Day 3: My visit to the people/church of Port-Au-Prince Haiti

Up for 6:30 mass with Fr. Joe….77 years young…born and raised in Maine.  47 years here in Haiti. He’s seen governments tumbles one after the other; as well as the buildings.  Believe me, here at CAMP OMI (as they call it) there is off and on electricity; now and then internet; air conditioners that don’t work; water but it doesn’t run through pipes as of now; and it’s still standing with some rooms and toilets and add on structures totally destroyed.

Again, many many many people don’t live in their homes anymore because they are absolutely terrified.  Remember, the quake came around 5:00 pm so everyone was pretty much out and about.  As a matter of fact, every afternoon around 5:00 pm we’ve been driving back from somewhere or the other and the traffic, the people traffic, the movement of United nations, military…people, people everywhere!  What doesn’t move?  Very Very little sign of clean up; very little signs of how to get rid of the trash that just mounts up. Even the wild pigs can’t keep up with it!

A recycler could make a fortune out here.  Plastic bottles are everywhere; plastic tarps, plastic baggies, plastic plastic plastic!  When the rains come, all that plastic washes into the streets, rivers and ocean.  If someone came out a paid the people 2-5 cents a can or soda bottle…people would be collecting the stuff because they need the money.  If the government would pay people $1 for a gvt. Distributed bad full of paper, spoiled fruits and assorted crap that just lies there and rots away…again, the city would be clean and the people would make some dinero.  Of course, I’m sure there’s some bullshit reason or bureaucratic reason that this couldn’t happen, so why put oneself in that frustration!  Right?

As I said, previously, there are about 40 nations out here manning (ladying?) local conciliates, embassy’s and local stations of the national police.   Cubans sent over 500 medical people.  The Italian army oversees one of the factories where the Italians pay Haitians to sew and make clothing to be distributed. USAID is seen everywhere on tarps that make up tents.  UNICEF has been big in providing tent-like structures to school children in and try to prevent them from being scorched by the sun.

The money that the USA government collected and/or was promised gathered HAS gone to Humanitarian Agencies/Programs that have been here way before the quake.  The Haitian government would love to have all the money collected to spend as it thinks best.  But “momma didn’t raise a fool”.  The president is up for re-election (which means, if defeated, a whole new government comes in with no line of succession of programs already set in motion.  Therefore, a lot of  the money is still in the hands of our government because the US  wants to know how it is going to be spent?  Show proposals, show bids, show phases of development.  In other words, “give us a plan and we’ll give you the dough.

Amazingly, with the EMERGENCY kind of in control (i.e., ways are back to normal…if you call this normal) and with the idea of reconstruction coming about, the first things the populace believes in are to rebuild the schools.  That’s where the future is and who will be able to rebuild this nation.  Almost every school…with almost every church… was destroyed.  Almost every destroyed school has been moved into temporary tent structures provided mostly by UNICEF while the destroyed school remains.  Their tent-like-schools are everywhere.  The schools have taken in anyone. The Catholic Schools under the OMI’s have taken in everyone in their schools. Their enrollment has skyrocketed and the teachers are spent because no additional teachers have been added because no additional $$, though promised, has come through.  The schools……also feed the children as an incentive for the parents to get them to attend school.  Of course, more kids equal more food which equals more money.  As you can imagine, the kids take a lot of their food home to their families in the slums or in the refugee tent cities..         

As I said, previously, there are about 40 nations out here manning (ladying?) local conciliates, embassy’s and local stations of the national police.   Cubans sent over 500 medical people.  The Italian army oversees one of the factories where the Italians pay Haitians to sew and make clothing to be distributed. USAID is seen everywhere on tarps that make up tents.  UNICEF has been big in providing tent-like structures to school children in and try to prevent them from being scorched by the sun.

The money that the USA government collected and/or was promised gathered HAS gone to Humanitarian Agencies/Programs that have been here way before the quake.  The Haitian government would love to have all the money collected to spend as it thinks best.  But “momma didn’t raise a fool”.  The president is up for re-election (which means, if defeated, a whole new government comes in with no line of succession of programs already set in motion.  Therefore, a lot of  the money is still in the hands of our government because the US  wants to know how it is going to be spent?  Show proposals, show bids, show phases of development.  In other words, “give us a plan and we’ll give you the dough.

Amazingly, with the EMERGENCY kind of in control (i.e., ways are back to normal…if you call this normal) and with the idea of reconstruction coming about, the first things the populace believes in are to rebuild the schools.  That’s where the future is and who will be able to rebuild this nation.  Almost every school…with almost every church… was destroyed.  Almost every destroyed school has been moved into temporary tent structures provided mostly by UNICEF while the destroyed school remains.  Their tent-like-schools are everywhere.  The schools have taken in anyone. The Catholic Schools under the OMI’s have taken in everyone in their schools. Their enrollment has skyrocketed and the teachers are spent because no additional teachers have been added because no additional $$, though promised, has come through.  The schools……also feed the children as an incentive for the parents to get them to attend school.  Of course, more kids equal more food which equals more money.  As you can imagine, the kids take a lot of their food home to their families in the slums or in the refugee tent cities..