Our faces of Haiti: 4 survivors personify strength, resilience

Last week, the Deseret News team that traveled to Haiti to report on the January earthquake returned to Utah. While in Haiti they slept in tents, near a runway crowded with relief planes and in the grass with earthquake survivors. They ate MREs, typed their stories on BlackBerrys and called in on satellite phones the destruction they saw. But these minor hardships paled in comparison to the suffering they witnessed. They watched a Utah widow save the life of a 4-year-old boy who had lost his arm.

They marveled as a young Haitian bishop tended over his shell-shocked flock of hundreds. And they saw hope and promise in the face of a young mother who gave birth among the destruction. For tens of thousands of Deseret News readers, these stories, and the photos that accompanied them, brought home the crisis in Haiti.

For our journalists, the experience was life-changing. When they returned we asked each to describe a Haitian who embodied what they saw. These are their stories:

Scott Taylor:

For me, the lingering face of Haiti belongs to Daniel Delva, a 27-year-old who embodied hope and humor, dreams and disappointment, resiliency and reality.

His face mirrors many of the emotions I saw borne by the people of earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince.

I spent eight days following the LDS Church-sponsored medical team as it treated injured Haitians. We often rode in vehicles driven by Daniel and learned about him through group or individual conversations.

His mother, siblings and home survived the quake. Gone was his college, where he studied accounting but eyed mechanical engineering. A returned LDS missionary, he hoped for marriage and a future family and dreamed of visiting Salt Lake City and attending BYU or BYU-Idaho.

But there were obstacles — English-proficiency tests before college admission, a letter of sponsorship before getting a U.S. visa, and the looming financial costs.

One time, he asked: "Scott, in America, how many meals do you eat a day?" I was embarrassed to answer, knowing our three is at least double that of Haiti's norm.

My last day there, I watched Daniel become a victim of brutality, as three policemen attacked him over a misunderstanding at a rural traffic stop. They shoved and punched him, pulling him out of the car. At one point, he shoved back — the threats and fisticuffs continued, and out came the pistol and handcuffs.

He later told me he had to show he would not be intimidated or they would really have taken advantage of him. Later released without a citation, he shook the hands of his accusers.