The Cruel Theater of Ruin

The venerable proverbs of the Haitian people, distilled from the traits and triumphs of untold generations, have never forsaken me in those decisive moments when the mot juste, like a well-tempered blade, must cleave through the haze of sadness and uncertainty. In their brevity, they contain the wisdom of ages; in their simplicity, the eloquence of truth.

[Ou konn prepare yon bon tè pou’w al plante djondjon, epi, djondjon wan al leve dèyè latrinn.]

“You prepared good soil to plant the mushrooms, but the mushrooms grew behind the latrine.”

Covid descended, an unprecedented deluge of wealth poured into the remotest corners of the U.S. Every school districts showered with the trappings of modern learning–sleek laptops bestowed with all the ceremony of triumph befitting an “advanced civilization”. Yet, amidst this show of modernity, this splendid vision of universal access the internet was supposed to bring to all, a cruel irony emerged of neglected infrastructures in the very urban and rural heartlands that would have benefitted from the largesse of the american people.

The 2010 earthquake wasn’t just the wrath of nature unleashed, but it was also a grievous monument to the follies of humankind. The humble yet venerable shotgun houses, relics of a resilient past and constructed with the pliant strength of timber, stood as silent rebukes to the edifices of foreign designs. The rigid masonry imposed by ill-informed blans crumbled beneath the earth’s convulsion, while the wooden abodes of Haitian antiquity, hewn by ancestral wisdom, swayed and endured. So, in the cruel theater of ruin, the hubris of intervention was laid bare, and the wisdom of the moun endeyo rose amid the dust as a forgotten testament to survival.