The Foreign Service Journal, April 2010

F O C U S O N T H E F S R O L E I N H A I T I E CHOES OF G RACE oon after being crushed in the collapse of his home, a tragedy that killed his wife and two of his children, an Embassy Port-au-Prince bodyguard crawled out of the rubble with his only surviving child. Despite a dislocated shoulder, broken hand and broken arm, he managed, with the help of another FSO, to get his 7-year-old son four miles to the embassy’s gate. Once the decision was made to admit the bodyguard and his son into the building for treatment by the sole doc- tor on duty, I went to meet them. After the man had tra- versed the 300 or so paces to Post 1, a wheelchair finally arrived and he collapsed into it with an enormous groan. The bodyguard kept one eye open and on his son at all times despite pain and exhaustion—while his broken hand was set with a makeshift rubber brace, and while we kept his son awake to see if he showed any signs of internal bleeding or concussion. Later that night, father and son were out of danger and slept in the embassy’s only two beds. The next morning, I was told that I could go feed the hungry boy. His father was being tended to in a separate room, and the little boy was scared and didn’t know what was happening. He wouldn’t speak a word, even when I spoke to him in French. But he ate voraciously and silently as I held a banana to his mouth. In between bites, I kept asking and motioning to see if he wanted to drink some water or juice, but he just stared at me, steadily eating the banana I held. I didn’t know if he could understand me at all. After he swallowed the last morsel, I suggested non- chalantly, as I got up to leave, that perhaps he’d like some chocolate. He nodded his head yes, so I asked, “How many chocolates do you need, two or three?” “Trois,” he said, softly, but clearly, with an earnest stare. Later I found some children’s books and greatly en- joyed reading Max et les Maximonstres to the boy. I’d read my own son (about the same age) the same story in the original English ( Where the Wild Things Are ) from a copy my mother had given me when I was that age. Pitching In In hindsight, this bodyguard and his young son received relatively grand treatment. Other Haitians not affiliated with the embassy came to the gate with mortal wounds and likely died right outside or nearby. T HE LOCAL STAFF WHO FORM THE BACKBONE OF E MBASSY P ORT - AU -P RINCE SAW THEIR SOCIETY LITERALLY DISINTEGRATE IN SECONDS . B Y M ICHAEL H ENNING S Michael Henning, a U.S. Agency for International Devel- opment Foreign Service officer since 1995, was in Haiti during the Jan. 12 earthquake and stayed for two weeks to assist the mission. He has served in the Philippines, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Governing Board of the American Foreign Service Association. 24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 0