A Mirror Floating in Water

Since there's so much going on about Haiti and so many people are writing beautiful and sad things about their feelings, I'll include mine.

Me, being the pessimist will in fact not include any sort of message of hope, pragmatism maybe, but for the most part despair.

I have two times in my life had two very dear friends that were in natural disasters and so upon seeing those pictures of Haiti in devastation, I thought back at the dread I felt at those other times in which I had wondered if my two friends were alive.

The other day I finally found the strength to look at the pictures.

My dad, as some of you may know is extremely religious and that brings out both good and bad sides to him. I found it curious that he, being so passionate about helping the homeless, had said nothing about Haiti, such as donating to it, until one day he brought it up stating that this generation is suffering from the sins of their ansectors, that they are experiencing God's wrath upon them for their "evil" religion and culture. He then went on to say how viscious the culture was, how they held human sacrifices and were infested with AIDS and diseases. The latter I have no doubt of, but he said it in such an unpitying way, as if it was the people's fault. He said how the Haitians had been refusing the Red-Crosses help and had been turning violent against American and foriegn aids. "They just want to take it all. They have no gratitude," he said. He spoke of how Haitians would travel over to this country illegally, go to garage sales, buy clothes off cheap, and then travel back to their country to sell them off for extremely high prices.

I had tried to keep in my anger, for arguing with my dad is a futile and useless gesture, for he will always physically and vocally dominate you. I left enraged at what I had just heard. Yes Haiti is a Third-World country infested with AIDs, drugs and violence. But he spoke of it as if it were inherent in the culture or race, as if it was something the people wanted and not something done by the hands of a corrupt government or viscious gangs, holding a population in their control. He said none of that. Instead he incited the countries practice of Voodoo to be the source of evil, the cause of their suffering.

I couldn't take it anymore and I at last looked at those pictures. I saw the faces of the starving children, the sons who had just been made orphans, the mothers holding their drowned babies, the elderly lost in the chaos. There was a picture of a little boy on top of a bunch of ruble, covered in blood, and yet smiling and waving at the camera, as if it were a sign of hope and assurance.

These pictures reminded me of the ones I had seen of Katrina, of Sumatra, of Manila. No, no "evil" pagan religion caused this. We are all united not by our culture, relgion or skin color, but by our common humanity, no matter how good or evil it can be, we are all at the mercy of nature, as well as our own.