Back in Haiti
I arrived in Haiti last week on Thursday afternoon. It was a rainy day as most days are now - we are in the middle of the hurricane season right now. Natacha came to pick me up at the airport. It was so good to see her again! Haiti really feels like home now which is normal, since it’s my 7th trip here. This is why it hurts even more to see that since 5 months almost nothing has been done. The streets don’t look much better than in March. Here and there you see some people rebuilding, but this really is a minority. You can see that a little bit of rubble was cleared out but there still is so much left. Some people were put into relocation camps, (they are outside of Port-au-Prince, there is not much to do there) but the majority still lives in dreadful conditions in tent-cities. The next time it rains I want to go to such a tent-city to see and feel how the living conditions are.
I don’t think that the earthquake was a chance for Haiti at all and most journalists share my opinion.
On Friday I went to M.E.V.A., the school of Haiti Care that “viv Timoun” supports. This is one of the only places I have seen where real construction work is going on. Every day many workers are building up the new school. In 6 to 9 months it will be ready.
School officially started again in April everywhere in Port-au-Prince but most school buildings are not quite ready yet and many are running classes under tents. Natacha has turned her small orphanage (which wasn’t damaged) into the momentary school, fitting many more children than the building was designed to, and creating classrooms by hanging division curtains in the courtyard and hallways.
I will stay in Haiti for 3 more weeks and try to update my blog regularly. Please also check out the blog of my friend Alice, an Italian journalist: http://ayititales.wordpress.com/
