The Real Happening

If you know me, you know that I am a huge movie buff. I love getting lost in a different world for two hours, and in every movie I can find at least one good thing about the film.

One director that I enjoy is M. Night Shyamalan. The way he twists reality and fantasy, the way he always uses a little touch of comedy, and how you're always guessing when the director himself will appear (he played the doctor in "The Sixth Sense" and the older park ranger in ""The Village"). However, one movie that I did not enjoy was "The Happening". Even for a big Shyamalan fan, I thought that nature chemically making humans kill themselves using the wind was a bit of a stretch even for him. The one good point I got was the two main themes of the film: nature attacks and human technology is so advanced that it can spread information and keep us connected even in a disaster.

Now two years after the movie, occurs a real happening. Nature attacked with the skill and power of a predator and January 12th, 2010 will be a day for the history books. Nature could not have picked a more deadly location, Porto’O Prince was concentrated with about three million people and the infrastructure was poor. So, of course, chaos has begun after a 7.0 earthquake hit the heart of 3rd world. The earthquake was so strong, we felt it here in the Dominican Republic all the way to Samana (the peninsula on the opposite side of the DR). A friend of mine that lives close to the Haitian border said that the earth shook there for an entire minute.

The second theme to the movie rang true as well. Human technology connected Haiti with the rest of the world shortly after the first quake. The first report was a Haitian skyping! If people could not call to their family, they checked their Facebook page. I'm reading a book right now about the 1800s, in the book a husband and wife are separated by the Pacific Ocean for three years. It takes 24 days one way to send a letter, so they only get a letter from their significant other every two months. Now a days, though, you could just Yahoo! chat or Tweet "I'm doing okay." It is amazing the power of technology and the speed that it changes. For example, I couldn't imagine being a PC volunteer 10 years ago when at my site they didn't have cell service or internet. Now, I can text with other volunteers almost everyday even though some days I don't have water or electricity.

I can use the internet about once a week when there is electricity, when there are not any "problemitas" or little problems, and when I have some extra pesos. However, 10 years ago you could only use it once a month when you went into the capitol. I don't believe a tree can beat me up, but I do think that Shyamalan had a good, truthful message... Nature can be deadly at any point in time, and maybe it deserves the title of the deadliest predator. Technology has come so far, it can keep us connected through any happening.


My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families of the Haitian earthquake.