Rich Gosser

Waiting, praying, hoping.

The sight of "ti machan yo" - the market women - selling in the open air markets of Haiti has always been a comfortably familiar one during my many visits to Haiti. They sit patiently all day waiting, hoping, and perhaps praying for a customer and a sale.

It is, I suppose, an odd form of solidarity with the "ti machan yo" of Haiti that today we must continue to wait, and pray, and hope for news of our friends, associates and partners in the aftermath of the massive earthquake that shook Haiti only two days ago. Yesterday and today were a blur of activity - answering phones and emails - against a background of waiting, praying and hoping. Our senses are flooded with the sheer magnitude of the disaster as the airwaves overflow with images of devastation and suffering. The news we most want to hear - the fate of our partners, who are also our friends - does not sound in our ears.

In past visits to Haiti I have noticed too how common it is to see makeshift and pieced-together objects fashioned from bits of this and pieces of that. Any Haitian boy can fashion a kit from a few sticks, a split-open plastic bag, and some string. It is again an odd form of solidarity with the people of Haiti that our considerable efforts to know about our friends and partners yield only a bit of information here, a scrap of news there and we begin to piece them together. William escaped the collapse as did Paulin and Remy. One of the brothers died. George is safe in Canape Vert. Little Therese was located and all the children at the orphanage are safe. Their house collapsed but the boys and Michael are all right, except for that one boy whose arm is broken. Leigh is injured, but will recover. Joseph is OK. Ernst is OK too. The place we knew as "home" is in ruins, but Max and the others are safe.

At the end of the day we are grateful for those bits and shreds of news - good news most of it. But still we know nothing about our many other partners who are also our friends. Not even a clever Haitian boy could fashion a kite from what we have. So we wait. We pray. We hope.

rich • Jan-Feb 2007 Leave a comment