Haiti
“Pics or it didn’t happen!” is the joke refrain people of my generation make, given the ubiquity and ease of information and image transfer in the 21st century. When there’s any kind of delay in getting information about a news event — disputed elections, natural disasters — we know things are bad. And so was the case with the earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday. The delay was slight — measured in hours — but significant enough. When electricity is disrupted in a small island nation, that means the internet isn’t of much use, either.
Two days have passed, now, though, and the picture of the devastation might not be yet complete, but it’s broad enough to be heartbreaking.
The Boston Globe has an edition of their “The Big Picture” feature up, with 48 images from the last 48 hours. I hadn’t yet given money before I saw these pics; needless to say, I’ve made my donation now.
Residents sleep in the street after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince January 13, 2010. (REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)
The photos are graphic. They show dead bodies, wide-eyed Hatians with faces caked with white concrete dust and blood, an elderly man sitting in the street with two broken legs, a three-storey presidential palace reduced to one dilapidated storey.
The photo of the presidential palace is one of the most jarring, to me — if that’s how the President fared in this earthquake, what hope do shanty-town residents have? In my part of the world, we have natural disasters, too. The most frequent and destructive are spring flooding events. But even in the worst-case scenarios of these floods — where people have lost their homes to the water — I don’t believe it compares to the loss of poverty-stricken individuals who lose their homes to mudslides, tsunamis or earthquakes. Losing everything you have when what you have is so very little puts your continued existence in jeopardy.
Knowing what the people of Haiti, and those working to help them in this crisis, are going through, makes giving money seem even easier than it already is.
PLACES TO GIVE
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) (Secular)
Mennonite Central Committee (Faith-based)
Tags: current events