Haiti

I had been in Mexico for two years, when the 1985 earthquake struck. I will be truthful, the place where we were living in Mexico City was very strong, and nothing happend. My husband and I just looked out our third floor window deciding it we should go outside. Before we knew it, the quake had stopped. At the time we were working in the afternoon, so we went back to sleep. This was at 7:00 a.m.

At about 10.00 a.m., we got up to no telephone, no electricity, and obviously no water (the cistern pump works with electricity). My husband said it had been probably a little bit stronger that he thought, se we dicided to go to my mother-in-laws house to take a shower there, and go to work.

The 20 min. drive was confussing, thousands of people were walking on the streets and avenues. These were people who had been in the subway. Since there was no elecricity, the subway wasn't working, and they had to get out. Some were literally kilometers from there place of work or their home, so everybody was walking to their destination (the Mexican subway system transports an approx. 3.9 million people a day, you can imagine!). As we were driving we saw a few walls about to collapse, but nothing alarming. As we drove into my mother-in-laws neighborhood, things were a bit worse, outside walls collpased, broken windows, cracks in walls. Her house had broken windows, a cracked wall and a collapsing outer wall, and we were like wow, this was strong. When she saw us, she started crying, so happy we were OK. We thought she was exagerating. For some reason this neighborhood had electricity, and everyone was silent and still as they were watching the news. I still cry today at the images I saw. Downtown was destroyed, hotels, shops, office buildings, condominiums, schools totally collapsed, places I had been in, eaten at, shopped at.......thousands of people trapped or dead. We could not stop crying......

The Mexican country, while being a Third World country, is not as poor a Haiti. In less then 4 hours housewives, whose houses had not suffered damage, were in the streets making sandwiches, lemonade, stews, and handing them out to the people who had lost their homes and were on the street looking for their families. By 7.00 p.m. neighborhoods got together to collect blankets, sweaters, socks, and so many things we knew all these people were going to need to spend the night. Many people in Mexico had the means to give things away for the needy, ..... I really don't think Haiti has this capacity, besides being the poorest country in America, the devastation was so general, it would be difficult to help themselves...

I did not know I was going to write all this. I have just let it come out. What I knew I was going to write was the following, because I could not just ignore the facts, and say nothing:

Although Mexico is not poor as Haiti, it still needed a lot of International help especially during the rescue missions, and for those who had lost everything. The Mexican people are so grateful to EVERY PERSON IN EVERY COUNTRY who donated for this cause. Unfortunately, it is payback time for Mexico (this is a debt I'm sure nobody would like to pay back). But the country has gotten together to help our Haitian brothers and sisters. Every supermarket, church, school, has become a place to take canned foods, medicine, diapers, antibacterial gel, and the list goes on and on and on... Everybody is giving and giving....You see, we KNOW how it feels to be helpless, not to know what will happen tommorrow, to loose complete families (we lost SO MANY friends during the '85 earthquake). Yes, unfortunately, we KNOW, and we really hope NOBODY would ever have to feel this. But we also know about the generosity of so many countries, how it feels to have a warm blanket, a sweater, a cup of fresh water, food, medical care and supplies.

So what do I ask? I ask all who read this, not only to donate with money, goods or drives (I know my blogger friends have done this already), but to get others involved, to let them know this is not something that will pass as some other sensational news shows up on TV, not to say "Geesh, I'm glad I live here and not there" and do nothing about it, not talk about it because "It is soooo depressing, ugggg". I ask for everybody to get involved, and help our brothers and sisters in need.......and I thank you SO much, because your help today, was help for us yesterday, and it will be my help to WHOEVER will need it tomorrow.

God Bless....