22 February 2010: On Friday, while in Haiti, I received an unexpected phone call that I was needed in Port-au-Prince in the late afternoon. Guerdy, Plan Haiti’s human resources manager, was getting married and they wanted me to help take photographs. A colleague visiting from Plan Canada was with me and together we went with another Plan Haiti colleague from the Croix-des-Bouquets office. 
 
After a long drive through traffic, when we arrived at the church, I almost didn’t believe that we could be in the right place. Adjacent to the church was the most massive pile of rubble I’d seen yet, upwards of 30 feet of it, sloping downward to the ground.
 
In the rubble, I saw a tangle of twisted chairs lying on top. They were only big enough for small children. That’s when I understood that the church’s school had collapsed. And in the air, was the smell of death that I’d been told would be impossible to forget.

Beaming with joy

Guerdy arrives at her wedding

Guerdy wasn’t there yet when we arrived. Nor were the many other Plan Haiti colleagues who were coming from the Port-au-Prince office and likely to be stuck in traffic. So while we waited, I took photographs of the bridesmaids dressed in their pretty white gowns looking out the church doors. Through the frame of my lens, it looked as though they could have been standing anywhere, and not staring out to the broken world outside.
 
When Guerdy arrived, I took a photograph of her through the car window. I knew that she’d lost relatives in the tragedy, but now she was beaming with joy. It was her day, and nothing, not even a devastating earthquake, could take that away.
 
The wedding inside the enormous church hall, with its safe tin and steel-beamed ceilings, was lovely. Plan staff finally made it to the church, all wearing their blue Plan T-shirts. They filled 2 long pews.
 
This is what I love most about Plan: knowing that the great majority of our staff in the country offices are actually from the countries where we work. In this case, Plan Haiti staff members have been particularly empathetic to the children in the communities where we work, because they have been experiencing similar emotions and fears.

Cherishing each other

Even though I could not quite understand each word the preacher said in French through the echoing microphone at Guerdy’s wedding, I think I heard him say that when life can change in an instant, it is important for us to cherish the time we have with each other and to appreciate the love we are able to share.
 
Looking over at my Plan Haiti colleagues, I couldn’t quite fathom what they’d been through together since 12 January, but I knew it was something important to see them smiling, with their arms around each other’s shoulders, supporting Guerdy, their friend.

Make a donation to the Haiti earthquake appeal