More Haiti
I know I have to stop looking at stuff about Haiti, but I feel guilty when I do. In the worst times after the federal levee failure, I had this feeling of "How DARE people be going on with their normal lives in other places?!" Now here I am, going to the doctor and making groceries while they bleed and starve. I have blogged. I have tweeted. I have linked. I have given money I couldn't really spare to Doctors Without Borders. I have shed tears. I have no skills or physical strength that would make me of any use if I could actually go to Haiti. I know I have done what I can. I know I need to leave it alone for a while. I know I'm flashing back, and I know this should not be about me. I keep wondering about the people whose pictures I've seen. I keep thinking how much the crowds sleeping in the streets look like the desperate people abandoned at the Superdome and Convention Center.
I had to stop following a fellow Saints fan on Twitter because he said we should keep the money here, not send it to Haiti. A New Orleanian said that. It made me so ashamed. For anyone who wasn't reading back in September/October '05, the only reason Chris and I were able to return to New Orleans after evacuation (our house was uninhabitable) was because people from all over the world, readers of this journal for the most part, helped us with donations. It was about the best thing anyone has ever done for me. Our story was repeated thousands of times in thousands of ways. Thank you, people, for being willing to send your money and give your efforts to the Third World then. Please do it again now if you can (to help Haiti, not me, I mean).
Haiti, you are in my heart tonight, but maybe more importantly, you are in the pit of my stomach.
I had to stop following a fellow Saints fan on Twitter because he said we should keep the money here, not send it to Haiti. A New Orleanian said that. It made me so ashamed. For anyone who wasn't reading back in September/October '05, the only reason Chris and I were able to return to New Orleans after evacuation (our house was uninhabitable) was because people from all over the world, readers of this journal for the most part, helped us with donations. It was about the best thing anyone has ever done for me. Our story was repeated thousands of times in thousands of ways. Thank you, people, for being willing to send your money and give your efforts to the Third World then. Please do it again now if you can (to help Haiti, not me, I mean).
Haiti, you are in my heart tonight, but maybe more importantly, you are in the pit of my stomach.