Written on the way back from Haiti
I’m sitting in the airplane of the Belgian Air Force. A few hours ago the plane took of in Santo Domingo to go back to Belgium.
I have spent one week in Port-au-Prince and I am sorry that I didn’t find time to write my blog. This time I wrote a blog in my native language German, which can be found here:
http://blog.zdf.de/3sat.Kulturtube/ -> scroll down
Haiti is widely destroyed; it’s horrible to see. An estimated 200 000 people died and the number rises each day. The hospitals are filled with patients; most of them get a Körperteil amputated and are left alone afterwards. They find themselves alone in the streets, without house, often without family and sometimes even without friends. So many people have lost everything. I talked to a 22-year-old boy, who has lost all his family and all of his friends. He happened to be in the streets during the earthquake, while his family was in their house and his friends in school – both buildings collapses and buried every person who was important to him.
I always thought everything happens for a reason. No matter what happens to me or to any other person, if good or bad - would have some kind of sense behind it. But in this situation I just cannot find the sense at all. A country that has been one of the poorest in the world since many years looses many of his kids, of his teachers, of his hospitals, of his universities, of his bancs… It basically looses his future. It’s not that they have to start at point zero - no, they first have to get all the broken buildings, all the mess out of the city before they can start all over again. And this isn’t easy with an almost complete lack of an infrastructure.
Here in the airplane are also 13 Haitian orphans flying with our group. They have been adopted and will get to their parents in Belgium as soon as we will land. They are saved. I hope they will have a good life in Belgium and I wish that when they’re grown up, Haiti will have succeeded to restart all over again and be a nice place.
I don’t think I need to write more – I think my pictures tell more than my words:
Andres said,
February 2nd, 2010 at 13:52
Vielen Dank für Deine Nachrichten. Ich hatte mir Sorgen gemacht, weil ich zum letzten Mal gelesen hatte, dass Du in Januar in Haiti sein wolltest, ich wusste aber zunächst nicht, ob Du da während des Erdbebens warst. Dann habe ich Nachrichten über Dich und Haiti (und das Mädchen des Preisfotos) in De Standaard gelesen.
Ich hoffe, dass man in Haiti mittel- und langfristig zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung kommen kann. Ich hatte etwas interessantes über Entwicklung auf La Hispaniola v.a. in Collapse, von Jared Diamond, gelesen.
Vielen Dank für Deine Fotos. Sie sind wunderschön.
Ein venezolanischer Belgier