The small pools of water that usually soiled so many streets of Port-au-Prince had been replaced by a river of blood on this funeral afternoon. The streets were then reddened, the nature dark. Suddenly, each tree wore a bleached, white-powdered garment to the point of extravagance. Cries of distress filled the whole capital, but no one represented a great support for the other, since each was under the weight of pain; each had its own burden.
And here I was on the road with one question: "Will I find my wife and daughter alive?"
I reviewed, in this afternoon of meditation and reflection, these people whom I had personally known and who were no longer... I was thinking about this friend with whom I had come a long way after a monster traffic jam that had held the passengers in distress in the neighborhoods of Martissant... He and I had abandoned, on a night out, this public transport bus trapped in the waters following a light autumn rain. This friend died on the steps of his house, running to meet his mother just returned to her vacation from New York. I saw in my mind those mothers swept away by the pain, those fathers who were scrambling to try to pull their children out of the abyss of the rubble... I imagined the fate of the rector of the Faculty of Applied Linguistics dying while teaching on this afternoon. Together with his students, including a friend of mine, they were entered the afterlife and their bodies remained under the debris of the collapsed building for a while. I saw these dead brothers of my religious congregation whose mortal remains were struggling to find a tomb. Most of them were forced to return to the dust in the simplest and, as a result, the most despicable way. It is so unwise so many times we take our life as granted. So foolish we are living with the feeling that we will be there on earth forever and ever. We forget this simple and meaningful teaching of the Holy Bible. ‘’ You are dust and to dust you shall return.’’ (3)
I cannot resist sometimes shedding a few tears in the absence of my wife and daughters. Alone in my room, I let go of my emotions a little, because no one would be there to remind me that crying or moaning is cowardly, as Alfred de Vigny would have pointed it out. I, moreover, do not really have trouble expressing my feelings. I belong to those who laugh at the right time and cry when needed. But it is often said that a man should not cry, which places me at times in a conflicting situation with my emotions.
*
Suddenly came to my mind this friend whom I had loved and who was not indifferent to me. This young girl, who had greatly pleased me and whose only official relationship with my then fiancée, my wife now, had been the obstacle preventing us from going any further. I thought of her and the great silence that now weighed on her existence. I realized that her activities on Facebook were dying even though she used to be very active. She who liked to change her profile very often, added photos to her album, posed like a movie star and exhibited to the world her great Creole beauty. My quiet life and my loyalty to my wife had led me to forget the queen of beauty, to ignore her in a certain way. My commitment to the beautiful and good woman who would become my wife had not allowed me to approach Sophia, to have any romantic relationship with her.
Thus, I concluded she might have been one of those people who died in the terrible disaster of January 12th, 2010. Those people, most of whom had died slowly, sometimes making appeals for help to survivors— their voices could be heard and complained about, in suffering of course. Those missing persons from whom we had no news and who had obviously been taken with thousands other anonymous bodies to be thrown into this pit, in this isolated place called for example "Titanyen",(4) place in which, believe me sincerely, we are really nothing!
But I refused to let this dark idea get into my mind. From this supposition I distanced myself far away, thinking such a loss would be terribly unfortunate. Sophia (5) was among those people who we wish they would not return to the unpleasant condition of the dust of the earth, especially when they are in the prime of their lives and the beauty of their youth radiates like a star in a cold winter night and, indeed, offer to curious male eyes adorable shows. She was among those women one takes pleasure in watching, although they may represent the forbidden fruit. Sophia was very charming with elegant legs, graceful arms, nice and long hairs and a way of walking that brought out her adorable feminity. She also knew how to put colors together to dress in an original way where style was no less than an expression of a nice esthetic. With a body of a pleasant shape, from time Sophia appeared to be like an adorable and rare painting that any art lover would be willing to acquire for a great price.
I also told myself this is not only Sophia from whom I simply had no news. A classmate and good friend with whom I had spent my four years in social communication at the Faculty of Humanities of the University State of Haiti also remained in perfect silence. A disturbing silence. Gerard had been a great and faithful friend.
We know the disaster turned everything upside down. Indeed, driven by the psychosis of fear, a lot of survivors had dispersed, fleeing death and aftershocks that tore the bowels of the earth, also fleeing, in the case of those who inhabited coastal areas, such as me, the threat of water.
Thus, on the evening of that grim afternoon, when we had calmed down a little in our tents in the street that had become our common home, three men arrived breathless announcing to everyone that we had to move to avoid the wrath of the waters. "The sea," they said, "foams, rises and is about to move!" People knew what had happened in the Indian Ocean in 2004: an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, devastated India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Further back in time, but close in space, history had also taught how the city of Cap Haitian, the country's second largest city, had been submerged in the aftermath of the 1842 earthquake. (6) This is because, in the event of seismic faults under the ocean waters, the fact was quite possible. Eyewitnesses reported that the Leogane Sea had dried up for some time- to the point where people had been able to enter it to catch fishes, before returning in force to its ordinary limits. (7)
It is understandable that as a result of this announcement, many, if not all, survivors took babies and basic necessities to climb up to the heights, where the waters might not be able to reach them. After a little reluctance, at the insistence of my wife, I grab the Jeep Rider 4x4 which served as a transportable house and left for the mountains opposite, praying that these hypothetical waters would not reach the high places. It seems to me there are many trials in this life. In any case, the survivors of the January 12th earthquake had to face a great deal of suffering, both physical and moral.
It was later we learned that the vagabonds who ran the news wanted everyone to go so far from their homes just to have the opportunity to steal their belongings. Residents who were already well bruised by this unimaginable disaster. Those material objects that became very despicable at a time when life was threatened every hour. At all times, under our feet, the earth was moving... We were then worried about life and not about useless objects. Those objects that nature in her anger carried away... At least once in our lifetime we are given the opportunity to better understand the teaching of the wise Solomon who reminded us in his time that: ''vanity of vanities, everything is vanity.(8) At a certain point we must keep in mind in front of the time everything and everyone will go away. The time will not go anywhere and, we, -people and artefacts- by opposition, are the one that come and go. With this in mind, the lesson of the preacher would allow us to reconsider the way we conceive what we own as wealth and the real place we suppose to put them in our life. Do I give my $ 1 million self-driving car more value than a human life? Does this car breath like a human? Does it have blood? The truth is we will not be able to enter in eternity with any of those material objects to which we have a so profound attachment. We will not have access even with our own humanity. That is why all is vanity. The survivors of the January 12th earthquake learned this lesson in a pragmatical and hard way. Some events which we were a part change our conception of our relationship with our own mortality and wealth’ possession. Indeed, give us more wisdom.
Fortunately, these criminals did not have the opportunity to carry out their crime. And the waters of the sea that were bubbling remained within their limits. It is true, as Jean Racine, the French
