Haitian-American Edwidge Danticat (at right, www.swisseduc.ch) one of the most talented writers of her generation, writes in this week's New Yorker about the death of her cousin and one of his daughters, in the house she called home on her visits to Haiti, and how family members there are dealing with the tragedy. It's a brief yet powerful piece, made ever more so by Danticat's prose, with its casual unfolding, precise observations and gentle humor, appropriate here despite such a terrible tragedy. A snippet:
By the time Maxo’s body was uncovered, cell phones were finally working again, bringing a flurry of desperate voices. One cousin had an open gash in her head that was still bleeding. Another had a broken back and had gone to three field hospitals trying to get it X-rayed. Another was sleeping outside her house and was terribly thirsty. One child had been so traumatized that she lost her voice. An in-law had no blood-pressure medicine. Most had not eaten for days. There were friends and family members whose entire towns had been destroyed, and dozens from whom we have had no word at all.
Everyone sounded eerily calm on the phone. No one was screaming. No one was crying. No one said “Why me?” or “We’re cursed.” Even as the aftershocks kept coming, they’d say, “The ground is shaking again,” as though this had become a normal occurrence. They inquired about family members outside Haiti: an elderly relative, a baby, my one-year-old daughter.
The entire piece is available at the New Yorker's site. Also on the site, George Packer's article on rebuilding Haiti.
