You read about Mariot in an earlier post. In January and February, he was hired by CNN to drive us around. On my latest trip, he drove me around and translated for me. Mariot’s English, all self-taught, is very good. Stuck in Port-au-Prince traffic, Mariot and I enjoyed interesting conversation. He gave me a book …
It rained heavily in Port-au-Prince tonight. I stood in the balcony of the Plaza hotel — the exact spot from which Anderson Cooper broadcasted his show in January — and looked beyond. At the Champs de Mars, the city’s central plaza that is now home to thousands of people left without anywhere to go after …
I returned to Port-au-Prince yesterday. Before January, it was a city known to me only through books and a few films and of course, the news – always bad news. But CNN sent me to Haiti to report on the aftermath of the earthquake. And my eyes were opened to a whole new world. I …
I don’t have a sister, though sometimes, in my childhood, I got a taste of what that might be like because we lived among extended families. The line between a cousin and a sister quickly blurred. But I longed for the sister I never had. Like Elizabeth and Jane Bennett in “Pride & Prejudice.” Or …
I graduated from high school in 1979. Never been to any of my reunions. I earned a master’s degree in 1983. Never attended any college alumni functions either. But last week, I drove down to Tallahassee to see old friends from my first newspaper, The Florida Flambeau. (see post below) A few of those people …
This weekend, as Chile suffered the wrath of an enormous earthquake, I reread one of my favorite poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Ode to Broken Things Things get broken at home like they were pushed by an invisible, deliberate smasher. It’s not my hands or yours It wasn’t the girls with their hard fingernails …
I met Mariot a few days after I arrived in Port-au-Prince. He was one of several drivers retained by CNN. Mariot spoke English well, and often, on our long days out, we’d carry on conversations. About his life — before and after the earthquake. I quickly figured out that he was special. His full name …
Continue reading “It's never too late to be what you might have been”
There are things that one remembers about a place. Things that are clear and fresh, even many years later when memories of the most obvious have faded. I find this to be especially true about tragedy. I have photographic recall of certain events and people in India, in Iraq — and now in Haiti. On …
A Catholic school in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Sainte Marie resumed classes Wednesday. It was a vital sign of normalcy. The kids need routine, they need to be with their friends. It’s a massive step toward recovery for the earthquake’s most vulnerable survivors. Again, I cherished their smiles.
A few days ago, I accompanied CNN producer Edvige Jean-Francois to her father’s grave in Port-au-Prince (she was worried that it might have been desecrated after the quake) and then to the home her parents had recently finished building. There, like everywhere I have been to in Haiti, the children flocked toward the visiting journalists. …
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