January 28, 2010
I talk to Patrice about Haiti, he is very pessimistic about the future, very cynical about the politicians who he said have stolen most of the aid money in the past to make themselves millionaires. “Hope is just a word in the dictionary”, he said, “there is no hope for Haiti”, as we stand in a tiny bit of shade directly in front of the crumbling Presidential Palace . “Change is just a word in the dictionary, there won’t be any change in Haiti.” He thinks talk of elections are preposterous, the government is paralyzed now and is not helping its own people, yet they talk of being re-elected. Patrice has vowed not to vote again.
On the personal side, Patrice keeps meeting former students of his in the various tent cities we report on. I asked him how he felt about that, he said he feels so bad about those people because there is nothing he can do for them.
Expecting a big food distribution today near the Champs de Mars/Presidential Palace so I head in the morning to the nearby National Stadium with Patrice and Angelo. On the former soccer field, an array of tents are set up, people wash dishes on the concrete stands. One end of the field has been kept clear and boys play soccer. Many people are constructing crude structures of salvaged wood. Patrice meets 2 more students, one displaced, the other working for a local agency. Outside the stadium a man ponders buying a suit, a wide selection of pants and jackets hung from the iron fence, the proprietor dusting off each piece.
In the afternoon, we try to find a camp in the Delmars area of Port-au-Prince. We find a huge one on the site of a secondary school. In the distance we see large white tents, turns out it’s the Medicins Sans Frontieres compound, really a mini hospital. Very serene, it’s quiet, large trees provide some shade, it’s back from the main road so not much of the city noise. Very badly injured people lie on mattresses on the tent floors or some on simple beds. Tents are quite roomy and a breeze blows through. Patrice sees a teaching colleague in one of the beds and talks to him for a while. With the sun setting, Angelo drives us back to the bureau.
Earlier in the day Jordi begins to make arrangements to leave Port-au-Prince to Santo Domingo via a small charter company that brings in aid and will transport paying passengers. Thinking if there are more AFP people we might get a discount, I join him and Warwick on the flight tomorrow afternoon. So I’ll be leaving a day early, then return to New York on Saturday. I was just getting to know Haiti and especially the people I worked with, but it’s probably a good time to leave.
I talk to Patrice about Haiti, he is very pessimistic about the future, very cynical about the politicians who he said have stolen most of the aid money in the past to make themselves millionaires. “Hope is just a word in the dictionary”, he said, “there is no hope for Haiti”, as we stand in a tiny bit of shade directly in front of the crumbling Presidential Palace . “Change is just a word in the dictionary, there won’t be any change in Haiti.” He thinks talk of elections are preposterous, the government is paralyzed now and is not helping its own people, yet they talk of being re-elected. Patrice has vowed not to vote again.
On the personal side, Patrice keeps meeting former students of his in the various tent cities we report on. I asked him how he felt about that, he said he feels so bad about those people because there is nothing he can do for them.
Expecting a big food distribution today near the Champs de Mars/Presidential Palace so I head in the morning to the nearby National Stadium with Patrice and Angelo. On the former soccer field, an array of tents are set up, people wash dishes on the concrete stands. One end of the field has been kept clear and boys play soccer. Many people are constructing crude structures of salvaged wood. Patrice meets 2 more students, one displaced, the other working for a local agency. Outside the stadium a man ponders buying a suit, a wide selection of pants and jackets hung from the iron fence, the proprietor dusting off each piece.
In the afternoon, we try to find a camp in the Delmars area of Port-au-Prince. We find a huge one on the site of a secondary school. In the distance we see large white tents, turns out it’s the Medicins Sans Frontieres compound, really a mini hospital. Very serene, it’s quiet, large trees provide some shade, it’s back from the main road so not much of the city noise. Very badly injured people lie on mattresses on the tent floors or some on simple beds. Tents are quite roomy and a breeze blows through. Patrice sees a teaching colleague in one of the beds and talks to him for a while. With the sun setting, Angelo drives us back to the bureau.
Earlier in the day Jordi begins to make arrangements to leave Port-au-Prince to Santo Domingo via a small charter company that brings in aid and will transport paying passengers. Thinking if there are more AFP people we might get a discount, I join him and Warwick on the flight tomorrow afternoon. So I’ll be leaving a day early, then return to New York on Saturday. I was just getting to know Haiti and especially the people I worked with, but it’s probably a good time to leave.
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