"A day felt like a year when buried alive"-- Haitians help each other survive

Photo from Reuters

Haunting statements from survivors pulled from the rubble paint a vivid picture for those of us safe from Haiti's earthquake. One survivor quoted in the New York Times said, "a day felt like a year. You're buried alive. You can't scream; you wonder if anyone will ever come."

But help has been coming. While not highlighted in the media, the people of Port an Prince have been acting as fast as they can to locate loved ones and coworkers and neighbors. They have been taking responsibility to search through the rubble, if only with their hands, to dig out trapped survivors, recover their dead, and scrounge food and water to keep life going until the rest of the country and outside world can help.

They respectfully try to cover their dead in white sheets or whatever they can find. They put their wounded on cardboard and pull them to find treatment. They erect makeshift tents and shelter from the hot sun. They are clearing streets. They are using car batteries to power medical equipment. They are improvising.

Even the much maligned Haitian government is showing signs of leadership by asking people to go to the countryside if they can and have relatives. The first organized recovery efforts reportedly seen in the city were police trucks collecting the dead along the roadside and taking them for mass burial to ward off major health epidemics.

This activity suggests a different story: Haitians are helping themselves with great ingenuity, resourcefulness and dignity. Like Bangladeshis battered by cyclones and floods, they are people with enormous resiliency. We stand in solidarity and will support our neighbors' efforts to not only survive but thrive.

-Susan Davis