Haiti: Nothing Funny About It.

"...that question that haunts and taunts the conscience: "What can you do?" "

"One week on, it is impossible to see how Haiti can recover from this earthquake.

The fund-raising effort around the world has been truly incredible.

In the middle of one of the worst recessions in living memory, people have been giving money as perhaps never before..." (Price, M; BBC)

Since we are all au fait with Facebook, and if you're not, find someone who is and pass it on, I thought this was a good idea: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/pages/We-Will-Donate-0001-to-Haiti-for-Every-Person-That-is-a-Fan/284100898626?ref=search&sid=506204755.3569471062..1


Amidst the mass disaster, destruction and utter desolation currently tearing through Haiti, thus our news stations, there have been a few gems that help take the chill off the dire after-effects of this seemingly unatural disaster.

Stories from survivors that make your skin goosepimple and your heart smile.


"...pulled out after spending eight days buried under Haiti's rubble...-...a neighbour cry out: "I heard your daughter, she called out."

"I didn't believe it, but I rushed, the neighbours dug, she was alive and they dug her out. She talked to me and asked me for milk and cornflakes and then she fainted." ...The surgeon treating her at a French field hospital described her survival as as "a miracle". "...She is blessed by the gods," said Dominique Jean."

And:

"...She had been attending a church meeting in the home of Haiti's Roman Catholic archbishop, when it collapsed around her.

"We kept working until I could reach the woman and I felt she grabbed my hand and squeezed it strongly and I felt that God had touched my hand," said one of the Mexican rescuers...-...was dehydrated and had a dislocated hip and broken leg but sang as she was carried away on a stretcher..."



After earth shattering disasters there seems to be a sickly sweet effect on the otherwise individualistic, somewhat hostile society we have become; we knock down all barriers and merge together, because somewhere inside us, we realise that eventually together we are stronger. An article in the New York Times illustrates this fact wonderfully:


"...disaster makes strange bedfellows. Hence the cast of characters in a community where the melting pot usually melts only so far and the Hasidim and the Haitians invariably find themselves in separate worlds or competing ones. Nevertheless, for a day, there was the Haitian mayor, Noramie F. Jasmin, and her Hasidic administrative assistant, Aron Wieder, directing traffic inside the cavernous lobby, the urgency of the moment looming larger than the cultural chasm that usually separates them..." -

To read the rest, follow this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22iht-letter.html


Whether you are a believer or not, it is at times like these when people of all faiths and walks of life find themselves raising their heads up to the skies and asking how on Earth such cruel happenings could exist? But it is this being, for want of a better word, that we love to hate, real or not real, believed in or not - that becomes the butt of all problems. As well as the band aid.
It becomes the one that can be stuck on when needed in order to quiet the heart that hurts. Believers and non-believers turn to prayer. Custom made, written, mumbled and made to order. In the end, we all do, because it's the only thing we can do, right?


Facebook has also a page for prayers for Haiti: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/group.php?v=wall&ref=search&gid=246779503401


"Smoke from the morning fires begins to fill the nostrils, masking the smell of the dead. It filters the rising sun.

A golden glow covers this little fold in the hills of Port-au-Prince, as survivors pick through their homes." (Price, M; BBC)



Amidst the rubble, little miracles keep ocurring and it is these that will help build a better, stronger Haiti than before.




http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22iht-letter.html

http://images.google.es/imgres?imgurl=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_etdY51YqlW0/SMG1iP9-8oI/AAAAAAAAARg/WjGeVTrKqa4/s400/781-ayb05_haiti_LATIN_EPF_standalone_prod_affiliate_56.jpg&imgrefurl=http://pached.blogspot.com/2008/09/horrible-escena-en-hait-despus-de.html&usg=__VI6V0S0jBLK9mKhfJ_LhopfSLQg=&h=304&w=400&sz=33&hl=es&start=31&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=UjnE8IbuQTpQHM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dafter%2Bhaiti%26ndsp%3D21%26hl%3Des%26rlz%3D1T4ACAW_es___ES334%26sa%3DN%26start%3D21%26um%3D1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8459090.stm