life, death, isolation, and meaning in social media messages from haiti earthquake survivors

Beliefs and Values, Volume 3, Number 1, 2011 International Beliefs and Values Institute www.ibavi.org Page | 96

Life, Death, Isolation, and Meaning in Social Media Messages from Haiti Earthquake Survivors

Susan Speraw

University of Tennessee

Suzanne Boswell University of Tennessee

Maureen Baksh-‐‑Griffin University of Tennessee

Following the 7.0-‐‑magnitude earthquake that shook Haiti on January 12, 2010, social media networks provided an unprecedented amount of information about this event to the world. Cries for help guided relief operations, families learned the fate of loved ones, and history was chronicled. Eyewitness accounts—condensed to fit the constraints of social media sites—nevertheless conveyed complex messages of suffering and hope. Content analysis and phenomenological methods were used to examine 3,602 Twitter text messages, 627 blog entries, and 176 postings on a Haiti listserv, all in the public domain; the messages were posted within hours of the event and in the weeks immediately following the earthquake by residents of Haiti, rescue responders, and journalists. Analysis revealed trauma and the poignant struggles of a people seeking to preserve dignity and to find answers to core existential questions regarding meaning, death, freedom, and isolation. Professionals responding to catastrophic disasters will see many implications in these findings, whether their responsibilities are in coordination, direct care, or in the complex dual roles of survivor/responder. Keywords: existentialism, disaster, social media, qualitative research, phenomenology, content analysis, Twitter, blogs, listservs, Haiti earthquake

Haiti’s nine million people are no strangers to adversity. Even before the January 2010 earthquake, fully two thirds of the population lived in poverty, the average adult earning less than two dollars per day; life expectancy ran a mere 55 years; half of the citizenry lacked access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation; and the adult literacy rate (38%) ranked among the lowest in the world (Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, n.d.); World Health Organization (WHO, 2009). Weakened infrastructure made daily life difficult and heightened vulnerability (Greenberg, 2010). A history of governmental instability, dictatorships, coup d’etats, and corruption (Farmer, 2003, 2005; Stotzky, 1997) had robbed the

citizens of their power. Turmoil coupled with the effects of recurring natural disasters undermined development and kept the nation isolated, the end result being that by January 2010, Haiti had devolved from being emblematic of beauty, resource potential, and strength to becoming distinguished by the staggering breadth of its need (Dreyfuss, 2001; Lafargue, 2010; Lambert, 2009; Wilentz, 2010).

It was against this backdrop that the earthquake struck, with destructive impact that has been called “apocalyptic” (Doyle, 2010), and “the most destructive natural disaster in modern times” (Inter-‐‑American Development Bank [IDB], 2010, ¶ 1). This event left over 1.5 million people displaced or living


in 1,300 tent camps (Rosenberg, 2010), a number that did not change even up to a year after the quake (Nguyen, 2010; Teff & Parry, 2010). Efforts to accurately tally the dead were hampered by the destruction of government entities, hospitals, morgues, and the absence of a systematic method of accounting for thousands buried in mass graves or hidden under crumbled structures. The quake death toll was estimated at 250,000 by the United Nations (Colum, 2010), and 300,000 by Haitian president Rene Preval (Mail Foreign Service, 2010), but true mortality figures may never be known. The earthquake did more than re-‐‑write statistics, however. It exposed enormous resilience and resolve among the population, providing the world a window through which to observe how Haitians approach calamity.

The advent of satellite and cellular technologies came late to the Caribbean nation. Internet access was available as early as 2002, but the staggering poverty of Haiti, combined with low literacy rates and lack of electricity, restricted Web access to fewer than 11% of the population, a figure that has remained fairly constant (Rhoads, 2010). In contrast, cell phone use has increased dramatically within the last decade. Telecommunications D’Haiti (Teleco), a government-‐‑owned monopoly, introduced telephone technology to Haiti in 1985, but it was not until 1999 that two cell phone providers (Comcel and Haitel) stepped onto the Haitian stage to provide limited cellular access within Haiti and the Caribbean (Sassine, 2010). Digicel, the largest cell phone network in the Caribbean, was the first to make global linkage service available to the populace using more contemporary and universally accepted technologies known as Global Systems for Mobile Communication (GSM, 2006). With the introduction of Digicel global technology in 2006, links to the USA and other parts of the world were facilitated, and cell phone use multiplied. By late 2009, cell phone penetration within Haiti had reached just under 50%, and included both rural and urban service areas (Barberousse, Bernard, & Pescatori, 2009; International Finance Corporation World Bank Group, 2009). As might be expected, Haitians use cellular phones according to their resources and abilities. Those who are poor and illiterate (a significant percentage of the populace) are

not accessing Internet capabilities, and may only use the phone for conversing with family and friends. At the other end of the spectrum, the elite may access a full range of Internet capabilities, using the phone not only for routine social communication, but also for business. While possession of cellular technology is therefore far from universal, the onset of the earthquake in January 2010 found more Haitians than ever before-‐‑-‐‑expatriates living and working in Haiti, as well as responders-‐‑-‐‑in possession of an effective mechanism for providing instantaneous information to the world through the use of social media networks.

SOCIAL MEDIA

The words and images that poured out across the globe from victims and victims’ families in the early stages of the disaster often proved to be a lifeline. Thanks to text messages posted on social media sites or Web pages established by major relief organizations, people learned the fate of loved ones (Frank, 2010). First responders took notice of the value of the postings made on Twitter, Facebook, blog sites, and listservs as they plotted initial rescues. Major disaster organizations and government entities monitored the same networks in order to better coordinate rescue teams. One government-‐‑affiliated disaster organizer observed, “[Social media] is part of the way people communicate, so it should be part of the way we gain situational awareness” (Frank, 2010, p. 3).

Other outlets for citizen-‐‑generated reports were broadcasts and newsprint. Major disaster response agencies also have a growing presence on networking sites, and they use that social connectedness to supplement their formal reporting of well-‐‑vetted facts. Following the quake, these entities not only posted factual reports via traditional broadcast and communications venues, but also reports submitted by social media citizen-‐‑users on the ground in Haiti, the personal, reflective blogs of their correspondents, and photos taken by survivors with cell phones. For media organizations, this highly varied spectrum of information is reflective of a modern view of journalism that holds that news agencies have a


responsibility not only to report facts confirmed by reliable sources, but also to give ordinary citizens a venue through which to speak in their own voice using the various mechanisms through which individuals can be linked (Bunz, 2010). Typical examples of these network contributions were those generated by Cable News Network (CNN). Their on-‐‑air broadcasts from Haiti were supplemented by web-‐‑based iReports: eyewitness citizen-‐‑generated narrative and video accounts of events (CNN, n.d.). Disaster response agencies served a similar function. In cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the American Red Cross webpage provided factual information about quake relief operations, solicited funds for relief efforts, reunited families and friends through the Family Links feature which registered 6,562 “I am alive” messages, and posted the names of 29,378 missing relatives (Blog at WordPress, 2010).

Such applications in social networking are not new, but in recent years the potential for text messaging and blogging to contribute to the efficacy of disaster response has increased dramatically. It was used in functional ways in Haiti (Bush, 2010; Dempsey, 2010), but also following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster (O’Grady, 2005), Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Office of News Services, 2009), and the 2008 Sichuan, China earthquake (Underwood, 2010; Yang, Yang, Luo, & Gong, 2009). In each of these events, social media messages answered questions such as: “Where is the damage?” “How severe is the impact?” “What resources are needed?”

Scholars in communications have recognized for some years that the content of blogs and text messages may also reveal much about the life and personal identity of their authors and be a venue for the exchange of ideas and social action (Carfi, 2009; Taricani, 2007; Walker, 2007; Wang, 2008). Nonetheless, the content of social networking has never been qualitatively examined for what it can reveal about the key emotional issues that face survivors and first responders in the early hours and days following a disaster. This is true despite the immediacy of the experience shared and the fact that the intimate nature of the messages makes them ideal sources of insight into the emotional life of those who

find themselves fully immersed in the calamity while it unfolds.

Therefore, the purpose of this research was to fill a gap in our understanding of the immediate human ordeal of living through a disaster, exploring the experiences of Haitian survivors of the January 2010 earthquake (as well as those of expatriate Haitians and non-‐‑Haitian rescue responders who were among the first to arrive), and applying content analysis and phenomenological research methods to examine 3,602 Twitter English-‐‑language text messages, 627 English-‐‑language blog entries, and 176 postings on a Haiti listserv between January 12 and February 25, 2010. No messages in French or Haitian Creole were knowingly retrieved or analyzed, though it is possible that some French or Haitian Creole may have been translated prior to posting. To have included messages posted to Twitter or blogs in French or Creole would have required translation prior to analysis, a process which would have been complicated by the fact that there would be no way to verify the translation with the author. While this limited the research significantly-‐‑-‐‑exclusively French-‐‑speaking and Haitian Creole-‐‑speaking segments of the population with access to cell phones were excluded from the research-‐‑-‐‑such exclusion was deemed preferable to making significant errors. Nonetheless, this approach means that the messages analyzed came from Haitians with sufficient education to use passably understandable English, or from expatriates and responders with command of the language.

This research was submitted to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, USA, and was determined to be exempt from full board review. The exemption was given on the basis of the nature of the data: All social networking messages were posted on the Internet in the public domain where authors had no expectation of privacy, and were indeed written for the express purpose of having their observations broadcast to the larger world. Nonetheless, for this written report, the identities of private citizens are protected through the use of initials or pseudonyms where possible. The names of professional correspondents who write and post personal blogs as part of their employment, or


other bloggers who write on websites with open access in the public domain and use their own byline, are included here as written.

METHODS

Design

Phenomenology is a philosophy and method of inquiry, closely aligned with existentialism, founded on the works of Martin Heidegger (1926/1962) and Maurice Merleau-‐‑Ponty (1945/1962), and focused on the subjective, first-‐‑person experience of existence. Sandra Thomas and Howard Pollio (2002), writing on Merleau-‐‑Ponty in their book on existential-‐‑phenomenological methods, observe that it is the body, world, time, and other people that are the foci of perception, the ways in which we as humans come to frame the world. Taylor Carman (2008) adds to their explanation, noting that Merleau-‐‑Ponty viewed perception as an embodied experience in which humans search for greater understanding of the enigmas or mysteries of existence. For those buried under the Haitian rubble, meaning was all about perception as embodiment. For responders who sought to remove the boulders that pinned victims in living graves, and for reporters who chronicled the stench of death and the experience of rescue under a broiling sun, embodiment also framed perception. In normal times, humans manage to keep fears of death and isolation at bay; the search for meaning is ongoing, but not desperate. Disaster, however, forces a confrontation with death, prompts questions about meaning, and stirs profound realization that some experiences truly cannot be shared at their core. Whether the disaster is personal-‐‑-‐‑affecting an individual directly-‐‑-‐‑or more distant-‐‑-‐‑something seen via media or read about-‐‑-‐‑the realization that calamity can claim lives of all ages becomes keenly felt. As early as 1995, Neil Thompson, drawing upon the philosophy of Jean-‐‑Paul Sartre, wrote on existential issues in then-‐‑contemporary disasters such as the plane explosion over Lockerbie, Scotland. Thompson observed that while on an intellectual level people realize that neither the quality nor length of life is guaranteed, in daily practice what humans focus

upon is that which they perceive to be secure: the reality of work, the presence of family, and the inevitable passage of time. When calamity strikes and people strive to make order out of chaos, questions of life and death cannot be ignored, resulting in powerful emotional and/or physiological responses.

The overall incidence of disasters has increased exponentially over the past two decades, (International Disaster Database, n.d.), prompting health professionals of many disciplines to focus on how best to deliver the highest quality care in extreme circumstances. Prerequisite to excellence is preparation in basic skills of disaster response, as well as the psychological impact of disaster on survivors and responders alike. Gaining a clear sense of the human experience of living through dire times is a critical element of preparation.

For the purpose of elucidating the lived human experience of calamity, phenomenology proved an ideal methodology to use in this examination of social media messages. It did this in two major ways:

1) it spotlighted the raw experience of being in the world—from the expert perspective of those who lived that life (Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997)—thus giving us a view of the immediacy of the disaster experience; and

2) it focused on the question of how Haitian survivors and those who served in a response capacity confronted the reality of their devastated world with authentic selves, and grappled in daily life with the core challenges in existence: confronting the inevitability of death, finding meaning, seeking freedom, and facing isolation (Crowell, 2010; Yalom, 1980).

Nature of the Data

The data used in this report differ substantially from that found in other qualitative research publications. First, there was no prescribed, uniform, systematic grand question that was presented to the participants, or a standardized questionnaire or survey administered. The question that drives this study-‐‑-‐‑namely, what is the human experience of living


through a disaster-‐‑-‐‑was imposed on publicly available, existing data after the fact. Second, although the volume of data analyzed was very large, each individual entry was brief. This is in contrast to lengthy interview transcripts that are common in phenomenological research. These data are either Twitter messages, by definition highly condensed communiqués of 140 characters or less that force senders to hone their observations to their core, or brief reflective blogs or listserv postings. Third, the data also differ in their immediacy and freshness. Past explorations of the human experience of calamity have emerged from war (Betancourt, Speelman, Onyango, & Bolton, 2009; Frankl, 1962), traumatic phenomena such as genocide (Meffert & Marmar, 2009), and still more out of the experience of disaster (Adeola, 2009; Bell, 2008). But emergence of these bodies of knowledge has generally come months or years after the triggering events have passed, when time has robbed informants’ memories of freshness, and history and other intervening events may have corrupted their recollections. One unique value of the present research hinges on the immediacy of the messages that constitute the data. These postings, sent in the moment when experience was raw, ensure that time is not a contaminant. The experience of “being” while the world around is crumbling or destroyed is told by those in the midst of the chaos. Their messages give highly credible witness to the moment of the disaster and the days after, as they were lived in real time.

The data which form the basis for this paper include 3,602 Twitter text messages as well as 627 blog entries and 176 postings on a Haiti listserv. All were generated on the scene and posted to public social networking sites between January 12 and February 25, 2010. All were written in the English language, thus eliminating the potential for error that may have resulted from errors in translation. This use of English-‐‑only data proved both a strength (in terms of the researchers’ capacity to accurately analyze and interpret) and a limitation (excluding the illiterate, as well as those who are exclusively French-‐‑ or Haitian Creole-‐‑speaking). Messages were controlled by the sender and revealed no more and no less than users desired, helping to assure preservation of dignity and

respect for the individual.

Qualitative Data Analysis

Procedures for analysis of phenomenological data, as outlined by Thomas and Pollio (2002), were followed in this research. These included the following major steps:

• overview and review of Twitter postings, blogs and listserv entries, and elimination of duplicates (for example, some Twitter posts were later quoted in listserv messages) or irrelevant responses to earlier posts (an example of a message considered “irrelevant” to the purpose of the research is the following, clearly generated within the USA: “I hope everybody will text a donation to the American Red Cross.”); this process eliminated approximately 200 Twitter messages, for a net of 3,400 Twitter postings;

• line-‐‑by-‐‑line reading of transcript text; • identification of key words, themes and

meaning units; and • eventual development of a thematic

structure of the phenomenon of living through and responding to a catastrophic disaster.

Each member of the research team first worked independently to code data. Subsequently, working together as a team, oral line-‐‑by-‐‑line reading took place, with built-‐‑in stops after each blog paragraph or Twitter entry was read to discuss independent coding until consensus in coding could be reached. In coding, words such as “dead,” “death,” “corpse,” “lifeless,” “bodies” [when referring to corpses], “coffins,” “shrouds,” “burials/funerals,” and “alive/survive/ok”, were all considered to be part of the theme of Death…and Life. Similarly, words such as “meaning,” “purpose,” “explanation/reason,” “plan” [as in divine plan], and questions such as “Why?” were all considered to reflect the existential concern of meaning. The same was true for each of the other two themes, freedom and isolation, with words reflecting the experience of choice associated with freedom, and words associated with connections (or absence of connection) tied to isolation. Words coded to the


theme of faith all related to belief, God, divine will, biblical references, prayer, hymns, or specific kinds of religious services. This process of line-‐‑by-‐‑line reading and verification of coding was directed toward assuring confirmation of interpretation and analysis. Indications of validity came from evidence which emerged quickly and which was virtually universal across messages. Analysis was completed by the three primary researchers with the assistance of a doctoral research practicum group skilled in qualitative data analysis (all of whom signed confidentiality agreements).

What we found surprised us. Instead of a focus on rescuing and being rescued, what we discovered were poignant words telling of life’s search for meaning in the face of calamity. Key themes which echoed from the voices of Haitian survivors and first responders were those discussed by existential-‐‑phenomenological philosophers such as Merleau-‐‑Ponty (1945/1962) and scholars, such as Irvin Yalom (1980), who examine how the core existential concerns of death, freedom, isolation and meaning are reflected and confronted in the daily lives of human beings.

Qualitative Analysis

This study was designed to be qualitative and phenomenological in nature. While relatively few quotes are included in this paper, what is printed is represents the themes uncovered by the authors. For example, eight quotes follow under the theme of Death…and Life. Yet, during the first week after the quake, virtually every message coming out of Haiti included references to bodies, death, survival, or life vs. death. As time progressed, there were fewer references to death themes, but more references to meaning, or faith in the coming of a better future.

RESULTS

Death...and Life

Death is all around; everyone has seen death now (RM, 2010a).

Some awareness of the truth that mortal life does not go on forever can be positive, instrumental in

propelling people forward, spurring pursuit of goals and providing motivation to live life fully. At the same time, most humans do not consciously dwell on their mortality, and instead, focus on living. They go about their daily routines without thought that they could conceivably be dead within minutes or hours; that degree of awareness could prove dispiriting and immobilizing (Yalom, 1980). This is true the world over, until a shattering event such as disaster strikes, jolting people out of their reverie of denial.

Immediately following the Haiti quake, the focus of Twitter tweets was steadfastly on living. Haitians on the ground strove to make connections with those in the Haitian diaspora in the USA and elsewhere, or reach out to would-‐‑be rescuers who could help. One especially prolific social message user was RM, whose tweets (reproduced here exactly as written) were widely broadcast through various venues. As was true with others, RM’s first thoughts and emotional energy were directed to the living (for reading clarity, all postings are set off as block quotations regardless of their length):

Were [sic] ok…internet is on!! no phones! hope all are ok (RM, 2010a) People are praying in groups…others looking for relatives (RM, 2010a) My mom just showed up…sigh of relief!!! (RM, 2010a)

Others writers communicated places where help was needed, with some messages giving great specificity:

Rescue team needed @ Lycee Français. 8-‐‑yr-‐‑old alive under the rubble…Time crucial. (douglaspaul@haitifeed, 2010)

It required little time, however, for the reality of the magnitude of death to dawn on the living. By late evening on January 13, and throughout January 14 and beyond, death became intensely personal, no longer an abstraction. Reality was embodied in corpses visible in the rubble and on the streets. Tweets from those days revealed first questioning


and shifting perspective, followed by somber awareness that death was commonplace, and, finally, the shattering realization that the scope of death had altered life as they had known it.

People that came from the airport are saying there are bodies strewn about on the streets. I don’t know what to make of that. (RM, 2010a) I see bodies in the street…I see bodies buried in the rubble…decomposing bodies (RM, 2010b) Bodies. Bodies. Bodies. Bodies. Bodies. Bodies. I don’t know how else to say it… Where do you put the bodies? (RM, 2010b) What was evident was that no one in Haiti was

spared the horror of death. Much like the Haitians themselves, responders, whether rescuers or correspondents there to cover the event, were impacted—stunned—by the magnitude and horror of death. Even when joy in finding one spared single life was experienced, an event which became rarer as days passed, it seemed always to be juxtaposed with the harsh confrontation of many deaths, as reflected in these postings:

I just happened upon a scene about 30 minutes ago…You could see two feet [in the rubble], you could hear her crying out, and there was a lot of arguing about how to get her out. They were literally digging with their hands…and an extraordinary moment a few moments ago, they pulled her out. She’s alive, she’s well. But four members of her family are dead. They are piled up right outside the destroyed building she was rescued from…There are bodies…you see a white shroud on the street corner or in the gutter and you know it’s a body, or three bodies or four bodies. Sometimes they’re not even covered in shrouds, just laid out. (Cooper, 2010) It is complete devastation here…Crowds of people are standing in the street…many are injured, and dead bodies are lined along the roadside. Injured people are sleeping next to people who are dead. (Miller, 2010)

On Day 3 of the catastrophe…we turned a corner and walked a little further, covering our noses with scarves or our shirt collars. [The other reporter walking with me] looked for a moment and then said quietly, “It’s the Holocaust.” (Wilson, 2010, ¶ 9)

Perhaps nothing could be more harrowing a first person account of a confrontation with mortality than the narrative of Prospery Raymond, Haitian manager of a relief agency in Haiti, who reported his personal experience of being trapped under the rubble and rescued by local youths who were nearby :

I was sitting at my desk, working on my computer and I realized the office was moving…it was sliding, like when you are on the sea, like you are on a big wave…It was really terrible. (Raymond, 2010)

After being pulled from the rubble, he was faced with death and destruction:

For [0.62 miles] around the office, only two homes were still standing. What was really terrible was people crying. I do not have words to describe what I have seen in the street, I have never seen so many dead bodies. (Raymond, 2010)

With the benefit of hindsight, two observers, reporters for The New York Times, offered their interpretation of the forces that propelled people forward in the weeks following the event.

Despite such widespread destruction–and an incalculable number of deaths–almost no one…seems to let himself cry, not even the children. Grief is still buried under shock, and there is stoic determination to face the future because, no matter how tenuous, it is far less frightening than the immediate past. (Sontag & Thompson, 2010, ¶ 8)


Freedom and Confinement

“I’ve tweeted about it. I’m reaching out” (RM, 2010a).

Sartre (1977) places the concept of freedom at the heart of his philosophy. He reminds us that decisions about how we are to live our lives and “be” in the world are ours to make. RM’s very act of tweeting, even when he can do nothing beyond reaching out, reflects our most basic, essential freedom. Frankl (1984), writing on his experience of survival in Holocaust concentration camps, has observed, “the last of human freedoms [is] the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances” (p. 86). Nothing illustrates the truth of this statement as much as the response of the Haitian people following the quake. For those who were confined under rubble, self-‐‑directed action brought instrumental help in gaining release from confinement. Sometimes the efforts of rescuers to reach and connect were successful; at other times, tragically, they were not:

The best news came in the form of a small voice from deep in a pile of rubble…heard overnight, late Saturday or early Sunday…American and Turkish rescue workers were stunned to discover a small Haitian girl, who proudly told them that she made it through with hope… (Caves & Sontag, 2010) …the human drama occurring on every single street is extraordinary…[rescue] is slow, laborious work…often unsuccessful. Many times voices which were crying out hours ago are now silenced. (Cooper, 2010) In the absence of a structured plan following

devastation that robs landscapes of landmarks, physical and emotional bearings can be lost. Total destruction ultimately provides opportunities to create new and more efficient communities, but such a broad scope of possibility can be both freeing and terrifying. For Haitians, suddenly left without the structures, rules, and patterns that framed daily life, activities on the day of the quake and in the early

days that followed were directed toward reaching for the familiar and attempting to reconstruct a semblance of life as it had been.

I’m going to sweep the entire plaza. We must keep it clean. Filth is a sin. (Forelle & Bhatia, 2010)

Along similar lines, CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported in his blog about a street scene in which people seeking the comfort of traditions and rituals attempted to care for their dead in much the same way as they had done before, even when the old approaches were no longer functional.

…a man is pushing a wheelbarrow, and in the wheelbarrow is what looks like a teenager, wrapped in a shroud…I'ʹve seen people walking with coffins over their heads…just walking. There'ʹs not a sense of what'ʹs happening next…I don'ʹt even know that people can think about what happens next. (Cooper, 2010)

As the initial terror subsided, freedom was often reflected in conscious decisions made to engage in communal activity, seeking as members of larger groups to take charge of life, rise above the despair, maintain resiliency, and choose an attitude of hope in the midst of crisis. Faith in a merciful God has always been an anchor for many Haitian people, who tend to be overwhelmingly Christian (Central Intelligence Agency, 2010). For countless survivors, worship was a comforting, often uplifting, communal activity in which they chose to engage. In worship, they found spiritual sources of hope and comfort:

At night we sleep in the yard behind the building…There are 200-‐‑300 people who sleep in the field at night. They sing hymns until almost midnight, and we wake up to a church service, with hymns, a morning prayer, and the apostles creed [sic]…in the field there is a real sense of community…I have never understood joy in the midst of suffering, but now I do. The caring I’ve seen, the help we’ve received, the evening songs


and prayers. All are wonderful and help keep us going. (JL, 2010) Early, by 5:00 AM, for two hours there are like 500-‐‑600 people on the streets, singing religious songs, dancing and blessing God for being alive. It is like a parade, the local way of healing their pain…these victims have lost everything except their Faith. (Saint-‐‑Lot, 2010)

Philosophers and scholar-‐‑therapists who deal with the experience of living in the world remind us that in spite of physical confinement, or of circumstances so overwhelming and devastating that not even thousands of rescuers have the power to remedy the breadth of destruction, freedom to choose life and an attitude of possibility remains (Frankl, 1962; Yalom, 1980). The Haitian earthquake has given us evidence for the truth of this assertion.

Isolation and Connection

…if a call does get through, we can’t hear or be heard. (Frechette, 2010).

Every human being has periods of being alone, a state which some tolerate more comfortably than others. But being alone is different from isolation, a core concern of existence that refers to our essential separateness from others (Yalom, 1980). Indeed, Frankl (1962) tells us that to be isolated from others is “hell.” We may be in a room crowded with hundreds of other people, theoretically sharing a common experience, yet the truth is that no matter how “intimately” we share events or time, each of us has our own unique experience of that reality. Even the most momentous events in life—birth and death—cannot be truly shared completely; the inner experience of those events, the individual perceptions, belong to each individual alone, framed by each person’s unique life lens. While millions around the world were focused intently on Haiti in the hours and weeks after the quake, and rescuers, cameras and reporters filled the streets, the people of Haiti felt no less isolated. Messages from the rubble communicated this feeling of isolation and the

attempts to combat it. By communicating via social media, victims were reaching out to the social world of which they were aware pre-‐‑earthquake in hopes of being acknowledged. They reported feelings of doom, being trapped in the countryside, being left to wonder if the world had come to an end, and wondering whether anyone was aware that they lived. Even surrounded by their neighbors, whole communities of survivors labored under intense feelings of isolation.

A day felt like a year…You’re buried alive. You can’t scream. You wonder if anyone will ever come. (Lacey, 2010, ¶ 15) We are trying to get word to the media…we are trapped in isolation, with no outside awareness that rescue help is desperately needed beyond the capitol [sic]. Please tell someone. (Demme, 2010) Does anyone know there are survivors in Jacmel? (ML, 2010)

A unique form of isolation was experienced by people who experienced the death of loved ones. Though others were at their side, no one could know their sense of aloneness as they waited in hopes of finding life. It was only after resolving their personal question, “life or death?” that they could join in the sorrows and losses of others. This transition from intensely personal focus to outward focus on others is illustrated by this reflection:

When the earthquake struck I was in the bedroom…I tried to run, but it knocked me down and I couldn’t go back inside to grab the child [15-‐‑day-‐‑old boy]. Outside, they asked me where was my baby. I told them I didn’t know. The baby’s grandfather went back inside and he saw that the baby had fallen on the ground…and he was covered in dust. When they pulled my child out, I thought he was dead [like his 6-‐‑year old brother]. The baby wasn’t moving or breathing. It took a long time to revive him…We lost everything, but now I see that everyone’s house has been destroyed, so


now we are equal as one…we’re all suffering here. (Crowley, 2010)

Meaning

A priest came to see me today…I asked him why so many churches collapsed…he left without an answer… (RM, 2010a).

One of the central existential dilemmas in life concerns its meaning. Related to purpose are uncertainties about the value of suffering, and allied with these are still other questions, such as why tragic things happen to people who lead lives dedicated to ends that benefit and support life. To ask “why” questions is common in everyday life, but the answers we find determine much about our future actions. Nietzsche stated, “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how” (Nietzsche, 1974, p. 112). Life is meaningful to the extent that people attribute positive value to circumstances that occur around them. If one is able to identify purpose within the experience of events, then life’s meaning becomes rich. The power of meaning to transform is addressed by Frankl (1962), who noted that “suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds meaning” (p. 117).

In times of disaster, any meaning ascribed to the world prior to the event begs for redefinition. When the order of the world is replaced by chaos beyond comprehension, one is left with old conceptions of suffering that may no longer seem fitting. A void of meaning may thus be created, placing people at risk for great psychological trauma (Thompson, 1995). The data that surfaced post-‐‑earthquake illustrated this search for meaning. Responders who documented their experiences reflected on lessons learned from previous disasters, and projected how information gleaned from the Haitian calamity might be used to improve disaster response in other places in the future. Gail McGovern, President of the American Red Cross, stated in an interview, “We learn from every single disaster…. What we learned in Katrina is that we [as responder agencies] can’t do this alone” (Crary, 2010, p. 10). The Director of Catholic Relief Services observed that experience has taught that security is critical in environments where desperation

breeds violence. Likewise, the Senior Director for Global Disaster Response at Habitat for Humanity International recollects, witnessing the resilience of the people in El Salvador at the time of the 1986 San Salvador earthquake, a time when they realized their public authorities had no resources to help, observed the following:

People who had construction equipment starting showing up and afterward everybody was grabbing everything they could, whether it was a shovel or a gardening tool, to help dig through the dirt"ʺ… They rallied around the church bell, and put it in a tree so they could call everybody together… What I saw in people in El Salvador was not every man for himself; but everybody pitching in, and Haiti will be that way too. (Blake, 2010)

On a personal level, survivors found spiritual connection as they searched for meaning through their own suffering. The following are thoughts shared by two individual survivors, one a Haitian woman speaking with a journalist, and the other from a long-‐‑term health worker who had been working in Haiti before the quake struck; her comments a blog entry:

I am here today because God wants it. (BBC,2010) I don’t think we will ever forget the way the earthquake felt [and] the crashing sounds…I remember thinking, “Who is bombing us?”…I went outside and made a bed in the grass…I dropped to my knees and sat there sobbing and thanking God. (TL, 2010) In the January 12 earthquake, Haitians were

challenged to find new meaning. With them in solidarity were countless people from around the globe who watched on television sets, responders who traveled there, and broadcasters who recorded events for history. The words of those responders and correspondents illustrate how personal the journey became for all involved, as they searched for their role in Haiti and the larger meaning of what had transpired:


[I learned] we humans are tough and delicate creatures…In Haiti one is surrounded by death…For days there were places on the street where bodies were stacked like wood…[what mattered most to me] was treating people with respect. Telling their truth…my job is to witness, to find the voiceless and give them voice. (Irby, 2010) They say you cannot have a miracle without a crisis. I believe there will be many miracles rising from Haiti’s tragedy. (Lane, 2010, ¶ 11) [We] were always taught that when you save one life, you'ʹre saving a whole world…[our] mission is continuous and crews will be traveling back and forth between Israel and Haiti for months, saving lives. (Winston, 2010)

DISCUSSION

Because of the existence of social media networks, the world has been given an unprecedented, intimate, and undiluted view of survival in the aftermath of calamity. It is a perspective that is exquisitely painful, revealing an inner realm of emotion and experience where time, body, other people, and the world are all pivotal lynchpins upon which survival hangs. Listening to the voices of those whose messages are recorded in this article gives all professionals engaged in disaster preparedness and response the opportunity to plan for the future based on an uncontaminated understanding of what has unfolded in the present. The views of catastrophic disaster and survival that the above quotes, and others like them, provide a basis for reflection and highlight lessons that health and allied professionals can apply in preparing for the next, inevitable disaster event.

The Nature of Human Beings in Disaster

In the immediate aftermath of an event, it is easy for an outsider to become engulfed in images and stories that reflect the fragility of life. At least in part because of this, “life and death” become the focus of global action, and saving lives becomes the priority. In an

immediate sense, preservation of lives requires that highest priority be given to physical needs and instrumental actions, application of life-‐‑saving techniques, establishment of scene security, or movement of supplies and personnel. Yet, disaster response demands more. On a higher, more metaphysical plane, it requires that responders be well-‐‑informed about the essential questions that drive existence. It demands that they understand the full breadth of healing processes, the better to survive the ordeal themselves, and the better to care for others whose wounds and traumas go far deeper than the physical.

As the documents analyzed for this article illustrate, the most profound sequella of surviving or responding to disaster is the self-‐‑examination it prompts among all involved. Such reflection is not deliberate; rather, it is a natural, unstoppable response to staring down something horrific and trying to make sense of it, essentially part of the process of recouping centeredness, the grounding that is integral to human existence. The core dilemmas and questions that lie just beneath the surface of our awareness—what is the essential nature of the self, what is the meaning of life, how do we negotiate essential separateness to find connection with others, how do we move forward in life with goals and objectives knowing full-‐‑well that death is our inevitable end, how do we live life with authenticity—these rise to the forefront following disaster, and demand answers that often are vague and uncertain. What responders must know is that disaster, with its attendant need to assure basic survival, does not supplant the existential questions that always are hidden out of view within us. Instead, disaster heightens these questions and makes the need to find answers more urgently felt. But finding peace with these questions of existence and their answers is not easily achieved. Providers must realize that “saving lives” and physically healing are only the first steps in a long process of recovering from the trauma of calamity; existential resilience may be harder to achieve.


Personal Preparedness

Professionals willing to respond to the call to assist in disaster settings must do so from positions of self-‐‑awareness and personal preparedness, be keenly attuned to their own values, beliefs, and culture, be ready to engage on a human level with survivors whose backgrounds may be at variance, and be fully prepared and skilled in reflexive practice—a process of assessing the interface between what we do and say and experience, and how we engage with others, and to what end. Even the most well-‐‑intentioned responders will find themselves taxed in disaster settings beyond anything they have ever experienced. Knowing oneself, including an honest appraisal of personal strengths and weaknesses, and the capacity to tolerate work in environments where basic “necessities” may be absent and security fragile, is prerequisite for success in developing and sustaining healing relationships with patients. Uncertainty breeds anxiety; thus, being prepared both personally and professionally can help equip professionals to practice in environments where chaos and ambiguity constitute the norm.

Personal preparedness also includes advanced skill acquisition. It means that professionals have trained in specialized disaster life support, have practiced self-‐‑help and mutual support skills, and understand new technologies such as global positioning systems used to locate survivors. It means that they have mastered mechanisms of triage unique to disaster settings where maximizing resource utilization means that vital (limited) supplies cannot be spent on those with a low survival potential. These are not skills acquired by intuition. Indeed they often are counter to modern day hospital practice where resources are plentiful. Instead, disaster-‐‑specific skills must be drilled. Professionals who want to respond in the future must take personal responsibility to educate themselves in the now.

Commitment

One nurse’s Haiti field notes were posted on the UNICEF website:

Conditions are deplorable. There is little food and water for doctors, nurses and patients, and no sanitation, which means urine and feces are being disposed of behind the hospital tents and amputated limbs are ending up in the trash. There is no morgue either, so bodies are piling up on the side of the tent. An operating room was set up today. It is mainly doing amputations…There is no capacity to perform any other surgery, and all supplies are limited (Hahn, 2010, ¶ 2).

Another nurse, 73-‐‑year-‐‑old Masix Astevelne, exhibited commitment of another sort. She had attended the hospital every day following the earthquake in order to make sure it was kept running, even though her own husband’s body still lay under the rubble of her house. She noted that she felt the need to do the best that she could with what was given to her by God (Sontag, 2010). The behavior of both nurses reflects strength of commitment—unconditional steadfastness in the face of challenge, no matter the circumstances. They demonstrate what Sister Madeleine Clemence, writing in her classic article on existential philosophy and authenticity in nursing practice (1966), described as the

open-‐‑eyed acceptance of one’s full share of life…the acceptance of the solitude, the anxiety, the suffering and finally, the death, which are a common lot of man. It is the acceptance of one’s full responsibility for one’s actions; it is the willingness to take risks and to face danger (p. 504).

Part of professional commitment is facing hard truths of life as a companion on the life journey of those we serve through caring. As the above quotes often demonstrate, disaster response is gratifying, but also frightening, exhausting, and painful. Responders must understand that, while their work may be essential in the immediate aftermath of an event, ultimately, the healing of people and communities are processes that lie in the hands of survivors.


Research Practice

This study has demonstrated that it is possible to obtain rich data about deeply profound and complex personal experiences from small communiqués constructed of 140 characters or less. It also has given evidence that the techniques of phenomenology may appropriately and effectively be applied to social networking media for the purpose of obtaining a view of human experience from the expert perspective of the ones who have lived through it. While not all methods of qualitative inquiry could easily be applied to this data set, nor all qualitative questions addressed, content analysis and phenomenology were eminently effective. Intentional reflexivity also was central to the analysis process, since the level of intensity in the data held the potential to be disconcertng to those, such as doctoral students, just embarking on research careers. Students and others who have given no serious consideration to their own existential struggles could be discomfited by data such as that found in this study, which arguably is an important goal in itself.

CONCLUSION

This paper reports on research that forges new ground in its presentation of the deeply personal experience of disaster as it unfolds. In that sense, from a social science perspective, such scholarship has meaning in that it provides first person accounts of survival and the existential dilemmas associated with living through calamity. It also demonstrates that social media has the power to reveal human experience, in all its richness, as a source of qualitative data. In another context, findings reveal much about the experience of responders. In an increasingly global society, health providers are likely to be called upon to travel to distant locations that are experiencing calamity. In order for responders to be well-‐‑grounded and firm in their commitment, the dilemmas that exist in life must be understood and embraced: death and life, freedom and constraint, isolation and connection, and meaning and despair. With understanding and awareness will come an increased capacity to engage with survivors whose

struggles extend far beyond life and death, and to walk with them as they forge a recovery that is both personal and communal.

Becoming an authentic person requires that one face life and self with courage. This research demonstrates that it is not only survivors who need muster resilience, but also those who respond. Effective responders require more than technical skill. For maximal impact, they must arrive on-‐‑site well prepared for what they will face, and they must be prepared to care for each other emotionally while they are there. Quotes from responders included here demonstrated that in their own way they faced existential questions of great magnitude as they faced massive destruction and came face to face with their own limitations.

The evolution of our global society has made us profoundly aware of the lives and suffering of those who experience calamity in distant places, but it is easy to think that survival is the single question that matters, or that, once lives are saved and the dead are laid to rest, the work of recovery is over. This research demonstrates that such thinking is erroneous on many levels. Saving, surviving, and burying the dead only comprise the surface of the emotional work that needs to be done. In a process that is unseen, survivors and rescuers alike will seek to understand their place in the world and their connectedness to each other, and will search for answers to deep questions of meaning and existence, questions that are at the very heart of all it means to be human.

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Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to Dr. Susan Speraw, University of Tennessee, College of Nursing, 1200 Volunteer Blvd., Knoxville, TN , USA. Email: [email protected]

life, death, isolation, and meaning in social media messages from haiti earthquake survivors

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