By Sheba Khan

More than three weeks after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the southern Haiti town of Léogâne, deep wounds still refuse to become scars. Amidst the din and clangor of the NJIT Pizzeria, as students discussed homework and classes, their voices a constant reminder of the present, Duqueres Neas sat.

Duqueres Neas, a Mechanical Engineering Junior, was in Haiti when the earthquake struck. Neatly dressed in a shirt and tie, he looked at home in the cafeteria; a normal student for all appearances, untouched by unwonted tragedy. If only. He looked around once, closed his eyes and began his story.

He spent his winter break on vacation in his home country with his wife, Rose Nandy and son. On that fateful afternoon at 4:53 he and his wife were resting in their room, their son was in the room next door.

His voice was a steady staccato as he spoke of his home, his wife and son, of being in Haiti while the earthquake struck, of the terror, the fear and the extraordinary miracles he has seen.

As the bed they were resting on shook, Duqueres turned to his wife and asked her who was shaking the mattress beneath them. She looked at him, as he repeated his question more fervently. Realization dawned, and she said “It’s an earthquake.” They jumped up, ran to their eight month old son, Dukens Neas and the friend that was with him and rushed outside.

Every one of their neighbors was outside. Buildings, houses that took years to build, and homes that held years of memories crumbled before them. Three story houses became barely one. Confused and frightened, neighbors wandered the street screaming, crying and praying. Some quickly came to their senses and began looking for missing faces.

Duqueres, his wife and child accounted for, rushed to call his immediate family, his mother, his sister, and his cousins. He got in touch with his sister who lives in a neighboring city and couldn’t recognize her voice; hysteria filled and screaming she didn’t know what to do.

Cousin by cousin, Duqueres phoned, and still phones, as each bell rings it is one more ache pulling at his heart. “ I can’t figure out,” he says, “how many cousins I lost.”  He kept calling a cousin of his, the ring would smash the silence at each pause but no voice was heard, and then in a moment his cousin picked up and yelled that they were alive, that they were alive! And then silence, the line was cut.

It is like this every day. The rickety table in the pizzeria shakes and Duqueres looks down at it, he is silent. He says that when things shake and when the phone rings he gets anxious. He cannot sleep. More than 1500 miles away and Haiti is still with him. His wife and child are still in Haiti, “My wife sleeps with one eye open and the other closed, they have to be ready to run if something else happens.”

Duqueres was supposed to leave early last January, but he stayed, and whether good luck or bad, he was there when the earthquake struck. He left Haiti on the 25^th, a week or so after the catastrophe struck, went through customs in Miami whom he says were very helpful, and got to Newark on the 26^th.

Though here, on the rare occasion when Duqueres closes his eyes for longer than a few hours he is back in Haiti, “My wife, my son, I’m still thinking about my family.”

Though at times near tears, Duqueres has a peace about him, his voice is never higher than angry or lower than calm. At times his voice is at odds with his manner of a moment before: he speaks in measured tones, and though visibly he is strong, frustration manages to escape his lips. It is a paradox like any other; humans cannot be reduced to black and white.

Duqueres is no different, he trusts in God and is patient, but he is also angry and frustrated at times. “Relief Agencies donate tents –free tents, but on the streets people sell them for a profit. The people are entitled to water, but some people sell this free water for 15 Haitian Dollars.”

In the days after the earthquake Duqueres went to the market to buy rice. Each day, he says, “the price of the food was higher and higher, double or higher than the normal price.”As bleak a picture the news depicts, Duqueres says that it is still embellished. “You don’t know the truth if you do not smell it, you don’t smell the news, and you don’t smell the dead bodies, or hear the people screaming trapped in rubble.”

The frustration gives way once more to the overpowering sense of strength. Duqueres repeats a verse from the bible. He finds singular comfort in religion. He is a devout Christian, he carries a Bible with him wherever he goes and makes time to read it everyday. He reads aloud from Psalm 121, “I lift up my eyes to the hills—/ where does my help come from? / My help comes from the LORD,/ the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Haiti beats strongly in Duqueares’ heart. “It can be,” he repeats again and again, “a new beginning, a new beginning for Haiti.” He is grateful for everyone’s help. “I thank everyone, especially NJIT, and  the United States, everyone wanted to help me. Thank you, one day God will reward you.”

Amid the destruction and chaos there are miracles. “I have seen a lot, I have heard a lot, but there are miracles. Cases where an infant not more than two months was taken out of the rubble 22 days after the initial earthquake – still alive. The baby was alive, and no one can explain how or why. “God knows why”, says Duqueres.