“The Darkness Night of Our History…”

And I would add to Edwidge Danticat’s words, the longest night of our history.  My words will be brief tonight.  Like many inside and outside of Haiti, I anxiously await to hear from family in Port-au-Prince as I’m typing this post.

I was preparing for my trip to Haiti (which is scheduled for next week) when I heard the horrific news.   As if expressing its own version of an aftershock, my body shook, literally for an hour, as I watched the news unfold.  I was heartbroken.   And I wept.

I wept for yet another disastrous event to have struck a country that is so close to my heart.

I wept for the mothers and fathers who are trying to locate their children in the heavy cloud of dust and darkness that has engulfed the Capital.

I wept for the people and their voices trapped in the debris they once called their home, or work place, or community.

And I wept, in anger, for the reporter I saw on TV who questioned a correspondent she was interviewing about the risk of violence in the country’s distressed capital because, (and I quote) “Haiti is a violent nation”.   Now, if the media can’t even try to uplift a country at its most tragic hour in history, will they ever let go of the negative image of Haiti they insist on presenting to the world?