goudougoudou

Imagine you are say, in a barber shop. Or walking on the street. Or in the courtyard of your school. Maybe you are in your house. You might standing, talking on the phone, fighting with a market woman over the price of a mango. And then from beneath your feet comes an enormous rumble. For a few seconds you don't understand what is happening, but then you lock eyes with someone whose fear reflects your own, and you realize this is real. The end of the world has finally come, and you didn't go to confession. Or maybe the electricity surged so much that it broke the building around you. Or perhaps someone exploded a bomb in your school. If you are inside, you try to run out into the street.. If you are in a car, beware the walls falling around you that may crash through your windshield. Together with the others around you, you scream out for God. Maybe you were never God-fearing before but you feared her then. You pray and pray and pray to have just another few minutes on earth. But then friend who escaped danger with you lets go of your hand and turns around. Maybe her life's work is a document left inside. Maybe it is her sister's baby. She is only a few steps into the building when you see the cracks in the walls start to splinter off. A tremendous moan releases from the building as four floors of concrete begin to heave. For a brief moment she raises her hands above her head as if she could hold the ceiling in place, and then the building caves in on itself. Your friend and whatever it was that was worth her life are buried deep beneath the ruins of a shopping mall, a church, her uncles home. You friend is dead and yet it doesn't register with you yet because the ground is still a trampoline and you can't stay upright. Maybe God doesn't hear you. You scream louder.. People in the street are sobbing all around you. Many are on their knees praying in the dust. Some are bleeding. Finally, it the shaking stops . You notice that not all the people who fell are rising from the ground. You walk a few steps this way and that. Was it just your school that blew up? Or was the whole world shaking with the end of days? There are bodies everywhere. Nearby the alarm of a flattened car rings out aimlessly. You see a man lying with his legs beneath a rock, screaming. Maybe you stop to try to help him, or maybe you just stare in horror and disbelief. Finally you think to call your mother. Busy. Call again, no answer. After a few minutes you start to run in the direction of your home, even though its more than ten miles away. You have to climb over toppled building and weave between cadavers. Everyone you meet on the way is broken. A man stands outside of the remains of his home, sobbing and beating the cement with his hands. The body of his newly-wed wife is inside. On the way home you might stop and help a group of people dig the rubble off of a old woman's body. Maybe you work to save people all afternoon, using you tee-shirt to wipe up blood and sweat. You might not make it home for two days, with no word from your family. Or instead you might make it home that night and surprise you mother praying in courtyard by candlelight. You can read in her weathered eyes that she thought you were dead. The two of you sit together through the night, crying and praying that God be kind when she takes your souls. It might not be until the next morning when you turn on the radio that you hear the word: earthquake.

There is not a word in Kreyol for earthquake. They say goudougoudou, which is the word used to describe the sound of helicopter blades, but now is borrowed to describe the sound of the shaking earth. Mostly they use the French word "tremblement." "Ki kote ou te prann tremblement-a?" That's how you ask "where were you for the earthquake". A common question in these parts. Everyone has a epic story of where they were, what they saw, and how they managed to stay alive. Many have stories about those who died. The above is a composite of just a few of the stories I have heard since I have been here. Six months later, people still talk about it everyday. Early in the morning there is a man who walks beneath my window, ranting. I don't understand anything he says except when he starts shouting "douz janve! douz janve!" That's Kreyol for "January 12". January 12 is like Year Zero. The Earth broke time. The way people talk it is clear that there are few continuities that the survived the "before" into "after" (Some people, like my UN acquaintance, will say tents? houses? what's the difference?Haitian suffering is forever, corruption is forever, but people don't think like that when it comes to their personal lives). This society has experienced loss on such a profound scale. Is it possible adequately mourn the loss of your husband when you also have also lost your cousins, you coworkers, and a childhood friend? How do you grieve? I'm sure people quickly callous to individual death. You cannot do everyone the justice their lives deserved. But some people, I've been told, couldn't find the strength to take the loss and lost their minds. Others committed suicide. Shortly after the quake, there was an official week of mourning, but I haven't heard much about how people used that time. I don't think it was sufficient. Even though the corpses have been cleared from the streets, death is everywhere. People pass by crushed buildings, causally speculating how many bodies are still underneath. An institutions were victim too. Schools, museums, hospitals, and government buildings were all destroyed. Yesterday on our way into town we passed by a building of several stories whose walls had fallen off. Sandra told me it was a hospital that had been built two months before the earthquake. The National Palace, crouches, still wounded, in the center of the Champ de Mars. And yet tent city of several thousand people has sprung up in its shadow, a busy reminder that for all who have died, the vibrancy of everyday life persists, and we must pay attention to the living. People told me Haiti is a place where the line between the living and the dead is hazy. I am beginning to understand a bit of what that means.