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On the Ground in Port-au-Prince
Hundreds of thousands of people are living and sleeping on the ground in Port au Prince. Many have no homes, their homes destroyed by the earthquake. I am sleeping on the ground as well - surrounded by nurses, doctors and humanitarian workers who sleep on the ground every night. The buildings that are not on the ground have big cracks in them and fallen sections so no one should be sleeping inside.
There are sheet cities everywhere. Not tent cities. Sheet cities. Old people and babies and everyone else under sheets held up by ropes hooked onto branches pounded into the ground.
With the rainy season approaching, one of the emergency needs of Haitians is to get tents. I have seen hundreds of little red topped Coleman pup tents among the sheet shelters. There are tents in every space, from soccer fields and parks to actually in the streets. There is a field with dozens of majestic beige tents from Qatar marked Islamic Relief. But real tents are outnumbered by sheet shelters by a ratio of 100 to 1.
Rescues continue but the real emergency remains food, water, healthcare and shelter for millions.
Though helicopters thunder through the skies, actual relief of food and water and shelter remains mimimal to non-existent in most neighborhoods.
Haitians are helping Haitians. Young men have organized into teams to guard communities of homeless families. Women care for their own children as well as others now orphaned. Tens of thousands are missing and presumed dead.
The scenes of destruction boggle the mind. The scenes of homeless families, overwhelmingly little children, crush the heart.
But hope remains. Haitians say and pray that God must have a plan. Maybe Haiti will be rebuilt in a way that allows all Haitians to participate and have a chance at a dignified life with a home, a school, and a job.
One young Haitian man said, "One good sign is the solidarity of the world. Muslim doctors, Jewish doctors, Christian doctors all come to help us. We see children in Gaza collecting toys for Haitian children. It looks very bad right now, but this is a big opportunity for the world and Haiti to change and do good together."
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12 Comments so far
Show AllOne young Haitian man said, "One good sign is the solidarity of the world. Muslim doctors, Jewish doctors, Christian doctors all come to help us. We see children in Gaza collecting toys for Haitian children. It looks very bad right now, but this is a big opportunity for the world and Haiti to change and do good together."
Well said.
We have a big community of Haitians in Montreal and it was heart warming to see people coming together to help haitians. People gathered 6 million dollars to give to doctors without borders (or red cross) in under 2 hours. Even the big corporate media TV outlet here, TVA, gave free air time and 500k. Our PR minded prime minister said he would double anything that people gave, so that made 12 million in all.
Hopefully, like one chronicler said here in Commondreams, people realize this is not charity, Haiti has been stomped on by western powers for long enough its time to say sorry and help them rebuild.
Excellent posting!
I found out because of the earthquake that Haiti just paid France off in 1947, WITH INTEREST, for the privilage of no longer being slaves to the French. Absurd. So indeed "Haiti has been stomped on by western powers for long enough its time to say sorry and help them rebuild."
It's so utterly ironic that our country is sending aid in many forms to Haiti on the one hand, and on the other hand has thousands of busy military troops waging war in another country!!! Does anyone else see the paradox here - helping innocent people in one country while killing innocent people (women and children) in another???
To the contrary for our military is not helping, but doing 93% more harm then good. For 93% of the government money going to the Haiti relief effort is consumed by our military. Just think of it, only $.07 of ever dollar spent on this criminal endeavor actually benefits our helpless slaves in Haiti.
John Ellis
I don't know where you are getting your information, but you are simply misinformed.
None of the aid money, government or private is used by our military.
As to the level of help, at this point its quite clear that they have done a more than fair job. The Haitian they pulled from under a building after search and rescue was called off days before certainly thinks so.
All the silly reports have been shown to be just that. Basd reporting and silly complaints. The world has responded wonderfully and our country has been a major part of it.
Caligula, John Ellis is fundamentally correct. When Obama initially allocated $100 million for Haitian relief, there was concurrently a US aircraft carrier en route carrying US troops. From what I've read, the cost for the ship alone is over $!,000,000/day. Tha's without the cost for the soldiers. And all of that was coming out of the pitifully stingy $100,000,000.
American non-profits are hopefully another story. In my mind, Doctors Without Borders is one of the most effective relief orgs (they're French based I believe.)
Woah- you are totally incorrect- where do you get your numbers? Good lord man- are you completely out of your mind????? How much do you think it costs the military to keep the hospital ship running? That is money that should be spent.
Why do you insultingly refer to us as your slaves? I think that you are mis-informed, and I and my entire family resent being called "OUR HELPLESS SLAVES" by anyone, especially an ill informed old man.
You are in a public domain, and I am calling you out.
There was a "60 Minutes" segment (about 7-8 years ago maybe) about these acres and acres of warehouses out east-maybe Virginia-full of things the DOD had ordered and never used. Decades of unused stuff and I'm quite sure tents were a big item. I think they were for a winter war we never fought with the Soviet Union. After the Pakistan earthquake I e-mailed some rep. to suggest sending some to Pakistan. Don't think anything ever happened.I wonder who could look into getting some to Haiti?
The author's report of Haitians sharing food and other basics while young men stand guard over them gets to the essence of what it is about desperately poor Haiti that enables its people to resist repeated foreign (American, French & British) interventions and attempts at recolonization. And no surprise that this essence turns out to be the very same thing that won African slaves their freedom, independence and nationhood some two centuries ago, namely, the collective spirit, or the all for one and one for all, no matter what the odds, a spinoff of which is a people united can never be defeated. Thus it is that Africa, through time and distance, does hold its own upright and strong. It's no wonder, then, that the people of Haiti do not, can not will not bow down.
Very well said, yourstruly.
It struck me a few days after the quake that we sent troops who promptly took over the airport and so could decide who could land and who couldn't. There were many posts I saw that one or more Doctors w/o Borders plane(s) had been 'ordered' to land in the Dominican Republic, were forbidden to land in Haiti -- a 30 hour drive, almost a day and a half lost to bring something like 12 tons of medical supplies and doctors, nurses, to Port au Prince.
Another story I heard twice-- the day after the quake the head of the Am. Nurses association asked for volunteers to go to Haiti. 11,000 nurses volunteered! But the Am. Nurses Asscn could not get through to the White House -- in despair they called Michael Moore who told the story, who of course could not arrange planes either.
What we "gave" before was never for the benefit of the Haitians, on the contrary, it destroyed their economy. Like everywhere the IMF and World Bank come, for a loan they require not only repayment but the transformation of a local economy to an export economy. Local farmers are told not to grow food as they have always done, but grow something they can export, like cotton -- and buy food at the international market. Which means all so-called developing nations that got our "help" had to change their diets from local, natural plants and animals to imported manufactured food with too much fat, salt and sugar.
Look at what the big corporations did to Borneo -- from a large tropical rain forest to an enormous plantation of oil palms, mono-culture which destroys the earth in one generation of the trees and has less than a third of a rainforest's ability to absorb CO2....
Sorry but I have lost faith in banks, corporations, and almost lost faith in our government which seems to have lost its head, like chickens without heads-- just move around...
"But hope remains. Haitians say and pray that God must have a plan."
As long as people think like this, there is NO hope.
God has a plan?!
A plan which kills a quarter of a million people, renders millions more hurt homeless hungry and amputees?
A catastrophe of these proportions, and people still wait to see "God's plan"?
sad....
By the way JOHN ELLIS-
NEVER REFER TO ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL AS YOUR HELPLESS SLAVE.
SHAME ON YOU