WHO: Andrea Rojas; Narrative. WHAT: Andrea turns on CNN and what she sees slightly blows her world. WHEN: Tuesday, January 12th. Afternoon. WHERE: Her apartment Status: Closed/Complete RATINGS: PG
Andrea was leaning back comfortably on a chair settling in to watch her typical CNN programs. She might not have any prospects in journalism in this world but that didn't mean that she couldn't keep tabs on the news. There were many people who found journalism to be a dull field or watched news programs to reaffirm their own beliefs. However, Andrea watched it to stay informed. Journalism appealed to her in the way that it was capable of broadening people's views and helping so many individuals with the truth of the written or televised word.
It was why she chose CNN above any other news channel. At least on television. The radio was for BBC World News. And the internet was those websites and a couple of others. They tried to keep the truth as untainted by personal opinions as possible. If she wanted bias - which was rarely ever but hey, even as fair as she attempted to be, she liked to have her opinions justified or parroted back to her too - she went to MSNBC. Rarely ever Fox News.
Settling back, preparing to enjoy and to be informed, what she found wasn't at all what she expected. The first flash of broken buildings and people under heavy cement blocks, bricks, wires, and motars ... had her heart seizing in her chest.
Seven point oh seemed to be echoed repeatedly by anyone and everything that managed to be captured by the camera. By the journalists. By the crying children. Broken husbands. By the mother and wives seemingly too shocked to scream.
Aftershocks was muttered and said allowed. Continuous aftershocks and for a second her mind wondered how it was even ... how they were making it possible. They kept going. No lines of communications. No food. No ... no. There was hope and she couldn't make her mind work how exactly as she just stared, tears starting. Just slightly as she watched the pain and agony and determination.
Seconds became hours which made minutes seem to stretch unceasingly but sometime along the way her heart started to beat again. Though it didn't stop hurting along with her head. And sometime along the way, she fell just a little in love with Anderson Cooper. Sanjay Gupta. A little more in love with CNN and much angrier with the officials of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Andrea's mind panicked for a moment. As it was wont to do when she worried far too much and she was worrying far too much while it rapidly heard the mentions of family and friends stuck or family trying to reach Haiti. The Slums were her home. And it had such a mix of people. Poor and broken and mostly crooked, yet it had been hers. The people in it she knew damn well even though some of them her grandmother had struggled to keep her away from their influences. A lot of the people in her building were Haitians. And Dominican. She knew a lot of the former still had family back in their home country and her heart broke as she thought of them going through this now.
Except when she remembered that they weren't. Not yet. Not exactly. Maybe not ever?
It wasn't 2010 in the world she had been pulled from. Not quite there yet. What made a different world and reality? What made experiences different? Maybe they wouldn't have to go through this. Because here watching these people suffer and they weren't even her people. Her heart was breaking. Because no one should be made to suffer like this - natural disaster extended by vast incompetency and unnecessary poverty (not that poverty was ever necessary. But still) - when they continued to be so resilient. No one should have to suffer like that. Period. And she thought of those Haitians and Haitian Americans in her building and Andrea was filled with the rare and childish hope that they'd never have to go through this. Because realities were different right? And if this was hurting her. Imagine how this would be destroying them.
Watching. Andrea continued to watch and nothing could have unglued her eyes from the screen. The only time she moved was to grab her remote and to check coverage on other channels. But she always went back to CNN. Because she wanted to know more. Of the after effects. Of how she could help.
Tucking a foot under her, an arm going around her middle, a hand covering the lower half of her face she waited, breath held, to see what else they would tell her.