This lunchtime I visited a standing exhibition in the UN headquarters building entitled ‘Ayiti Kanpe’ (Creole for ‘Haiti Standing’). The exhibits took me back to Hungen and Bruges (see past posts). There were pictures of January’s devastation, and awful statistics to confirm the ghastliness of it all (I’ll cite just one; 75% of schools were destroyed). The exhibition nevertheless carries a message of hope. The UN, which suffered so much itself (over one hundred dead), is busy helping the country back onto its feet. At the end of the exhibition is a mural with all of the UN workers killed in the earthquake and in the middle, staring out ruggedly, is my former student, Jan Olaf Hausotter. I still find it hard to believe that he was sitting in my Brussels office, wearing his usual big grin, just eight days before the catastrophe. The UN has set up an archive, well worth a visit, here. Postscript: the same evening, on my flight back to Europe, I opened my complementary copy of the Financial Times and read ‘Hurricanes set to blow away fragile Haiti progress.’ Bruno Lemarquis, UN Development Programme Director for Haiti, is quoted as saying ‘It’s a race against time, and time is not in our favour.’ Was there ever an unluckier people than the Haitians?