As I sit and write this from a place of extreme comfort, thousands of people are sitting in flimsy tents while Hurricane Tomas dumps rain on this beleaguered island. I wouldn't be surprised if there are reports of frogs falling from the sky -- how much is too much? The earthquake, cholera, Hurricane Tomas, presidential elections -- what's next?
When I was a child, we spent our summers at this Victorian-era Methodist campground on the North Shore of Massachusetts. My favorite times at the Grove were days just like today: rain, rain, rain, rain. I'd curl up on the couch in front of the fireplace and read until my eyes hurt. Now when I hear rain on the roof I cringe, wondering which roads will be blocked by landslides, how many people will lose their homes, or if a wall of water will come rushing down the mountainsides and wipe out the villages below. I took the photo above in Fonds Verrettes in October 2008, one month after a series of tropical storms and hurricanes hit Haiti in rapid succession. Fonds Verrettes was badly affected by the 2008 storms, but flooding during Hurricane Jeanne in 2004 took out the entire town, leaving only the remnants of the police commissariat in its wake. Everywhere is vulnerable.
So, like millions of other Haitians and expats living here, I'm waiting for January 1, 2011. It's simply another day on the calendar, but symbolically it moves us away from 2010 and this constant onslaught of disaster. I am focusing on the Haiti that enchants so many: hot nights filled with
compas music and drums, cold Prestige beers on the veranda during sunset, stunning mountains that appear to undulate towards the horizon, little girls crowned with hair ribbons walking to school... I'm focusing on beauty and hope.
