WUNRN
World YWCA
HAITI - YOUNG WOMAN'S STORY OF
CRISIS, BUT HELP AND HOPE
On January
12, 2010, Rachel Coupoud’s life changed forever. The YWCA of Haiti board member
was at home in bed sick when an earthquake struck. At the time, she had no idea
the earthquake would leave up to 200, 000 people in the her beloved Haiti dead,
but as she ventured out of her home to witness the devastation around her and
offer her help, she saw beauty in the midst of chaos. Rachel shares with us her
moving story:
To All,
Today, I finally decided to take a few minutes to myself, to drop all else and
write down a few words. It took me 15 days because in a matter of 35 seconds,
not only did my country change, but so did my universe.
I wish to start
by thanking each and every one of you who care, pray, wrote, and took action
for us Haitians. I will not relate in detail the horrors I’ve witnessed, nor
the feelings of despair, hopelessness and fear one experiences in such a
situation. I was lucky enough to survive with little damage occurred - in
comparison to most - so now I choose to talk about the beauty I’ve discovered
in all of this.
I was sick in bed when it happened. I did not realise the magnitude of the
disaster at first but within an hour, after hearing from my immediate family
members, I put on my tennis shoes and walked to a nearby maternity ward to
offer my help. What I saw there cannot be put in words… the despair of kids
dying in the hallways and of people with open wounds I had only seen in war
movies. I left the clinic at midnight, went to my parents’ home so we could all
be together. The next morning, I went to volunteer in another hospital in the neighbourhood
and quickly realised that the horror of the night before was just a preview of
what was to come. With the lack of staff, a friend and I found ourselves acting
as an assistant/nurse in the O.R. for an amputation and for a liver operation!
How did I get there, you ask? But at that point, I chose to see the beauty in
the midst of the chaos, as I learned that some choose life over all…
The woman whose
operation I assisted had one leg chopped off. When I stopped for a while and
decided to compliment her on her strength, she answered: “I choose life over
legs, I have 2 daughters to raise.” How could she smile and actually thank the
team who took away this big piece of her body? She simply chose life, she said.
I spent 5 long
days at the community hospital and many long nights hosting visiting surgeons.
What films and pictures do not show are the emotions, the pain in the voices
and the agonising smell of bodies slowly decomposing on the grounds. But on the
other side of the slide, I saw beauty…
Indeed, in the
midst of it all, I saw everyone giving a hand in a way or another; I saw
foreigners whose names I will never know save lives of people whose names they
will never know; I saw a nation devastated, but its citizens taking the next
step by simply choosing to survive and helping others do the same. I saw young,
not so young, rich, not so rich, poor, black, white, literate and illiterate,
Haitians and foreigners acting as one! I saw the universal language of hope,
survival, love, strength, determination and solidarity. THIS, I choose to
remember and learn from.
Many days
later, I thank the Lord for my blessings. My worries are the same as everyone
else’s: What comes next? What will we do? Where will we start? but I said to a
friend, we already started. Now it is for us to decide on the type of
Again, I thank
each and every one of you for the support. In these tough times, knowing one
cares is enough to keep another going in the right direction. Your messages
arrived from all over the world and my wish is that you keep praying for
Again, thank
you.
Rachel Coupaud
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com.
Thank you.