Haiti is located in the Caribbean, an area which is always threatened by hurricane. On October 4th in 2016, my home country has been severely struck by the Hurricane Matthew. The consequences were not very bad in terms of human loss, but it was very dramatic in our harvest loss. It was a bad moment for everyone. I want share with you how I lived it.
I had left Haiti exactly a couple days before the event. I was in Dominican Republic to take the GRE exam because there were no more seats available in Haiti. I took my GRE test in October 4th and I booked my ticket to return the following day. The Hurricane occurred in the night from October 4th to October 5th. Before I slept, I talked to my family and everything was OK.
In October 5th I woke up at 6 AM and I took the Bus to go back without expecting any surprise. The trip was longer than usual because trees had fallen on the street. When I finally arrived in Port-au-Prince (at 7:00 PM) I could not reach anyone of my family. All I could see was the Facebook posts of some friends abroad telling that the South Department is devastated. I was in a situation of panic because my family lives there. I passed the whole night trying to reach them, but it was with no success; I could not sleep then.
In the next morning, I received a gracious call from a friend of my father telling me that everything is OK. I was finally free from the anxiety. He told me that: “Yesterday the phone network company was out of service for everyone in the city”. Thus, I understood it was more fear than harm. Everything was OK.
Now I realize that sometimes we have to stop worrying about the uncertainty. I will try to not loose my composure and my calm to deal better with rumors.
