Our assignment was to document what
came next: the aid and, presumably,
the first steps of healing. But the dev-
astation was so overpowering, it was
hard to imagine moving on from it.
How could anyone recover from this
type of damage?All morning, I had been emailing
Alphonse trying to get better directions
to the clinic where the miracle girl was
being cared for. He repeated the same
two things: “Sonapi” and “Trois Mains.”
Even before the earthquake, Port-au-
Prince was an easy city to get lost in. Few
of the warren-like streets had names,
let alone signs. To find their way, locals
used landmarks to give directions.
When I asked our driver if he knew
“Sonapi” or “Trois Mains,” he shook his
head. He was new to Port-au-Prince.
Passing the airport, however, we
circled a roundabout with a statue in
its centre. That’s when I saw it: three
joining metal hands. Trois Mains. Just
beyond the statue was a wall with a
big blue metal gate, guarded by United
Nations soldiers. Over the gate I spot-
ted a sign: Parc Industriel Métropoli-
tain, SONAPI (Société Nationale des
Parcs Industriels).WHAT I FOUND on the other side of that
gate looked more like a disorganized
campground than a medical clinic. Set
around a muddy patch of grass and a
brick courtyard were a smattering of
tents: silver camping domes, heavy can-
vas shelters and a big army-green partytent, now full of the Air Canada sup-
plies. Chickens and a rooster scratched
in the spaces between them.
The place was quiet. The buzz of
activity and crowds of injured patients
I’d expected from Alphonse’s descrip-
tion were absent. Sundays, it turned
out, were convalescence days for the
Greek doctors who worked with the
NGO Médecins du Monde. The clinic
was officially closed.
A few volunteers milled about,
including Alphonse, who walked over
to greet me.
“You’re here!” he said warmly. “Let
me introduce you to Jonatha.” The mir-
acle child was sitting under the shade
of a tree in the centre of a crowd of ador-
ers. She was small, with birdlike bones,
and her hair was fluffing out from neat
cornrows. She was dressed in a white
tank top that slid off one shoulder and
a pink corduroy skirt that was also tooJONATHA DIDN’T LOOK LIKE SHE HAD LOST
EVERYTHING—SHE LOOKED AS THOUGH SHE
WERE SPENDING AN AFTERNOON IN THE PARK.(OPPOSITEPAGE)^ CATHERINE^ PORTER,COURTESTY^ OF^ SIMON&^SCHUSTERreader’s digest
96 september 2019