Tagged: Haiti

When Rev. Jean-Mary Reginald learned about the massive earthquake in Haiti, he reflexively walked to his church– Notre Dame D’Haiti Catholic Church in Little Haiti– and opened the doors.  People began to arrive immediately.  The church, he says, “is the living room” of the Haitian-American community in South Florida.

This hymn is the one you hear under our piece, “Faith in the Aftermath.” The original segment explores how parishioners at Notre Dame D’Haiti Catholic Church here in Miami leaned on their faith and on song after their country’s massive earthquake– to heal and to release their grief.

In this episode, we look at how the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti changed life here in South Florida. We tell stories from a school that absorbed quake survivors, from a church that opened its doors to the grief-stricken, from lawyers’ offices where Haitians applied for an immigration shield, and from a hospital tent where tired doctors were uplifted by a song.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE AUDIO SLIDE SHOW.

Miami Herald photographer Patrick Farrell has been traveling to Haiti for years.  In fact, it was has evocative work about the victims of Haiti’s disastrous 2008 storms that won him the Pulitzer Prize.

While I was reporting on the earthquake in Haiti, I was often taken aback by people singing. Walking down the street, a nun stretched her palms to the sky and seemed to be singing a question to the heavens.  And on my last night in Port-au-Prince, I recorded quake survivors singing at 3 a.m., as they danced around a tent camp– no toilets, no air conditioning, little food– singing.

This piece reconstructs an inspiring moment amid tragedy and pain, at a makeshift hospital tent in Port-au-Prince. In it, four medical professionals from South Florida recount their experience landing in Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake, and struggling to meet a desperate need for medical help.

One describes the situation as “a war zone.” Another describes a feeling of worthlessness, given the scale of the catastrophe.

Under the Sun listeners were introduced to students James Celestin and Michel Philco from Boyd Anderson High in our “Teens Buddy up with Quake Survivors” story.