Canadian troops will focus aid on town with deep ties to GG Michaelle Jean
Published Monday January 18th, 2010
MONTREAL - The last time Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean was in her ancestral hometown of Jacmel, she joyfully said she was lost for words.
Words may be deserting her again, but this time because of the crushing sadness visited on the seaside town by the worst earthquake to hit Haiti in 200 years.
Jacmel has become the focal point for Canadian aid in the wake of the earthquake, which hammered the town where Canada's most famous Haitian immigrant used to frolic as a child.
The Governor General still has deep ties to the town.
"The Governor General considers that even if she was born in Port-au-Prince and she lived (there) with her parents, her roots were in Jacmel, the city where her mother was born and lived," said a Jean spokeswoman.
"As a child, she spent a great deal of time there - weekends, holidays - and she still has many relatives there."
Canadian troops prepared Monday to head to Jacmel to offer aid to the community, which lies near the epicentre of the devastating quake, south of Port-au-Prince.
Gen. Walter Natynczyk said the towns of Leogane and Jacmel, south of Port-au-Prince, lie in one of the most heavily hit areas.
"The epicentre of the earthquake is right there," he said of the region. "We understand there's been 90 per cent destruction."
Natynczyk said the United Nations had asked Canada to deploy the troops to the region based on need.
A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the Governor General had no influence on the decision, and that it was made based on the recommendation of soldiers on the ground.
Jean, who was visibly distraught during a news conference after last week's quake, often visited Jacmel on the weekends and spent summer vacations there.
"Here stands my childhood," she said during her 2006 visit to the town. "My mother was born here, my grandmother, my great-grandmother.
"I was here several times a year. I spent a lot of time here. All the images I kept in my heart of Haiti are mostly here. It's great to be here."
Nearly 20 relatives gave her a rousing welcome when she visited in 2006, prompting Jean to exclaim, "Words fail me."
Jean was born in 1957 in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. She was 11 when she left Haiti with her family to flee the regime of dictator Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier before settling in Thetford Mines, Que.
Jacmel is a town of 20,000 residents in southeastern Haiti and Jean said during her visit it hadn't changed much since she was a child.
"I recognize myself here," said the vice-regal, who is a pianist, as she stood in front of the Dessaix-Baptiste music school. "The houses haven't changed much."
Jacmel's Chamber of Commerce website bills the town as "a tropical paradise filled with some of the most warm and entrepreneurial people the world has to offer."
It claims to be home to a variety of artists and artisans, has a film festival, plentiful markets, breathtaking views and historic architecture.
It is nestled between rolling hills with abundant agriculture and a bustling port.
On Monday, blogs from the area said pleading eyes were turned toward that port, as locals waited for ships laden with foreign troops and rescue supplies.
In the words of one blogger, "Jacmel is a catastrophe."
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