After the 2010 earthquake a small house was made out of rubble, wood and glass bottles. There is an altar and the sun filtered through the walls of blue, green bottles bathes the inside of the house in silence and light. The healing house is an important part of the post-earthquake recovery. It is a reminder that natural disasters require not just reconstruction of buildings but reconstruction of emotional, spiritual, mental stability. I’ve been thinking a lot about Haiti in these days following our own earthquake encounter. Like everyone else here I’ve made jokes while freaking out silently. Haiti we know has more than 200 years of staring war, tragedy, devastation and disaster in the face and managing somehow to emerge and find ways to keep going. I’m not so sure about T&T. We continue to fool ourselves that God is a Trini and that absolves us from adopting a more proactive stance on many things. It also means we take a lax approach to the mental health implications of natural and human disasters. In addition to being mindful of our building codes, we also need to be aware that humans will need to be checked for cracks and damage too.
Tillah Willah 