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The Haitian Apocalypse - We saw a light (Part II)

February 23, 2010
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By Julius Nyamkimah Fondong

See Part I: A survivor's tale

Six weeks after a ferocious earthquake hit Haiti, claiming 225,000 lives and causing untold damage to life and property, life is gradually but surely coming back to normal. For the United Nations staff - who lost close to 100 of their colleagues with about 2 dozen others still unaccounted for - a long healing process has begun. The Mission is in the process of re-structuring itself and re-defining its mandate.

While the initial shock and trauma that followed the quake is slowly dissipating, once in a while staff members do gather to share stories of how they lived the events of that fateful day. The most common stories told are those of incredible acts of bravery that saved lives and outstanding accounts of lucky breaks and split second escapes, especially at the headquarters building. One of the most regaling stories is that of a group of colleagues of the Public Information Office. I remember asking them how they managed to get out of the headquarters building during the earthquake and, almost without thinking, half a dozen of them chorused back: “we saw a light and we crawled towards”

To hear them tell it, when the building collapsed the falling debris raised a thick cloud of dust that was as blinding as it was suffocating. As they were all groping in the dark shouting for help, suddenly one of them noticed a dim light in one of the walls that had miraculously remained intact. It turned out to be a window. Instinctively they all crawled towards it, from where military officers helped them down even as the wall was threatening to collapse at any time.

They say faith is the evidence of things unseen. Yet for those things we assume are indiscernible, there is always a flicker of light that should lead us to them if we look hard and long and with enduring faith. I speak here of that inner light which when we crawl towards, should necessarily usher us into a fuller appreciation of our lives and the world we live in. For me personally, the Haitian earthquake led me to a re-affirmation of two basic truths: first, that human life no matter how exciting is both transient and vulnerable; and second, that I’m a valued member of my community, cherished and appreciated by my peers. Two things I sometimes take for granted.

As I drove through the streets of Port au Prince during that night of the earthquake, I couldn’t help noticing how indiscriminate nature had been in its destruction of the city. The poor and the rich, the weak and the powerful, ordinary humans and super humans alike were buried under rubbles all across the city. Ghettos and up-scale neighborhoods were hit with the same ferocity. But what struck me most was the sheer number of SUVs and other exotic cars that had simply been abandoned in the middle of the highway, at times with the key still in the ignition. I couldn’t help imagining how, maybe, their owners might have felt it necessary to loot, to kill and plunder, to traffic in drugs and arms, just to acquire these cars. They probably had been led to believe that by owning such cars they shall be set apart from the common cause of humanity. Yet when it mattered most they simply abandoned the cars and fled like everyone else, trusting more their legs (not their powerful V-8 SUVs) to take them to safety. Such is the paradox of life.

As I write this, the example of a colleague of mine - a Treasury Inspector - easily comes to mind. Soon after he left ENAM he was posted to one of the Treasury Stations in Douala. This was in the early 90s, after the ghost towns when only treasury stations in Douala and Yaoundé could muster the liquidity to pay government cash vouchers. I was serving in the Northwest Province at the time, and since there were no regular central government transfers to treasuries in the Northwest (as a way of punishing its people for spearheading the Operation Ghost Town) most of us had to travel to Douala to get our government vouchers cashed. This influx to Douala treasuries made this gentleman’s day. He instituted a 30% cut for himself for all bills paid at his treasury station, and in the process made a lot of money. At some point he was rumored to have as much as 40 taxis in the town of Douala alone and a fleet of exotic private cars. For good measure, he built for himself a state-of–the-art villa in Buea. And that’s where it starts to get interesting.

The mid 90s also witnessed an upsurge in violent crimes and armed robbery in Douala in particular and Cameroon in general. With all his ostentatious and obscene display of affluence, my treasury inspector friend soon became an easy target and regular client of the men of the underworld. His house in Douala was repeatedly burgled. So he got scared and relocated to his mansion in Buea. With its high barb-wired walls complete with guards, he thought he could aspire to some relative safety. That was not to be. The thieves soon followed him there and on more than 2 occasions he was actually ambushed as he was driving through the gates of what he had believed was an impregnable fortress. When I last inquired about him, I was told he had abandoned the house altogether and taken refuge at the Parliamentarian Flat hotel. For those who may never have heard of it, the Parliamentarian Flat is an antiquated lodging house in Buea where - as my friend Anyere Moma puts it – lodgers are most likely to shave in front of the same mirror and sleep in the same bed that the Endeleys and Fonchas used in the 1950s when they returned to Cameroon from the Eastern Nigeria House of Assembly. The choice of the Parliamentarian Flat as a hiding place is of course very deliberate: what armed robber, no matter how ingenious, will believe that an obscenely rich treasury inspector will pick out a decrepit place like the Flat for his hideout?

Twenty first century materialism is driven by what I like to call the culture-ideology of consumerism, that is, the belief that the quality of our lives is measured by the quantity of our possessions and by the size and quality of what we consume. So it’s no longer enough to own a car; you must own more than one and they must be huge. It’s not simply okay to have a home; the homes should be more than one and must be colossal. It’s all part of the loose concept of saving for the rainy day. So some, like my treasury inspector friend, will not hesitate to loot and plunder so as to satisfy their insatiable desire for things material. And since they know for a sure that someday the real owners of those possessions will come for them, they build their own personal Kondenguis and fearfully lock up themselves inside, literally and figuratively. And when even that can’t give them the veneer of safety they long for, they find refuge in nondescript lodging houses. I believe by abandoning his mansion and scampering away to the Parliamentarian Flat my treasury inspector friend had in a way seen a light and crawled towards it. But it was a light of another kind: the kind of light that speaks to the futility and to the inadequacy of ill-gotten wealth to guarantee to any human the requisite safety and peace of mind.

Earlier in this write-up I had mentioned the transient and vulnerable character of the human condition. It’s hard to believe that the earthquake that unleashed the kind of forces that led to the carnage and destruction of the magnitude that we saw in Haiti lasted less than a minute. In about 40 seconds or less, 225,000 lives and countless houses and property had been decimated. So if all we have were to someday go up in a flicker – as it’s sure to happen at some point in our existence – what then continues to push men and women towards this mad rush for things material and temporal? Is it just the presence of a stubborn inner demon that has consistently refused to see the light? I truly may never know.

But this much I know: the Haitian apocalypse of January 12 led me to a fuller appreciation of my own worth and stature within my community. The spontaneous outpouring of genuine love and concern that followed the earthquake, some from people I didn’t even know and had definitely never met, went a long way to strengthen my faith in our common humanity. I now see myself as a cherished member of the human race, loved and appreciated, better equipped morally, and more determined to work for its wellbeing. I remember when I published “The Haitian Apocalypse Part 1” in the Chiareport, one reader commented that “I’m happy you’re alive in spite of the gibberish you feed us with on this blog” (or words to that effect). When I read that I smiled, closed my eyes and said a big “amen”. I guess that was his own peculiar way of thanking God for sparing my life.

This fresh determination to apply myself towards the betterment of the lives of my fellow human beings was given an added relevance when I met John Walsh, host and founder of the network TV program, America’s Most Wanted. John had flown down to Haiti with Andrew Kline, a Harvard classmate of mine and an aide to US Vice President Joe Biden, to see how he could set up a program for the protection of vulnerable children after the quake. When John Walsh was told the role I had played in facilitating the timely airlifting to the US of some Haitian orphans adopted by US parents, he put his arms round my shoulders, gave me a thumbs up and said “Julius, God bless your heart”. I was truly humbled to hear these words coming from a man who had overcome his own personal loss and devoted his entire life to making sure those who hurt others, especially children, paid the price for their cowardly and callous acts.

I harbor no pretentions that I shall ever be a John Walsh or that I may ever be able to accomplish the kind of things he has accomplished in his lifetime. But I do know for a fact that on January 12, I too saw a light and I’ll learn to draw inspiration from the work and friendship of people like John Walsh as I crawl towards it.

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The author holds an MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and is currently serving with the United Nations Mission in Haiti as a Civil Affairs Officer.

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