A year after a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti, Manitoba teen Tasiya Barkman vividly remembers what she felt when it struck.
"It was definitely panic," Tasiya says.
Tasiya was with her grandmother and two aunts in Haiti working in an orphanage. They survived the earthquake and so did the children they were looking after. But, as pictures of devastation and despair were broadcast around the world – and into her home in Manitoba – her mother had no idea if Tasiya was alive.
Jennifer Barkman remembers her own panic when she learned about the earthquake.
"I don't even know how many hours it took me to get home from Steinbach to Kleefeld because it was like, I couldn't drive, I was crying," says Jennifer. "It was bad."
Relief came when Tasiya finally called home. However, she wasn't coming home, she was staying to help.
"They really needed help at that time," Tasiya says. "Just even being there made a difference."
Haiti still needs help. According to recent numbers from the Canadian Red Cross, more than 1 million people remain homeless. An outbreak of cholera has killed 3,600 people and infected 170,000 others. When a hurricane hit the country in November, it made a difficult situation worse.
For all of those reasons, Tasiya Barkman is planning to go back to Haiti.
"There's still a lot to do in the main Port-au-Prince area, but I guess [I will] be working with the kids because there are a lot more orphans now than there was before," she says.
Tasyia, who is a grade 8 student, is hoping to make the trip back in March, during her spring break, and she may have convinced her mother to come with her.
Until then, Tasiya Barkman says she finds hope in the texts, emails and pictures she gets from people she met during her stay in Haiti.
