| Summary: |
"In January 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands of people and paralyzing the country. Catherine Porter, a newly minted international reporter, was one of the first journalists on the ground in the earthquake's aftermath. Moments after she arrived in Haiti, Catherine found her first story. A ragtag group of volunteers told her about a "miracle child"-a three-year-old girl who had survived six days under the rubble and emerged virtually unscathed Catherine found the girl the next day, eating under a tree and being fawned over by volunteers, wearing a too-big pink corduroy skirt that slipped endearingly down her backside. Her family was a mystery; her future uncertain. All they knew was her name: Lovely. She seemed a symbol of Haiti-both hopeful and despairing. When Catherine learned that Lovely had been reunited with her family, she did what any journalist would do and followed the story. The cardinal rule of journalism is to remain objective and not become personally involved in the stories you report. But Catherine broke that rule on the last day of her second trip to Haiti. That day, Catherine made the simple decision to enroll Lovely in school, and to pay for it with her own money. Over the next five years, Catherine would visit Lovely and her family seventeen times, while also reporting on the country's struggles to harness the international rush of aid to "build back better," in the words of Bill Clinton. Each trip, Catherine's relationship with Lovely and her family became more involved and more complicated. The family had more children, and soon Catherine was funding tuition for four kids and rent for two families. Trying to balance her instincts as a mother and a journalist, and feeling increasingly like a human ATM, Catherine found herself struggling to align her worldview with the realities of Haiti after the earthquake."-- |
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