HAITI

Part 1 of the the Earthquake

It was a quick glance and a short comment coming from someone who looked like they just scraped their way out of a 100-year-old chimney that had never been cleaned. What appeared as caked black soot in actuality was 5 hard days living on a tarmac with massive cargo jets blowing gusts 24 hours in your face. Gusts of dust and soot and exhaust mixed with sheer exhaustion. It caked every inch of our bodies, our faces, every bit of our gear. There was no escaping it.

In actuality, we spent five full days at least, maybe six, lying on a tarmac. I actually lost count. The breathing exhaust and pollution from the nonstop jets and planes coming to land in Haiti…I’d become numb to the taste of anything. With the burnt rubber film sitting in my mouth and the sound of engines in my ear, constant 24 hours a day and night. The senses were clogged and overwhelmed, not to mention the pure devastation caused by the massive earthquake. We were enveloped by dust caking everyone, anything, and everything, and sound that drowned out any simplicity or normalcy.