Sunday, January 17, 2010

here baby

no image for this post.

still glued to internet, reading, reading, reading, watching videos, trying to keep up. the vids are all starting to blend in my mind - the shambles, the dust, the bodies - arms frozen in death, reaching, the wide-eyes, the absolute wreck of everything.

but i can't stop thinking about
one particular video, where an australian reporter covers the miraculous recovery of a an 18 month-ish old girl who'd been trapped for three days underneath a building. i know a lot of such videos are circulating, but somehow this one's still very distinct for me (despite the kind of awful, cliche narration produced around the live footage) and i think it's because of the sound, as much as the images.

first - you hear this little girl shriek in response to voices outside the building [a shriek you will never, ever forget] and then when they extract her, the reporter - who up until that moment has retained the calm, cool, collected (and somewhat condescending) professional veneer - pulls her up into his arms and is so fucking freaked and incredulous he just keeps repeating, for nearly 30 seconds: 'here, baby. here, baby. here, baby.' someone hands him a bottle of water, he pours it over her head and into her mouth, 'here baby. here baby. here baby.'


the rest of the video unfolds like so many others - a blend of french/creole/english broken communication about the situation, surrounding people shell-shocked, trying to understand what's just happened, a quote or two from the heroes, acknowledgment of this miracle in the context of thousands of others dying at that very moment. but i was just bawling by the end of this one and can still hear that reporter: 'here baby. here baby. here baby' in my head.

we're all connecting with/slamming into what's happening in haiti at different moments and for different reasons. please, after reading this, make a donation to your organization of choice. and then make another one when you can. and maybe another one next month. and the month after.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

?=)=)I