The following letter and thoughts, written by Kettly Mars were published in the New York Times, entitled “Haiti Without Walls.”
“Petionville, Haiti, Jan. 12, 2010, 4:53 p.m. A high-magnitude telluric wave twisted the ground under our feet. In just 35 seconds about 300,000 people lost their lives and more than one million souls in three cities became homeless. How eerie the huge cloud of dust rising in the dying day over Port-au-Prince, and spreading up to this suburb of the capital. How unreal the sound of car alarms blasting under the building debris.
I believe that in all bad things there is some good — if we take a moment to look, if we don’t miss the essential. Often I ask myself, was there any good in that earthquake? And then I remember the first minutes, the few hours, the two days right after the shock. Before foreign aid workers arrived loaded with survival kits and good will. Before greed turned misery into business opportunities.
