When I heard the whispers of a Wyclef Jean presidential bid, I simply dismissed them. It seemed like an impossible concept, water-cooler talk — something fun to debate: Could he, would he run, this 37-year-old Haitian musician, and of late, politician, who moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 9 years old. After the announcement was official, Deva Krishna, the unemployed musician in the video spoke to me of his concerns, worries of corruption in Wyclef’s organization…
UNCA alumna and Oregon Law School graduate Amber Munger captivated Asheville after the Jan. 12 earthquake, when her plea-for-help ran on the front page of the Asheville Citizen-Times. Now, Munger has founded her own nonprofit, the Article 29 Organization, working with Haitian peasantry in Commune Anse Rouge, five hours north of Haiti’s capital.
Descending into the waterfall’s basin, the mass of bodies becomes its own living, breathing entity. Moving together in one vibration, in exuberant celebration of all life’s glories and defeats, the drums, horns and songs rise above the waterfall’s massive force.
So starts Asheville journalist Lorin Mallorie’s report from last week’s Sodo celebration.
Just above the capital, in Kenscoff, Haiti, life has a different tempo, a slower vibe. This is country life: the “Real Haiti” as they say. Quiet, slow: Cool and relaxed. And, like the rest of Haiti outside Port-au-Prince, it seems there are no jobs at all. We went to the Dynamic English Club, and threw a party. And what a party it was.
“There are places I go that I cannot take you. Where the air is thick with poverty, misery and disease. Where the rivers run deep with garbage and despair. Where there is no work, no help and no future — but this is not one of those places,” writes Asheville-based Lorin Mallorie, who has, once again, gone to Haiti.
Haiti’s recovery from the devastating January earthquake is far from complete. And the Asheville connection with recovery efforts remains strong. Mountain Xpress publisher Jeff Fobes attended a UN Association panel discussion on Tuesday, June 22: Haiti: Past, present and future. Here are Fobes’ collected messages (Tweets) from the session.
Aaron Funk hosts a fundraiser on Saturday, May 29, to showcase the untold story of Haiti through his photos.
Asheville-based Mission Manna was in Haiti Oct. 16-23, 2010. Lorin Mallorie is currently in Haiti (today’s date: Nov. 18, 2010).
Editor's note: Shortly before Christmas, UNCA senior Lorin Mallorie traveled to Haiti at the invitation of UNCA alumna Amber Munger, who gave a lecture on her work there last fall (see "Gratitude, Hugs and Tears," March 3 Xpress). Wanting to dig deeper, Mallorie returned to Haiti last month, using the contacts she'd made during her […]
Benefit concert tonight at the White Horse in Black Mountain with Nikki Talley, Dave Turner, Sirius B, Laura Blackley, Kim Hughes, Every Mothers Dream, and WSNB (We Sing Nasty Blues). $12 admission; starts at 7 p.m. If you can’t make it to the show, check out the live video/audio stream.
The Haiti earthquake in January killed about 200,000. It also left an estimated 1.2 million people homeless, and as the rainy season there approaches, their struggle to survive continues. An Asheville nurse wants to help and plans to launch a regional tarp and tent drive she’s calling Cover Haiti.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing suffering in Haiti, the Carolina Cinema plans an Oscar-themed celebration to provide aid
Pick your favorite eatery from the list of more than 20 that are participating. Then grab a table and nosh as usual: 10 percent of your bill will be donated to the Red Cross in support of ongoing relief efforts in Haiti.
I’m going to offer you a deal. I’ll tell you about a bunch of inexpensive and kids-eat-free restaurant options locally, so you can save money while feeding your children. But you have to promise me that you’ll send any cash you save to Haitian relief programs.
Help Haiti Heal Benefit, a two-day concert in Black Mountain, starts Saturday, Feb. 6 and continues on Sunday and will showcase a wide range of local talent. Xpress hopes to carry a live video feed of the concert for those who can’t attend.
Tuesday, Jan. 12: just another day in Asheville until my cell phone rumbled to life with the news of the earthquake in Haiti. By hook or by taxi In the midst of all of the tweeting, we still had staff unaccounted for, five days post-quake — not at all encouraging. E-mails weren't being returned, phones […]
As is most often the case, America again turns her attention to the people of Haiti because of profoundly tragic events. The massive earthquake … has devastated an entire community. Complete families have been lost outright. The whole infrastructure of the Haitian government, ordinarily fragile, has been decimated. Once more Haiti, one of our closest […]
When the global-warming hoax is finally exposed, there will lay the roots: acid rain, and all its illegitimate junk-science children. But the most recent announcement, that the glaciers in the Himalayas are really not melting away nearly as fast as reported earlier, should remind those of us who are still not completely politically correct that […]
A truck whisked away donated relief goods from Asheville last week. And another will do so again early next week. What happens to those goods? Here’s part of the story.
Asheville-based MissionMANNA, which has been helping Haiti for years, offers ways of helping Haiti.
Asheville-based Mission Manna has a team working in Haiti this week and is providing updates via Twitter, which are viewable in this post.
