Washington, January 21: He might have been greeting his mother after an exciting day at school, but the little boy with the shining eyes, the blazing grin and his arms outstretched towards his mother had just spent seven-and-a-half days buried in the ruins of his two-storey house in Port-au-Prince. His name is Kiki, he is eight years old, and he was rescued late on Tuesday night along with his 10-year-old sister by two American teams. Haiti’s disaster has yet to produce a more stunning advertisement for the strength of the human spirit.
But on the day when a powerful aftershock sent Haitians fleeing in panic into the streets, the elderly woman trapped in the rubble of Port-au-Prince’s cathedral ran him a close second. She, too, was buried for an entire week, and cried “Thank God, thank God” and sang in jubilation as she was carried away on a stretcher.
Ena Zizi had been praying in the city’s cement cathedral when the walls and ceilings collapsed, killing the archbishop and burying many worshippers alive. She suffered a broken leg and a dislocated hip but was otherwise unhurt and kept her spirits up by talking to a priest who was also entombed. But after some days his voice died away, and she was left alone with her faith. “I talked only to my boss, God,” she told her rescuers. “And I didn’t need any more humans.”
–Agencies