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Many survivors still live in camps (Photo: Jeb Sharp)
by Jeb Sharp
A year later the landscape is still scarred and the stories are still raw. Lizina Bovoi was in her second story apartment when the building collapsed around her. She managed to crawl out through the debris. Now she lives in a camp. She says all the aid money she hears about certainly isn’t flowing her way. She blames the politicians.
“We don’t have a government,” Bovoi said. “We don’t have a leader who’s going to fight to get us out of here. ”
It’s a common refrain. Many Haitians assume the government is stealing money intended for them. Bovoi says foreigners come to ask questions, but no one from the government ever does.
“You’re American, right?” Bovoi asked. “You paid for a plane ticket, and for a taxi to come to the tent camp to ask me how I’m living. But no Haitian has come to ask how I’m doing. That’s sad. ”
Former prime minister Michele Pierre-Louis feels that political vacuum as well.
“I think the Haitian people wanted to see what’s going to happen for them,” said Pierre-Louis. “It’s true that the conditions were difficult before but can you imagine how many people lost everything they had? And nobody’s really talking to them.”
The 63-year-old Pierre-Louis says she’s never felt as low as she has this past year. She lost 30 pounds in the weeks after the earthquake. She simply couldn’t eat.
“I’ve never felt what deep down I felt when this earthquake occurred, in terms of the sense of despair, of devastation and knowing the difficulty we were going to have to get out of it.”
Georgette Jean-Louis feels the enormity of the challenges as well. She’s the chief operating officer of the microlending organization Fonkoze.
“Every time there is a drop of rain I remember those millions of people still on the street of Port au Prince,” said Jean-Louis. “It is really heart-breaking. You see children, young women, men, fathers, mothers, grandmothers, the way they live, it is unhuman.”
Those images make it hard to rest she says.
“You know after a hard day of work everyone would like to go home and sleep fine, sleep well. You don’t want to have that pinch in your heart. Because I love when it rains. I have grass in my backyard. I would like it to rain so I can enjoy the rain. But you can’t have that peace of mind.”
Jean-Louis says Haiti needs action, not promises. Just build something she says–roads, schools, hospitals–anything to get the jobs and money flowing. But that kind of building is what is so glaringly not happening at this one-year mark. Julie Schindall is with Oxfam in Haiti. She’s disappointed.
It’s not so much disappointment for myself,” said Schindall. “But for all of the Haitians that I know. I think a year and you’re still living in a tent? Sometimes when you ask the question they give you the response which is like the classic rejoinder in this country, ‘Bienvenue en Haiti.’ ‘Welcome to Haiti.’ It’s said with so much irony about well, this is typical here. I think one year on, and maybe this is idealistic, or the view of a foreigner who hasn’t been worn down, but I think that’s unacceptable.”
So do the folks living in the tents. Roseline Jean washes a tub of clothes outside her shelter. She lost her father and her sister and a cousin in the earthquake. She gave birth to her second child seven days after it. Now she lives under a tarp, with no door to lock, in a camp where she doesn’t feel safe. She gives a bitter look when I ask her what she wants Americans to know about what’s happening here.
“It doesn’t help to tell people,” Jean said. “People come by all the time to talk to us. They say they’re going to pass the message on, but nothing comes of all the messages we’ve been sending.”
With that, Jean turns back to her laundry.
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