Street Scenes with Flowers by Manas Antoine, 1955, Haiti
Even if a psychic or a clairvoyant had been able to predict the devastating earthquake yesterday in Haiti, how would s/he go about alerting any one? One of my psychic friends reported she felt uneasy the night before this 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, but couldn’t pinpoint what was troubling her. She could not discriminate between a possible impending act of terrorism or something else. She did not report her alarming feelings to us, because they were just too ambiguous.
It seems to me that animals (and I’ve read studies on it) are more alert to the vibrations preceding an earthquake than most psychics. Birds, apparently, are extra-sensitive – but unlikely to provide a warning with enough time to seek shelter. And reading the signs birds give would take a much more enlightened view of the animal kingdom; likely one more prevalent, in certain indigenous cultures, in the far past.
I visited Haiti , with my parents, when I was a teenager. I don’t remember much, except we stayed at a nice hotel and went to a night-time Voodoo ceremony (they are some things you don’t ever forget, even after more than 40 years). I also recall some other tourists, from New York, I think, who hastily departed the Hotel, saying they couldn’t stand to see all the poverty in the Country. I had somewhat of a different perspective, even as a youngster. I saw the desperate poverty around me and it was hard to fathom the extent of it, but I also realized if tourists came to Haiti, they would spend money and help the people who sold arts and crafts and souvenirs; the Hotels, the restaurants, the tour guides. Why not do what you could by spending money, I wondered. I think my family still has some of the beautiful wood carvings and paintings they bought in Haiti – now perhaps even more precious than in the 1960s.
I am so saddened by the destruction of this earthquake. Living in earth quake country, as I do, and having been through a Big One in the 1970s, I can relate to the panic and anxiety caused by the out-of-control-earth. But I am not able to imagine what it would be like to live among houses and buildings without any reinforcement and no structure to shelter me. I saw on CNN last night that some time back, a scientist had predicted a major earthquake was likely to strike Port-Au-Prince with horrific results. Perhaps he drew no more attention than an anxious psychic or a flock of fleeing birds.
While there’s no point beating ourselves up for being unable to specifically predict these developments, why IS it that the media can mobilize itself itself faster than any of our government or charitable agencies–whose JOB it is to respond–to fly in medications, drinking water, food, blankets, tents, and personnel? It sits in warehouses ready to be loaded. Still, days go by and victims’ cries for help grow weak and fade into silence in the meantime.
Of course, I don’t mean to imply that anyone is to blame for natural disasters; but our priorities are to blame for not being prepared for to deploy and dispense aid with the same time sensitivity as CNN.
You make an excellent point – the Media seems to have had no problem getting over there immediately – which is why I wondered why some reporters weren’t helping (it looks like Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN pulled a hero’s journey all-nighter tending to the wounded)…I am pretty disgusted about the red-tape that kept the needed supplies from arriving – next time, if there is one, load the reporters’ transports with antibiotics…thanks for your comment