Monday, July 12, 2010

6 Months Later

Haiti's New Normal: You Get Up, You Sit Back Down

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (July 12) -- Along the fault line that caused this disaster in Haiti, there are now more than 1,300 camps. They are filled with 700,000 tarps and 100,000 tents. They are tied up alongside 8,000 cubic yards of rubble and 190,000 destroyed houses. There are 1.5 million people, including half a million children, in the streets.

But ask folks what they've been doing lately and there is only one answer: "Nou leve chak jou, epi nou chita." We get up every day, and we sit back down.

Life is like that, they say, six months after the Jan. 12 earthquake. What can we do?

Days start early. By 5:30 a.m., the sun has risen. By 6 a.m. tents and shacks are unbearably hot. There may be breakfast. Or there may not be.


The rest of the article here.

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