Last week one of my neighbors called me over and handed me two tiny bottles of shampoo. They had pink tops and faded labels featuring a picture of a beach and a lawn chair. The bottles were dented, and dirt clung stubbornly to the scratches, even though they had been carefully cleaned.
“Where are they from,” I asked.
“The hotel. The one in Haiti,” she replied
“The hotel Montana?”
“That’s the one.”
I took another look at the scuffed bottles. The Hotel Montana collapsed during the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, killing at least sixty people. One woman I know, an expert on DR-Haitian relations, was staying in the hotel on the day o fthe quake. She was missing for days before she finally got in touch with her family. She’d been luckier than the bottles in my hands.
“Where did you get them?” I asked.
“My friends’ husband is working in Haiti. He found them. Take them. I have lots.” She held up a plastic bag full of 15 or 20 hotel shampoos.
Unsure of what to do, I took the little bottles home. Holden on to looted trinkets didn’t seem right, but neither did leaving them behind.
I sat them on a shelf in my house. They’re still sitting there; chipped and oddly cheery. A reminder that some things can be pulled out from under the rubble.
