Common Language Project: Multimedia that Matters

Day Ten: Moving On

By Grant Fuller February 14, 2010

The period of mourning is over. And in my opinion, the country is better off than it was last week. I told a Haitian friend I thought it was the happiest three days of mourning I’d ever seen. She informed me that the word “mourning” wasn’t exactly the best translation. It was more like a time to hope, a time to remember.

The images of struggle are still plentiful, but the reality I see is one of happiness against all odds. A little boy smiles at me on the street. Some teenage girls beg me to take their picture. An amateur comedian makes people laugh. Everyone enjoys sugary shaved ice from busted-up carts. A long line forms at the best fried pork joint in Pétionville. Life begins the slow climb toward normality again.

Rubble will be a constant reminder. But instead of searching for the missing in those piles, Haitians will now begin to search for meaning, for the future, for a way forward. I saw a couple of men picking through a massive hillside heap, pulling out clothing. They shook off the layers of dust and tried the shirts on for size, keeping the ones that fit. In poor countries like Haiti, nothing goes to waste. So a shirt buried in rubble is surely a reminder of one deadly day, but dust it off a little bit and it’ll remind you of so much life left to live.