After the Earthquake in Haiti: to Heal the Wounds of the Soul
By Leticia Martínez Hernández      Photo: Juvenal Balán, Special Correspondents

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti. — On March 9, Cuba assaulted the Champ de Mars Plaza, the same one where thousands of sad, exhausted people took shelter two months ago. And yes, it was literally an assault, but the kind mounted by people devoted to healing the wounds of the soul. A Cuban-style assault, with rumba from Santiago, clowns, acrobats, magic, paintbrushes, colors, dances, stilts, songs… The captain of the invasion: the artist Kcho. The conquerors: members of the Marta Machado Brigade. The target? Hundreds of Haitians who, for one morning, forgot about the tragedy to smile with Cuba.

The clock showed 10 a.m. Everything was ready in front of the gardens of the collapsed National Palace: the Haitian police in formation, fencing to mark off the activity space. But because art has no schematic way of doing things, far less the spirit of Kcho, the Brigade of cheer, far from any kind of fear, entered at the least-expected point. The Cuban artists moved among the tents and bedraggled improvised shelters, drawing out the people, whose reactions changed from amazement to delight as happiness invaded the plaza.

Kensí was a clown yesterday for the first time. The colors on his nose and cheeks displaced this little boy’s sadness, sweeping away the bad memories of an earthquake that left him homeless. Like him, hundreds of children, and adults, enjoyed the clowns on stilts prompting a noisy conga line under their long, long legs; the clown Cebollita, as people sprayed each other with his water gun; the magician Sixto, who before the eyes of dozens of people made gourdes (Haitian currency) and playing cards disappear; the vocal group Desandann, who had everyone shaking their hips with their songs in Creole; the paintbrushes of Rancaño; the sketches by Kcho, who told Granma daily that he felt happy at having learned that talent is worth nothing if not shared with others.

And it was pure art that the Cubans offered to hundreds of people in Champ de Mars Plaza. So it was perfectly normal, under that precept of sharing talent to make it real, to hear the notes of jazz musician Yasek Manzano. A young man who studied at Julliard, the prestigious New York school of music, and who has played on stages all over the world, and yesterday showered happiness on this devastated Haiti.

Neither his name nor his awards matter, Yasek said. “I’m just another guy who came to give his heart, to help with the talent that life gave me, with what I learned in Cuba. I’ve fallen in love with this. I’ve been with the brigade in Zapata Swamp, in Guayabal, on the Isle of Youth...and Kcho knows he can count on me.”

Kcho says his telephone has not stopped ringing since the same day of the earthquake, January 12. “The brigade members, friends, were calling me to ask what we were going to do, but we realized that it wasn’t as yet the right time to come here. It was the time for doctors, for healing, for operating. But our day arrived, and we are here to heal the wounds of the soul right now, because if not, the future of this country will be compromised forever. When am I leaving? I don’t know. I just got to this country, and I came to help.”

Yesterday the crowded plaza was a fiesta. It all seemed surreal, a promise of the happiness that we wish for Haiti. Even the fence surrounding the National Palace, which makes one think of the line between luxury and misery, looked beautiful when Cuban hands hung from it enormous drawings made by Cuban children who have also been affected by natural disasters. A halo of faith, hope, and smiles covered Champ de Mars that day.

Translated by Granma International