Haitian Divers Hope to Aid
Ailing Reef
By BRENT McDONALD
Published: September 1, 2011
CÔTES DES ARCADINS, Haiti — It was an immaculately clear
midsummer morning, a perfect day for diving. No trash
had yet washed up on the beach. A dozen volunteers, all
excited, some a bit apprehensive, donned flippers and
masks and shimmied into the bathtub-warm sea, eager to
join a team of eco-divers responsible for surveying, and
perhaps one day helping save, Haiti’s endangered coral
reefs.
Only one thing stood in their way: For
most of them — like Jessika Laloi, 21 — this was their
first time swimming in the ocean. Until a few months
ago, Ms. Laloi had not even known how to dog paddle.
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Now she was wading into the
ocean in shorts and a tank top, with a life
preserver strapped to her torso, a welcome
distraction from the tumult of life since her
home collapsed in the earthquake a year and a
half ago.
“Diving and swimming is a way of
showing you that you are in the environment,”
Ms. Laloi said. “You are part of it. You don’t
have to destroy it.”
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