Earthquake’s Burdens Weigh Heavily on Haiti’s Elderly
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Junie Sufrad, 110, with other residents of a nursing home in Léogâne, Haiti.
By IAN URBINA
Published: March 11, 2010
LÉOGÂNE, Haiti — Junie Sufrad, 110 years old, stopped suddenly as she described what life was like in the Haitian countryside before electricity, paved roads and cars.
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
“I don’t know if it makes me lucky or unlucky to still be here. It’s like part of me is gone.” — Junie Sufrad, a 110-year-old survivor of the Haiti earthquake.
“I don’t know if it makes me lucky or unlucky to still be here,” she said after a long pause, adding that although she was missing no limbs, the January earthquake had made her an amputee. “It’s like part of me is gone.”
Ms. Sufrad is a monument to the past in a nation that has been severed from it.
Like other aged survivors of the earthquake, she is a rare repository of this country’s history and culture, but she said she considered her memories as much a painful burden as a proud legacy.
tags: haiti, elders, health care
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