By chance, my father and I were together when we heard the news. We had both just flown to Washington DC - he from Paris, I from Istanbul - to care for my grandmother, who¹d had a heart attack. Before the words "major earthquake in Haiti" came over the car radio, we were already under the impression that we were living through a serious family emergency. But after those words filtered through, the family emergency became far, far more serious. My brother Mischa and his wife Cristina have been living in Haiti for nearly three years. Cristina, an Italian lawyer, has been working for the Justice Section of MINUSTAH, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. My brother is a novelist and journalist. Their first child, Leo, was born ten months ago.
