When a devastating earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on
January 12, 2010, the world reacted with a collective, yet distant,
horror. For "Cincinnati Enquirer" reporter Mark Curnutte, hearing
the news provoked a far more visceral response. Curnutte had grown
to love Haiti and its people as only someone who had lived with
Haiti's families could.
"A Promise in Haiti" is Curnutte's story of his time, spanning the
last decade, living among several families in Gonaives, a city of
200,000 people a hundred kilometers north of Port-au-Prince. He
began traveling to Haiti as a volunteer with the aid organization
Hands Together, eventually building trust and credibility with many
Haitians. Curnutte introduces the reader to the Cenecharles family,
strained by entrenched unemployment and the need to continually
travel for work. He is invited into the home of the Henrisma
family, and is forced to reconcile journalistic detachment with
basic compassion as he contributes financially to help them. The
reader is confronted with a complicated, conflicted written and
photographic record of a worldview that evolves right on the page.
As a reporter, Curnutte found parallels between the lives he
encountered in Gonaives and the world of the Great Depression
recounted in James Agee and Walker Evans's "Let Us Now Praise
Famous Men." Agee and Evans loom large as a challenge and
inspiration to Curnutte.
The result is equal parts homage to that historic chronicle,
on-the-ground reporting, and introspective narrative on the lessons
Gonaives taught Curnutte about his own life and family. In late
February 2010, Curnutte went back to Haiti on assignment, but
conditions made it impossible for him to return to Gonaives. The
resulting frustration provoked a meditation on the monumental
challenges that face Haiti -- and on the destructive cycle of
international attention that constantly moves on to "The Next Big
Story."
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