband knew every rock in that country, but we were of no help to anyone. Neither of us can do more than put a bandaid on a bo-bo. So we prayed and talked to people who wanted to help. Then facebook became more than a social network. It became a lifeline. We were able to contact people in Haiti via facebook and give them contact info for people who had serious resources that they were willing to give to Haiti. My seven years of teaching at my sons' school was a tremendous benefit as I connected with former students who were in the hospitals, at the airport, coming and going from the DR to Haiti. It was all we could do so we did it. We know it helped a lot with immediate needs. But now, a year later, it doesn't seem like it was much help at all. So much is undone, broken, destroyed. So many are homeless, broken, hurting. My heart hurts for those I know and love who live in Haiti, who cannot go somewhere else for a new beginning, who cannot leave to take a break from the stress of that life, who must keep putting one foot in front of the other and surviving. Haitians survive. Oh how I wish they could thrive instead.