The elegant, white-haired ambassador took the harmonica from a drawer in his office and raised it to his lips. Here, he said, was a song for children.
And as the sun streamed in the curtained windows of the Haitian Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue NW last week, the bearded, bespectacled Raymond A. Joseph played the old Christian hymn "Jesus Loves Me."
Over the past two weeks, the deep religious faith of the people of Haiti has been much on display in the earthquake-ravaged country.
That faith extends to the nation's ambassador, who last week was a guest of President Obama's at the State of the Union address.
His impromptu musical performance last week came after he took members of the Congressional Black Caucus on a tour of the earthquake-response command center on the first floor of the Haitian Embassy in the 2300 block of Massachusetts Avenue NW.
When told of a group of schoolchildren who had collected coins for the people of his tattered nation, Joseph bounded up a staircase, walked into his office and pulled out the harmonica.
Source: Washington Post | Hamil R. Harris and Michael Ruane
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