An Absence

I have not posted for a very long time.

I was, I suppose, waiting for some good news.

There is none.

Haiti has no functional government. Two candidates for prime minister have been rejected. There are no great stories of massive rebuilding efforts, no uplifting success stories, nothing that can bring much hope.

Yet, this morning I read this wonderful essay by Junot Diaz, our Dominican Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award winner, and was once again moved to tears by the love and the generosity of the people of my new homeland for their neighbors.

No one here doubts that the future of the Dominican Republic, itself struggling to climb from developing to developed world, is tied to its neighbor sharing this island. We now have cholera here too, now in ten of our rivers. It is here to stay, we are told. We will live with it as we do with dengue and malaria. And now, a constant flow of migrants over the border.

But, like Diaz, I have hope. I am alive, and so therefore must have hope.

At the very least now, Haiti has been SEEN.

It has been seen and it cannot be forgotten.