“I am focusing now on what is essential in life: love and friendship. Like most people here, I am not watching the news. We have limited power, and anyway it seems futile and even absurd to be a spectator of my own life, especially when the TV images highlight only the misery of our country. Many of us Haitians are offended by the coverage of the earthquake. Once more, a natural disaster serves as an occasion to showcase the impoverishment, to exaggerate the scenes of violence that are common to any catastrophe of this type.
No, I am not watching the news. I am too busy trying to find a way to keep my hope alive because the work in front of us is humongous. I am busy rejoicing in the laughter of the children in the camp near our house, smiling at the comical reactions of a passer-by after a recent aftershock. I am busy shedding tears at the news of a miraculous rescue of six students from the wreckage of a university building. I am busy collecting the fragments of life that reflect the enormous courage and resilience among us.
I am busy loving life and my country.”
-Évelyne Trouillot, “Aftershocks”
