Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Dec 31, 2012 | Bryan TX
I have seen both sides of human survival now. I have seen the Mitt Romney nouveau riche bunch, where nouveau riche describes rich people who acquired their wealth within their own generations ... the equivalent English term is the new rich; ... and I might have seen some of the worst poverty stricken masses.
Whenever I traveled I tried to at least see what is going on in the community I stayed. In Mexico I stayed with my family in a pretty nice hotel, but from the window I could see naked children running and playing soccer in the woods behind the building. If I opened the window they would run up and ask for money.
In Osaka, Japan, I saw no poverty. Associates there took me to the "bad parts" of town, and it looked like "One Mag Mile" of Chicago. In Chicago, I would walk on one side of a street, like Lake Shore Drive, and it was swank high-rise apartment/condo -- while just across the street was high urban density bric-a-brac ...
Here in Haiti, after so much western countries pledging billions to reconstruct post earthquake conditions, there are many projects not even started after three years.
Here in Bryan Texas, the Lutherans threw up a solid brick, buttressed hexagonal, 'cathedral' church in just a few months. Now it sits on a busy road, with its moving message sign flickering about its services. I am a skeptic, because a good builder a minister does not make. Maybe the wrong people are in charge over there in Haiti?
This, the Haiti earthquake aftermath, is a carbuncle on the face of humanity, that such boastful pledging goes without follow up. Eh? We don't like bombast, for an other-wise great cause, here at MooPig Enterprises. We scorn it.
" ... A boy rested on the edge of a construction site in Cabaret, outside Port-au-Prince. The American government had promised to complete 156 houses there, but earlier this month only about a dozen had been completed, and they lacked doors and windows. (ibid. NYT) ... "
[Pictures LINK]
Despite Billions in Aid, Reconstruction in Haiti Stalls - Slide Show - NYTimes.com:
Nearly three years after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, uncleared rubble and ruined buildings remain in downtown Port-au-Prince. Vegetable vendors worked amid the debris.
A vegetable vendor sold her goods on top of piles of earthquake rubble in downtown Port-au-Prince.
Agricultural crops like corn and millet are being grown and harvested in the vacant lots left behind after destroyed buildings were cleared away in the capital.
'via Blog this'
A woman used piles of earthquake rubble as a platform to sell toys in a market.
A man offered a knife-sharpening service amid the ruins and garbage of destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince.
This thick tangle of iron rebar is all that remains of the shattered National Palace that was finally demolished earlier this year.
A boy rested on the edge of a construction site in Cabaret, outside Port-au-Prince. The American government had promised to complete 156 houses there, but earlier this month only about a dozen had been completed, and they lacked doors and windows.
Long rows of homes in the Zoranje development outside Port-au-Prince. It is the only big, new housing project completed and occupied, but the houses are still not connected to water.
Women bring buckets of water back to their homes in the new Zoranje development.
In the mountain town of Furcy, Haiti, some 480 students cram into two small, makeshift schools planted in the heart of a construction site for their new school. Construction was halted on this and 20 other school sites when inspectors discovered construction error and design flaws indicating they would not be safe during earthquakes.
While construction on their new school is stalled, students attended classes in a makeshift structure without electricity.
Sixth-graders in their temporary classroom, lighted only by the natural light that seeps through the gaps between partial walls and tin roofs.
A partly demolished section of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince that is still being used as a holding area for patients being prepped for surgery. A $70 million reconstruction of the hospital by the American, French and Haitian governments, announced in September 2010, has yet to begin.
The emergency room of a newly finished teaching hospital in Mirebalais, outside the disaster zone. The hospital, built by the nonprofit Partners in Health, which plans to run it jointly with the Haitian government, has not yet secured its first-year operating budget.
Dieudonne Zidor, a local elected leader who represents the Campeche neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. “As you can see, conditions are calamitous,’’ she said.
Nadain Janvier, 29, repaired a leaking roof with tarp material on his makeshift home in the Campeche neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Mr. Janvier has lived here since his home on this site was destroyed almost three years ago in the earthquake.
Charles Frantz, 46, and his family live in the Campeche neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, a jumble of tents, half-destroyed buildings and makeshift shacks. Campeche has been the focus of millions of dollars in reconstruction aid but has seen little progress.
Makeshift tents along the signature steep, red-dirt roadway of the Tapis Rouge (Red Carpet) camp in the Campeche neighborhood.
______________________________Reference
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/12/24/world/americas/HAITI.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#1
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/world/americas/in-aiding-quake-battered-haiti-lofty-hopes-and-hard-truths.html?_r=0
No comments:
Post a Comment