OK, I confess, I had no idea, in truth, what the title of “Μiss Anayiz” really meant – even now, I’m still not sure I understand. But when a young man like me meets a celebrity, a “Miss Something” a woman about whom Facebook says only good things – I have to admit I was a bit nervous about it.

Marie Flore. She extended her hand; I did the same. I felt a bit stupid – I should have dried my hand first because it was damp. She had arrived before me and was sitting in a shaded, quiet corner of the Quartier Latin, a restaurant I love especially for its signature ravioli, and its eggs benedict on Sunday morning. Marie Flore, winner of the Miss Anayiz 2010 competition, is smiling and unpretentious. She has a small nervous tic, a little habit that comes out when she’s nervous, I expect. I have to say that I didn’t waste any time; I brought my camera out very quickly. What’s the habit, you ask? – it’s hard to capture with a camera. She plays with her straw. Stirs it around in her glass, full of ice, pulls it out, pushes it, folds it up. Not very photogenic, as a nervous habit.

So, Miss Anayiz is not perfect. I find that reassuring. Because at first glance she might seem perfect. Young, pretty, tall, intelligent, and the new spokesperson for the Secretariat of State for the Integration of Handicapped Persons (SEIPH). All of this while being a university student who loves to read a lot (scholarly reading), and cultivating her image. It’s in these meetings that I realize the extent of my imperfections ...!

In this interview, we don’t talk much about her private life. The only thing that really interests us, her as much as me, is Haitian society today – and in relation to this society, we talk non-stop about the most marginalized, from the victims of January 12, to the children abandoned at the general hospital in Port-au-Prince, to the situation of young women in Haitian society. A name will come up several times during the interview: Jean-Marie.

When she was very young, Marie Flore’s father, a businessman from Gonaives, took her to the hospital to meet handicapped children, including a child named Jean-Marie.

- The first time, I was so afraid that I took off! That lasted several days; in fact, I think it took about two weeks before I started to feel at ease.

The family eventually adopted Jean-Marie, because it was the right thing to do. It was that simple.

- I often went for walks with Jean-Marie, in the neighbourhood. People looked at us – ah! Their eyes spoke volumes!

Then she burst into a young girl’s laugh – gentle, ringing.

When I ask her about the state of handicapped people before the earthquake, she responds quickly:

- Here, people don’t see the person; they only see the handicap. To have a handicapped child in your house is a problem. To see that a child, or even an adult, who might have some kind of a deformity, is not acceptable. It’s not that they are afraid, but they have never been trained to deal with a situation like this.

And Jean-Marie?

- Sure, I had difficulty with it, in the beginning. But one day, I realized that he was a child like any other, just with different needs.

How old were you when you realized that?

Ha! There was a long pause in the interview. I was a bit disconcerted. Me - at 12 years old, I was starting to skateboard, and I dreamed of being a policeman. I don’t remember being touched by the issue of intellectual disabilities until I was about 20. Indeed, I realize that Marie Flore is a very special woman.

We resume the interview.

Since the catastrophe of January 12, 2010, do you believe that the situation, or at least people’s perspectives, have changed?

- Dare I say that people have become more cynical? Now, it’s truly everyone for himself or herself. Before, there was the social network of the family, neighbours, friends. Today when everyone is in the street, homeless, looking in vain for rental accommodation (she herself had to leave her home because the landlord decided to rent it out to foreigners at a much higher rent), the needs of handicapped people fall way behind in the priorities of Haitians.

- After January 12, if you are handicapped, you absolutely have to have internal strength in order to survive.

Her tone of voice changes ... Marie Flore plays with the straw floating in her glass of lemonade. Her eyes fixed on the ground, she explains herself:

- I met a mother and her young daughter. She was explaining how gifted her daughter was at school, that she had very good marks. Then, in a matter of a few seconds, everything caved in - a wall hit the young girl on the head and buried her in the debris. Now completely handicapped, she can no longer sit, eat, or dress herself. And the mother said to me: Chery'm si mwen te konn sa mwen pa tap soti'l anba dekòm. (My dear, if I had known, I wouldn’t have pulled her out of the ashes.)

I don’t know about you, but that knocked me for a loop. In fact, it’s true that today almost every Haitian has family members who have become handicapped. There are therefore more handicapped people in the country than ever before, but Haitians don’t have the patience to help them overcome the obstacles that face them, even less to reintegrate them in daily life.

I ask Miss Anayiz, who has become a little quieter, a little sadder, if the mother of the young girl who became handicapped as a result of the earthquake no longer loves her daughter.

She looks me straight in the eyes and responds:

- It isn’t that she no longer loves her daughter, but she had such a vivid and precious image of her daughter, who walked to school by herself, who helped her with kitchen chores – you know, here we teach children at a very young age to help out around the house, especially if you are a young girl. You are given responsibilities from a very young age. And if, literally overnight, you find yourself with a little girl in the house whom you have to wash, dress, take to the toilet, feed – you can understand very well that it’s not about love, it’s about survival.

For a moment, Marie Flore and I fasten on to an image of the young girl and the love her mother will always have for her. It was like offering a silent prayer that the little girl would not be abandoned and left to fend for herself in a few months.

I keep going, because the images are churning around in my head, and I ask her if she suffered socially herself, because she befriended a person who is handicapped when she was young.

- I went for a walk every day with Jean-Marie ... I realized later that a lot of my friends at the time ended up distancing themselves from me.

I gather that it was difficult, but her sardonic smile cuts off that train of thought very quickly.
- Ha, ha - I quickly realized that the people who distanced themselves from me would never be important in my life in any case. So, in a way, my encounter with Jean-Marie was beneficial from several points of view.

All the independence of a stubborn young woman suddenly resounds, as Miss Anayiz flashes her famous smile.

I mentioned a little earlier that she is not perfect. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity, in this 20-minute interview, to discover a student, a militant, an ambitious woman – not for herself, but for the cause she has decided to support. And when you ask her why she agreed to become the spokesperson for a cause that is so urgent and yet so little known in Haiti, she responds with the nonchalant air of someone telling you something obvious:

- I have been close to the world of handicapped people for several years, so it’s normal that I would do my best to explain the reality of the life of handicapped people in Haiti to my fellow citizens. But before, I was involved in this work out of personal interest and because I enjoyed it. Today, I feel responsible and obliged to act. It’s simply the thing that has to be done, no? Personally, I believe that I inhabit a place, and that it’s my responsibility to make that place better. And Haiti, despite appearances – well, frankly I don’t want to live anywhere else. So, I have to make it better!

And the smile? Now, I’m wearing it!

J