[This post reflects corrections made Tuesday, January 19, 2010, with input from my friend Sharon Bell]
I invited my friends Sharon and Bob Bell to come have soup for dinner on Friday night. I thought of them immediately when the news about Haiti broke on Monday morning. Through Bob and Sharon, who spent many years in Africa in their "youth," and have been professionally affiliated with CARE in Atlanta for decades, I have been privileged to meet some fascinating people who care about the Third World and apply their talents and passion towards making life better there.
Among the Bell's friends, I have met Maryse whose husband Tim has an agricultural development consulting firm in Haiti and he barely survived the quake. Knowing Maryse just a little, and experiencing Haiti through her eyes, has personalized every woe that has befallen the nation right up to this disaster -- from flooding in 2004 and the overthrow of Aristide, to Hurricane Dennis in 2005, and more devastating storms in 2008.
I was pleased to learn that Maryse would join us for supper on Friday night. After dinner everyone was headed for the MLK Shabbat service at The Temple. Back at my house we lit the Shabbos candles, made kiddush, blessed the one child present (Gabe) and the bread, and added our prayers for Haiti. As we shared soup, bread and wine, Maryse shared the story of her husband's ordeal in the Haitian earthquake.
Tim was in the 4 story supermarket in Delmas that collapsed "like a pancake." When he felt the first tremblar, Maryse says, Tim put a trashcan over himself and got himself into a stairwell. Smart man, because that put him in a "void" space where the pancake collapse was less lethal. "Tim spent about 45 minutes crawling and digging himself out of the rubble, with only the glow of his cell phone to light the way," Maryse told us. He was incredibly smart and lucky and emerged with only some bruises.
From a Reuters story on the supermarket collapse:
The supermarket, one of the biggest in
Port-au-Prince, had completely collapsed on itself, its upper layers
falling on those below like a squeezed concertina.
Crushed supermarket trolleys were visible between the sandwiched
layers of concrete. Also visible were green and orange supermarket
shelving and scattered debris and wares like tea bags, cat food,
kitchenware, electronic goods and children's toys, toilet rolls and
bathroom sponges.
"We've had to cut through three floors from above, we've been
digging through concrete floors, shelving, food, and everything else
you would find in a supermarket," said Jose 'Paco' Mendia from the FEMA
Florida rescue team.
Though Maryse knew that Tim was alive and had gotten emails from him, she had not yet spoken to her husband. During dinner her phone rang 3 times. It was Tim trying to call, but none of the calls got through, which added to the drama and the frustration.
As late as Sunday, there were still a few more people rescued from the rubble of the supermarket. Tim, has now spoken with his wife via Skype. We pray for him and for all of all the people of Haiti.
I met an actual 
