Write to Empower Archives - Haiti Surviving Crisis

Haiti: Surviving a Crisis

Joan Baez, “You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”

The devastation in Haiti is a tragedy; partly because of Mother Nature’s power, partly because of the poverty of the people, and partly because the building standards and health care are horrible in a third world country. In this past week this tragedy has given us a chance to share our beauty as human beings through our ability to respond to crisis and be our best. Many of us have been praying for the people in Haiti, some of us have sent money, and some have skills that are useful as rescuers, doctors, and crisis managers. Almost a week later aftershocks are still happening, people are dying of thirst and lack of food, and Haitians still need our support and prayers.

For those of us who live here in North America life goes on. Does it take a crisis of this kind to point out the injustices of poverty and ignorance? Haiti is our neighbor, it’s not Africa where daily, children are being orphaned by AIDS. I know I can’t save everyone, yet I do have a voice and can express my feelings. I am not alone in moving on after a crisis, yet today I am driven to take this tragedy as a message that I can do better, make more of a difference in all ways. I am more determined than ever to be an unreasonable woman who speaks her truth, and stands up to injustice in any form. We can make a difference in our neighbors lives sometimes just by remembering them when they are gone. Below is a story of how one woman survived the crisis. 

All rescuers saw of Saint-Helene Jean-Louis when they arrived at the collapsed University of Port-au-Prince building were the top of her head and her left hand. It had been four days since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled the building yet the 29-year-old student was still breathing inside a stairwell surrounded by eight decaying bodies, one entwined with her own. Rescuers spent nearly 30 hours working in two shifts before they pulled Jean-Louis out of the building — still alive. She was able to say her name before being whisked away to an Israeli field hospital.

"To me, she's the hero of the group," said Fairfax County firefighter Richard McKinney. "She had to have spent that first night by herself." Jean-Louis didn't speak English, but was able to talk to a local Creole-speaking firefighter while rescuers sawed, drilled, hammered and pulled at the rubble. One of the rescuers said, "I've been doing this for a long time and you don't see that many people buried for that long of a time who are still coherent." Numerous bodies inside the building had begun to decay and the stench was at times overwhelming. Jean-Louis' story had a happier ending. "You have Mother Nature in all her power and fury with this earthquake, yet this woman has just as much strength as the earthquake," said rescue squad member Kim Klaren. "It's almost like the earthquake picked the wrong woman to pick on."

Jean Louis was truly an unreasonable woman:  she held on and determined it was not her time to die. This week’s exercise is to describe how you are an unreasonable woman. Are you able to be polite, yet not give way? Are you able to be compassionate yet hold onto and be strong with your feelings? Are you able to laugh at yourself, yet say “that’s not funny” when someone makes a disparaging remark? The world needs more unreasonable women, women with the strength of an earthquake.

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