Tomorrow it will be two weeks since that massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti.
I have written on the efforts by the U.S. and other countries, organizations and individuals to rescue those trapped in the rubble and to save lives, to treat the injured and to reduce the immense suffering.
There have been many stories on the stoicism, the perseverance and the endurance of the Haitian people. Those rescued alive after having been buried under tons of concrete for six, seven, eight, even 11 days are— no witticism intended—living proof.
And now, only two weeks after such a catastrophic event, life goes on. At least it seems so on a residential and commercial street in Port-au-Prince named Avenue Poupelard.
According to Deborah Sontag and Ginger Thompson, Avenue Poupelard “offers a panorama of life in the ruins of the Haitian capital where a stricken heart still beats.” A street “in the center of this devastated city pulses with life and reeks of death…”
In a haunting report in today’s New York Times, Sontag and Thompson tell us about a coffin maker hammering together coffins as fast as he can while the body of a 6-year-old boy decomposes in the ruins of a school,” and while:
Hundreds of displaced residents squat in the junked cars of a mechanic’s lot as a lawyer, writing briefs, camps under the bougainvillea of her uninhabitable villa. A fiery pastor preaches outside the ruins of his church; street vendors hawk small plastic bags of water; an AIDS clinic reopens briefly each day for patients who survived the earthquake but ran out of essential pills.
And, bound in muslin like a mummy, a cadaver lies beneath a sign that screams “S O S,” deposited there by neighbors as if to underscore their cry for help as they struggle to reconstitute some semblance of community and move forward.
The authors tell us about the utter physical destruction on Avenue Poupelard and how, despite such destruction and the incalculable number of deaths,
…almost no one on Avenue Poupelard seems to let himself cry, not even the children. Grief is still buried under shock, and there is a stoic determination to face the future because, no matter how tenuous, it is far less frightening than the immediate past. It is daunting to imagine the recovery that lies ahead. But in this one pocket of the city, as elsewhere, life of a survivalist sort goes on.
Yes, life goes on for the long-suffering survivors on Avenue Poupelard.
And life includes business and commerce, such as the coffin maker, “who is charging his neighbors $125 per plywood box, about a quarter of the average yearly income,” and “a barbershop here, a tiny food stand there.”
It also includes politics, “with many openly cursing President René Préval for making few forays into hard-hit areas.”
And life as it goes on includes, of course, religion:
Before the earthquake battered the large Evangelie de la Grâce Church, Pastor Enso Sylvert said he routinely drew hundreds of worshipers who spilled out onto the sidewalk for Sunday services. Now he has a gravel lot and a circle of folding chairs, but during a morning service last Thursday, his faith was on fire. He wore a salmon shirt, bounced on the balls of his feet and thrust his Bible in the air, working a crowd of displaced residents into a good-spirited frenzy.
And life includes incredible acts of goodwill, compassion and charity.
But, most of all, life goes on under the most heartbreaking conditions that include horrific injuries and pain, new and existing illnesses and medical problems—such as H.I.V./AIDS—abominable sanitary conditions and abject poverty:
Ms. Mabeau was squatting in the mechanic’s yard opposite the dermatology clinic, where about 300 people have taken shelter in junked cars. It is one of the largest encampments in the neighborhood, with extended families crowding into broken-down vans and painted jitneys. At night, they reserve the best car seats — where there are seats — for the babies, and sleep in the open air.
Conditions are harsh. The people pool their pennies to buy small packets of water and spaghetti, they have no running water or electrical generator and diarrhea is rampant…
But, somehow, life goes on in what is left of Avenue Poupelard, and of Haiti.
Please read the rest of this poignant report here.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.