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March 29, 2024 12:46 am
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EDITORIAL: Putting Thanksgiving Into Perspective

Three year old Maneeya had been playing over at the home of a neighborhood friend when the deafening noise hit the building like a freight train and the floor and walls began to bounce and move violently. The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010 brought the two story concrete structure down all around the little girl.

Everyone assumed that Maneeya was dead. But six days later a rescue team located the terrified child and dug her out of the dark and frightening hole where she had spent the week all alone. Miraculously, she had survived this traumatic ordeal without so much as a scratch.

In only 35 seconds, the earthquake had changed things forever for Maneeya, her family and all of Haiti. It had killed as many as 300,000 people, injured and maimed thousands more and left 1.5 million people homeless. The country’s already impoverished infrastructure was completely ravaged. Every national ministry building had collapsed. A fifth of the country’s schools had been destroyed as well as 80 percent of its university buildings. Most of the country’s hospitals, churches, airports and business centers were leveled.

The rest of Maneeya’s family who, at the time of the quake, had been in their one room apartment nearby, were able to narrowly escape the building just before it collapsed into a pile of rubble. Maneeya’s mother had waited hysterically day after day for word that her little girl had been found. Each day she heard nothing. Finally the miracle happened and the message came that Maneeya was alive. The child was joyfully reunited with her family.

But, though they were all together, life would never be the same. It is true that they had been terribly poor prior to the quake. But now they were completely destitute. Over the past year the family has had to live out in the open in a huge refugee camp outside of the city. Under makeshift tents and plastic tarps, they have slept on the ground. When it has rained, which it does in sheets during the summer months, the water has washed down through the camp, beneath the tents, making conditions even more miserable. There are no toilets, no running water and very little food. Sometimes Maneeya and her family go days without a full meal.

Then, toward the end of last summer, this situation, which couldn’t possibly get worse, got worse. A cholera epidemic began to run rampant throughout the impoverished residents of the camps. The disease thus far has claimed more than 1,100 people and sickened thousands more. In the last couple of weeks, the hopelessness among the people in Haiti and the resulting panic has brought riots and violence in the streets. This is hardly a suitable place for a little three year old like Maneeya who has already gone through so much this year.

The year 2010 has been a rather bleak one for folks in Moapa Valley as well. Unemployment in the region is high. The real estate crisis has caused many families to lose their homes forcing them to move in with family, rent something much smaller or move elsewhere searching for better economic conditions.

The local commercial sector still suffers acutely. Lake Mead water levels continue to fall drawing tourists and visitors that have been vitally important for local business to other parts of the lake or other regions altogether. And now the state’s budget woes threaten to tighten the belt again even tighter.

Under these trying circumstances, some folks might have difficulty finding much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. But if you find yourself among that lot, you might think of little Maneeya, her family and the millions around her that will be huddling in tents in Haiti on Thanksgiving Day and on every other day for a very long time to come. This thought might bring a sudden change in your Thanksgiving perspective.

After all, most of us here are blessed with tremendous bounty by comparison. Even though many in this community have experienced significant troubles, setbacks and disappointments over the past few years, most of these are relatively mild when weighed in the balance. At least, most of these trials are probably much shorter term in their nature than those of young Maneeya.

Conditions will eventually get better for the Moapa Valley. Indeed, we have likely already experienced the darkest hour before the dawn. And the sunrise is probably coming on swiftly, even now.

In any case, no matter what your Thanksgiving holiday is like on Thursday; whether you are surrounded by loved ones or spending the day quietly alone; whether the meal is sumptuous or scanty; it will most likely be worlds better than what little three year old Maneeya is getting. If nothing else, give humble thanks for that.

We at the Progress wish our readers a happy and fulfilling Thanksgiving Day!

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