IN late 2007, I was assigned to cover the week-long Caribbean Football Union’s (CFU’s) Olympic Qualifying tournament involving Jamaica, the Bahamas and hosts Haiti in Port-Au-Prince.

I had no idea how the lot fell on me, but one of the prevailing complaints all the way to Haiti and back was that the CFU could have put the tournament in either the Bahamas, or even in the USA, given that all three countries had strong followings there.

Had the CFU played it elsewhere, chances are I would not have been sent and I would not have had the first-hand opportunity to see and interact with one of the most maligned and misunderstood peoples in the region on their own turf.

Just over a week ago, after the massive earthquake hit Haiti just before 5:00 pm on Tuesday, January 12, I thought about some of the people I had met there.

‘Tap Tap’, a stringy, hyperactive liaison officer named by the Jamaican players after the rickety taxis that ply the streets of Port-Au-Prince immediately come to mind.

Also, the bus driver who knew maybe three words of English, but every single word of every Bob Marley song on his scratchy tape, and the wonderful staff at the front desk of the El Rancho Hotel, where we stayed in Pechonville in the hills above the Haitian capital.

Then there was the policeman at the airport who bore a striking resemblance to former Reggae Boy Onandi Lowe, as well as the former refugee who stood out in the sea of red-and-blue-clad Haitians holding aloft a small Jamaican flag when Jamaica played Haiti.

There was also Reginald Lege, a Haitian who wore a Jamaican shirt to the game against the Bahamas and explained to me that he had come here once as a tourist on a cruise and couldn’t wait to return.

Judesson Brunache, a young Haitian who played two Premier League games for Seba United while he was a refugee living at the Mountpelier camp, longed to return to Montego Bay legally so he could resume his career and was a fixture at every session the Jamaican team had while in Haiti.

Last week we learned that over 30 members of the Haitian Football Association were among the estimated 200,000 people who had been presumed killed, and more than 20 were buried in one mass grave.

I can’t help but wonder if ‘Tap Tap’, Reginald or Judesson, or any of the people and officials we encountered there in October 2007 are alive or dead.

While there may be little any of us can do, it is important that we support the restoration effort either by one text or volunteering to rebuild the first free black nation in this hemisphere.

One way we can help is to support the Western Basketball Association’s ‘Hoops for Haiti’ effort at the MoBay Cricket Club today.