As the plane landed in Port au Prince, I pressed my face to the window and my heart thumped against my seat. The last time I stood on Haitian soil was in late December, 2009, a few weeks before what locals now gravely refer to as “the Thing.” When I arrived at Port au Prince airport that time, I met Molly, a 23 year old volunteer caretaker for special needs children at an orphanage, and together we braved the hilarious chaos of Haitian baggage claim. Only days later, she was dead, along with roughly 300,000 others. I thought of her long strawberry blond hair as I stepped onto the hot tarmac and my eyes shot to the large jagged cracks in the airport walls.

Riding through town in the back of a pickup truck, I felt a stab in my gut each time we passed a mangled heap of concrete and rebar, which was so often that any building left standing appeared exceptionally strong. There is no order to the destruction, no obvious reason why one structure stood but not the nursing school next door, where all the students and instructors were buried. I couldn’t look into the pancaked layers of heavy concrete without holding my breath and wincing. It’s no wonder so many died. They had no time to run before the world came down in giant, solid, sheets of rock. Here and there, climbing amidst the mountainous crumble, children flew kites made from plastic bags on pieces of string. Life must go on.

As the plane landed in Port au Prince, I pressed my face to the window and my heart thumped against my seat. The last time I stood on Haitian soil was in late December, 2009, a few weeks before what locals now gravely refer to as “the Thing.” When I arrived at Port au Prince airport that time, I met Molly, a 23 year old volunteer caretaker for special needs children at an orphanage, and together we braved the hilarious chaos of Haitian baggage claim. Only days later, she was dead, along with roughly 300,000 others. I thought of her long strawberry blond hair as I stepped onto the hot tarmac and my eyes shot to the large jagged cracks in the airport walls.

Riding through town in the back of a pickup truck, I felt a stab in my gut each time we passed a mangled heap of concrete and rebar, which was so often that any building left standing appeared exceptionally strong. There is no order to the destruction, no obvious reason why one structure stood but not the nursing school next door, where all the students and instructors were buried. I couldn’t look into the pancaked layers of heavy concrete without holding my breath and wincing. It’s no wonder so many died. They had no time to run before the world came down in giant, solid, sheets of rock. Here and there, climbing amidst the mountainous crumble, children flew kites made from plastic bags on pieces of string. Life must go on.

I go to Haiti as a member of an organization, Artists For Peace and Justice, which supports the work of a Doctor and community organizer in Port au Prince named Father Rick Frechette, who has devoted the last 22 years of his life to serving the forgotten people of Haiti. He runs the only free pediatric hospital in Port au Prince, along with an orphanage, several elementary schools, and a center for children with special needs. He also distributes the only clean water to residents of the sprawling slum of Cité Soleil. In response to the catastrophe on January 12th, APJ immediately sent surgeons, medical equipment and emergency supplies to Father Rick’s hospital. Our board member Dr Reza Nabavian flew to Haiti days after the quake to perform emergency amputations, after which he set up a rehabilitation clinic to fit injured children for prosthetics, some so tiny they look like doll parts.

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