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Last revised 19 January, 2008 10 October, 2001: I grew up in a suburb of News Orleans called Jefferson Heights. We moved away in 1960 when my dad was a transferred to the small southeast Louisiana town of Thibodaux. I had just turned 9, and moving from the suburbs to the country was quite a transition. Shortly thereafter, my best friend in New Orleans, Barry, lost his father and moved to his mother's home town in extreme northern Louisiana. I spent part of a summer in the early 60's visiting Barry, and it was quite a culture shock for me. Both New Orleans and Thibodaux were overwhelmingly Catholic, and that small town in north Louisiana had probably never seen a Catholic. People crossed the street to avoid me, and didn't want to serve me in restaurants. I was welcomed in the local Baptist church, but only because they wanted to "save" me. This was a life-changing experience for me since, for the first time, I felt discrimination from the bad side. This wasn't drinking from the clean water fountain because the dirty one was reserved for "colored" people, or riding in the front of the streetcar because the back was for the "Negroes". This was me! I was the one who was being treated like a lesser person! While visiting Barry, we spent some time in a small town in southern Arkansas, and stayed with a black family that was sharecropping some property owned by Barry's mother. There was no electricity in this tiny black community. Running water meant running to the well, and the closest thing to indoor plumbing was closing the door on the outhouse. But I was welcomed into their home, and into their church. I played with the neighborhood kids just like I was one of them. I had never really met a black person before, since they weren't permitted in my school and didn't live in my neighborhood, so I can honestly say I had never actively practiced discrimination. Neither had they, since they had never lived in the white world. I haven't really thought about that experience for almost 40 years, until today when I was trying to think of what to write. You see, in my mind, that family always defined poverty. Until today. During my years in the news media, I visited homeless shelters and hospitals; saw people driven from their homes by floods and fires and hurricanes and tornadoes; watched mothers cry over the deaths of their children and children over the deaths of their parents. I have seen drug addicts die and pushers arrested; interviewed politicians, prostitutes, and rape victims, and seen violent crime victimize my own family. I've known children who have been physically and sexually abused; those who have died, those who have survived, and those who still have not made a choice between the two. I've seen children who were eager to learn, and children who hated the classroom and anyone who put them there. I've seen the faithful and the faithless. I've seen a lot. I thought I had seen poverty. I thought I had seen pitiful. I thought I had seen the least of His people. Yesterday, I thought I had already seen the worst that humanity had to offer. I was wrong. I can't write any more today. If you know me, you know that many adjectives can be used to describe me, but "speechless" has never been one of them. Today, I am speechless. It will take me some time to process what I've seen today. I think I will need to learn some new words to describe it to you, because the words in my vocabulary are woefully inadequate. I broke the "rules" today. I started taking pictures from the window of the bus. I did it secretly, without a flash, just clicking every time I thought I saw something interesting. These images need to be seen. More on another day. 24 October, 2001: Perspective. I've been back at home for a couple of weeks now. I've managed to put all of my pictures online (although I still have more to add taken by others), sang at my father's funeral, and enjoyed (actually, am enjoying) a visit from my daughter. I've realized something since I got back home from Haiti: the experience has affected me in a way I never expected. I find that I think of the people of Haiti with everything I do, especially the things I used to take for granted. It started in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport. I walked up to a water fountain, bent down to take a drink, and realized that I assume that the water is safe to drink. That's not a safe assumption in Haiti. And yet, the 10th of October, 2001, will be a day I will never forget. It is indescribable. I am still speechless. All I can do is present you with the pictures. Perhaps they will tell you the story I cannot. Many of them were taken through the window of our moving bus, so you'll have to look past the smudges on the window and the occasionally blurry image. There are 36 thumbnails on each page, for as many pages as it takes, and clicking on the thumbnail will show you the larger picture. There is no description for most, because there are no words to describe them. Each picture bears the copyright notice of the photographer. I will be adding more pictures as I get them from my fellow travelers, so check back from time to time. Follow these links to the pictures
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