Goudougoudou

By Paul Jeffrey

When ordinary words fail to adequately describe reality, we invent new ones. After the Haitian earthquake of 2010, existing words were insufficient to label the horror that many Haitians experienced. So they started talking about Goudougoudou. The word is an onomatopoeia that is used by many Haitians to describe the catastrophe. Repeat it over and over, and you recreate the sound of buildings shaking and collapsing during the quake.

And now it has happened again. Devastation and death are far less this time around, but that's small solace to people left homeless, injured, or grieving. Once again a country that's a poster child for vulnerability—a direct product of French imperialism and U.S. neocolonialism—meets a natural hazard that brings it to its knees. And another one's on the way in the form of Tropical Storm Grace. That will make a different sound than Goudougoudou, but treeless hillsides sliding toward the sea care little for lexicons.

If you are tempted to donate money to help the victims survive and rebuild, give your money to organizations like Church World Service and Mennonite Central Committee. I can attest from my own experience that both do excellent work in Haiti.

If you are tempted in these moments to say you'll pray for Haiti, just don't. Work instead for a world where empires don't create any more Haitis, where international trade agreements aren't used to crush Haitian rice farmers in order to further enrich U.S. agribusiness, where the results of elections are honored, where the climate crisis (which exacerbates the intensity of tropical storms) is faced with honesty. Work for a world where people don't have to invent new words for unforeseen suffering.

Paul Jeffrey is a photojournalist who lives in Eugene, Oregon.