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Courtney Spence: Haiti, one year later
The following post, chronicling a trip back to Haiti on the one year anniversary of the earthquake, was written by Courtney Spence and originally printed in the Austin American-Statesman.
This Wednesday marks the 1-year anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti. The 7.0-magnitude quake killed more than 220,000 people.
Courtney Spence, founder and executive director of the Austin-based nonprofit Students of the World, along with her father, Roy Spence, videographer Keith Maitland and photographer Sarah Riazati are traveling to Haiti this week to capture stories during the anniversary of the quake. They will be highlighting scenes from various Clinton Bush Haiti Fund programs, focusing on those individuals and organizations who are working to rebuild the country. We’re publishing her dispatches below.
Sunday, January 16 3:53 p.m.
In my return to Austin, I find emotions flooding over me as I try to wrestle with what I have seen and experienced. I have found great difficulty responding to the question, “How was Haiti?”
Stumbling over my words, I utter things like, “Incredible … complicated … tragic, but encouraging.” After only five days, Haiti is now both more familiar and more of a mystery than it was before. One thing I know for sure is that I yearn to have this country and its people become a greater part of my life than they were a week ago.
On Friday afternoon as we drove back to the airport, I was struck with that familiar feeling—the one that really only happens in countries in which I am a first-time visitor. Staring out the window of the car, I purposefully reflected on my expectations, my first impressions and how much they have evolved. The closer we got to the airport, I watched as the initial sites of a new country became the last sites of a country I had come to know. What surprised me? What was somewhat as I expected it to be? How will I describe this when I return home?
There are few places I have traveled in my work with Students of the World that have changed me as Haiti has. In this category I would include Cambodia, Northern Uganda, Swaziland and Cuba. These places, with tragic histories and complicated realities, have provided experiences I reference in my life just as they have influenced the conversations I have, the books I read, and the dreams I wake from.
Haiti, like Cuba, is in our ‘backyard:’ a 90-minute flight from Florida took me to the location of one of the greatest tragedies in modern human history. We all know that perceptions are different from realities. I learned this, once again, in Haiti. I ‘re-learned’ that emergencies don’t last for a few weeks—especially when that emergency involved the loss of 230,000 lives and the loss of homes for 1.6 million people.
I drew some similarities to that of Northern Uganda in the past ten years — that emergencies don’t have a defined beginning and an end, and that we owe it to survivors to continue to seek out their stories, to try to understand their current reality and to explore ways in which we can continue to support.
In Haiti many continue to suffer; but, innovative and positive steps are happening every day—steps that we can be a part of. I witnessed some of these steps, such as the opening of the Northern Industrial Park, the opening ceremony of the Iron Market and the creative artists of Jacmal, whom have found profitable international markets for their creations.
Read Courtney's full diary here.
