In Their Voices - Honoring survivors of the Jan 12 2010 Earthquake

January 12th 2010 - 14 years ago a more than deadly earthquake hit Ayiti. As a memorial to the day, we offer this episode to the memory and the miracles that happened not ever forgetting the instantaneous death that has haunted the streets of the capital for years and perhaps to this day as we will share these stories of our community with you. To see the actual ⁠Discovery channel YouTube⁠ that I refer to and the damning evidence for the extreme level of death and destruction of "Goudougoudou" (Haitian's nickname for the earthquake) watch the video we watched even as we reeled from the effects in our own community and the psychological fall out of this event just a month afterwards.  Hear in full Mona singing and mournful howling out the anguish of this event in his song "Ayiti an Dèy" or ⁠"Haiti in Mourning⁠" that our band performed at the French Institute about a year or so after the quake. Here are his poetic words: "Haiti in mourning" (poetry is difficult to translate all of the cultural meaning, but I believe the beautiful expression of the spiritual and hopeful feeling comes through)   When Ayiti was dancing All her children were thinking She was dancing a dance of hope Their hearts had a folklore joy Their lips had a galaxy smile And their eyes contemplated another life But in a very short time Ayiti was beaten down on her knees It was Mr. Catastrophe Crushing, wiping out, killing Haiti's in mourning Her children are boiling leaves So they don’t die They are so traumatized Haiti is sick Please come and clothe her She is trembling She is biting her nails She can’t any more She saw too many children die She’s going crazy She calls out for help With her father, the sun Who always gives the best advice And who said to her She’s in trouble The enemy is making war With her mother who is the earth The sun says my child I’ll give you light To bring your mother out of her sadness  Now call your mother’s other children To come help you and your children Haiti did that And they came in willing to help They said, you are our family We owe you love Here, we’re helping you To help yourselves Because today it’s your turn And tomorrow it may be ours Your problem could be ours too Haiti is remade Because it understands Mother earth Who smiled Life isn’t over Now it’s to work Even the night gave the unemployed work She did that Because she’s behind Haiti is pregnant It’s the time she needs more strength For her to give birth To many children She called Father Sun Who always give her good advice To ask for more energy To replace those that were lost On the earth, our dear mother