HAITI: THIS TIME IT WAS PERSONAL

Garry Pierre-Pierre, Haitian Times - I have been covering my beloved homeland for about 20 years. The assignments have ranged from coup d'etats to elections to flooding, carnival and festivals.

Those were all assignments that had nothing to do with me or my family. Those who are left in Haiti do not dabble into politics nor the music scene. The floods, for the most part, have occurred in the Artibonite plateau and Central region, my kinfolks hail from the south of Haiti.

For the first time I was personally and deeply affected by the devastation brought on by this earthquake that shook this mountainous nation of roughly nine million people to its core.

No immediate family members died in the calamity, but many friends perished. They are too numerous to mention here, this column would not end. My story is not unique, it is the story of every Haitian. . .

That day began routinely. I was home taking care of some stuff around the house while I surf the Web. By early afternoon after the news of quake and its magnitude reached me, I knew deep inside that the country is going to be forever altered, not only because of the physical devastation, but the human casualty.

My phone began to ring incessantly a few minutes later. . .