Unimaginable

I hope there is enough time in the next week to relay all the blog-worthy episodes of the last week—it has been a thrilling, roller-coaster week, to be sure.

But in the last two days there has been one great burden weighing on my mind and heart: I know someone in Haiti. Life in Jordan has been stimulating and noteworthy this week, but it has all been filtered through my daze of wondering about my friend Luis da Costa.

I first learned of the earthquake in Haiti on Wednesday while I casually checked CNN for any interesting world news. The early reports were staggering of the devastation and loss, but as that old axiom says, “the deaths of thousands are a statistic; the death of one is a tragedy.” I know someone in Haiti so the reporting took on so much more meaning—was Luis in Haiti? Was he safe?

Luis is the husband of a dear friend from Hackley, a serious, stylish, spitfire Spanish teacher named Cristina. I quickly emailed some friends at Hackley to see if they had good news about Luis. I heard back that he was indeed in Haiti at the time, and as of yet, unaccounted for.

Every couple of hours on Wednesday evening, all of Thursday, continuing today, I have been scouring the news web sites, checking facebook pages, looking for any news about my friend Luis.

Luis works for the United Nations and for several years he has been second-in-command of this important peacekeeping mission in Haiti. He was dispatched to Haiti around 2005 because he has been so successful in other dangerous, delicate areas of the world, such as Liberia and Kosovo.

Cristina and Luis, for many of us, are a dream couple. They are so good-looking, it as if Central Casting matched them up to dazzle the world. They invited me to many parties at their home—they are the most natural and gracious hosts—and my favorites were the parties where I got to mingle around the glamorous UN crowd. Here was the kid from the mid-west rubbing elbows with movers and shakers from around the world.

No, I think my favorite parties at their home were the teacher parties, where Cristina and Luis waited on some teacher friends as if we were movers and shakers. Cristina has more cheese boards and cheese knives than any other human I know, and an evening at their home was always magical with the many new cheeses to try, or calm, elegant meals at the formal dining table, or casual elegance outside on the deck. To be honest, any moment at the da Costa home felt like the best treat in the world.

Luis would be gone from the New York area for stretches of time—he headed missions around the world where very fragile infrastructures needed nurturing. But often when he came back into town he would come to my class to help my students understand the developments and promises around the world. He loved to help the students see how crucial it was to empathize with people in far-flung places and imagine how to solve problems in the world.

Luis and I had a kind of bond about my mid-western roots—he had been an exchange student to Mansfield, Ohio from Brazil as a high school student, and that trip fostered his love of international work. His happy days in small-town Ohio encouraged him to spend his career doing work around the world. At nearly every party we regaled each other about things we loved about Ohio.

I am in Jordan actually, in large part, due to encouragement from my friend Luis. Three years ago this weekend Cristina and I performed together in a concert with their daughter at a school in Rye, New York. Cristina had asked me to participate in this concert as another way for us to spend time together as friends. Luis was gone much of the time, and we would spend Monday evenings together rehearsing for this great concert. Luis flew in for the concert, and while out to dinner, celebrating the beautiful concert, I turned to Luis and said, “My worldly friend Luis, I need some advice and counsel from you. I am sorta kinda thinking about moving and teaching at this school in Jordan. But I am nervous. Can I lean on you for some sage advice?”

Luis and I moved to the other side of the restaurant for a chat about Jordan. I explained that the vision of this school intrigued and inspired me, but what do I tell my family about Jordan? What could I expect from moving to the Middle East? Luis spent some quality time explaining to me some of the pros and cons of working outside of your homeland. He also explained I might relay to my family that in the United Nations, Jordan was considered a “family post,” i.e. a dispatch safe enough for one to take one’s family. He compared his post in Haiti, which he said was not a “family post.”

Over the next day he was quite kind helping me see Jordan in the context of international work and just soothing my nerves about this prospect. He called me and said he had a book to loan me about the Arab world that he had read, and found useful, before he did some work in the region.

Luis always has such a calming effect, perhaps on everyone with whom he interacts, but it was after my conversations with him, I felt confident to pursue the thought process of accepting a job in Jordan.

Later that year, the dream couple hosted a farewell dinner party for me, and like always, you felt you were so special. I was there with a tableful of the people who had enriched my life for a decade at Hackley, and we could relax and savor the conviviality. Six months later, upon my first visit back to New York, they hosted a beautiful party for me again.

The other day I saw an article in the paper with a statistic and commentary that arrested my attention. The article stated that “about 6,000 people died of AIDS yesterday…twice that of the September 11 attacks…and that gruesome death toll should be a front-page story, except that after thirty years AIDS has become boring.” Except, of course, if you knew one of those 6,000 people who might have died yesterday of AIDS.

We see these stories all too often—natural disasters, roadside bombings, flus, terror attacks, and we hear the statistics, and we may be moved by the death and carnage in the world, but we don’t often know someone there.

A month ago in New York I had a morning coffee with Cristina—she had recently spent Thanksgiving in Haiti with Luis and she related how good the work was coming along with the UN in Haiti. She and Luis had had an exceptionally good visit, and she suggested that we travel together to Haiti sometime to see the beauty and progress enlivening the place.

The reports of the earthquake’s death toll in Haiti vary widely—they say, anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 people may have died. But I do know one person there, and it is unimaginable to me what my dear friend Cristina and her daughters feel as they wait for a phone call or email.

Last night I was out to dinner with a student and his family and my phone rang about 8:00 p.m. It was Eric, the head at KA. He just called to ask if I had had any news about Luis. “No,” I said, “Still unaccounted for, but thank you so much for calling.” His kindness touched me as I wait. As I look on their facebook pages, comments of hope and love fill the pages as the networks of family and friends pray around the world.

As I wait upon the news, hoping and praying for his safety, it is good to remember the ways that this four-decades long UN worker has touched my life. In the spirit of Tarrytown, where Hackley stands, I think of the words of native-son Washington Irving, who once said that “Great minds have purposes; others just have wishes.”

My friend Luis is a purposeful man, a caring man, a great man.