BONJOUR. January's cataclysmic earthquake in Haiti appeared to have sapped the energy and life from so many of that country's people, already ravaged by history and the evils of colonialism, ancient and modern.

The air is thick with desolation and emptiness and the devastation is horrific, painful and nauseating.

For someone who spent vacations in the country which is just 58 minutes of flying time away from Jamaica, in the best of times things were not good, never good.

The first sight of my beautiful Port-au-Prince, on Thursday January 14, refused to register on my brain. It was only for a day, but the need to find family and friends in the country was tremendous, demanding I return.

On Thursday that January 28 the early-morning darkness spared the agony of what my eyes would see before the sun sprang up and bore down mercilessly on the already besieged city. As I travelled to Leogane, the scope of the devastation became clearer and as each day passed, the death toll rose higher.

By now, we know that there has been destruction in Carrefour, Jacmel, Leogane, Port-au-Prince, Delmas, as well as sections of the affluent Pétionville suburb.

The number of persons dead could have wiped out Antigua and Barbuda of people and infrastructure.

It would reduce the population of Barbados significantly, or leave only 40,000 of the 246,000 residents of Clarendon, Jamaica (based on the 2008 figures from STATIN.)

The population of any parish in Jamaica with fewer than 200,000 persons would be wiped out.

Imagine further, that 75 per cent of all the buildings in Kingston and St Andrew would have been reduced to rubble.

The indignity of the disposal of dead bodies, tossed in the mass graves like garbage, weighs heavily on my soul. It is searing, it is painful.

In the early stages Haitians were turned into nomads fleeing anything that was made of concrete, existing in shelters made from old dirty sheets. The image was overwhelming and the smell of decayed flesh and faeces hit your stomach like a blunt object. Children played in muck, near human waste, surrounded by millions of flies, who moved from faeces to food, then pitched on your lips, your eyes, your body.

It was all too commonplace, a kind of accepted nastiness, and it existed long before the earthquake.

But this is not the sum total of Haiti, because there are communities that surpass the splendour of some of Jamaica's monied suburbs. The suffering poor have largely been abandoned by the country's rich, very few of whom have stretched out a helping hand. It's hard to find hope in the eyes of the young, who are bewildered and desperate. What hope there might be is in the far distant future, like old family feuds, reconciled after decades.

Haiti's poor are being supported by several poor countries including Jamaica, whose military and non-governmental presence there are shining examples of what is good about Jamaica.

Caricom's contingent, headed by Jamaica and Major Jaime Ogilvie, is a thing of beauty in that country. It is one of the few things that keep you in tune with reality, because it is easy for complete breakdown to take place.

But watching the Jamaican medical professionals who have given service there was like watching a movie. Watching the Jamaica Defence Force in action was the storyline of the movie.

It's the other unexplainable part of reflections on Haiti. Seeing the professionalism of our medics in action, it is not easy to understand why so many Jamaicans request funds for treatment overseas. The doctors worked like hell to get Haitians better, and the organising capabilities of Dr Marion Bullock-Ducasse was unprecedented.

They worked for hours sometimes in the open, seeing and treating nearly 100 patients for the day, in a rural community.

Later at Frères, a local doctor -- using cardboard on either side of two pregnant teenagers to protect their privacy as he examined them out in the open, as labour pains wracked their bodies -- struggled to bring life into the nightmarish Haitian world.

It's hard to imagine what future the child of a 17-year-old will have, when that mother has syphilis and gonorrhoea, and believes that AIDS was what the foreigners were bringing. She later admitted that she knew nothing about HIV/AIDS.

There were doctors who stayed up all night with members of their own profession, and with media personnel who became ill from the dirty winds of Port-au-Prince; so many doctors, nurses, medics, so much organisation, expertise and gentleness.

It was a thing of beauty to see Caricom's full bloom in Haiti -- the translators from St Lucia and the Commonwealth of Dominica; the men and women from Guyana and Barbados and leading the pack, the Jamaica Defence Force. How quickly they rushed to protect anyone Jamaican, anyone Caribbean... anyone.

There were the soldiers who nursed sick journalists, mixing re-hydration salts, sharing the pears and dried cranberries from their MREs. Those who made a pillow of blankets; who introduced you to individuals who mattered, took you to interviews, gave up their supper, engaged in conversation, always professional.

But the pain remains and prayers of hope spring from the depths of my heart as the love remains steadfast.

Au revoir... for now... Ayiti.

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