One Year Later, Haiti still Unchanged

When the deadly earth quake errupted in Haiti and left thousands of people homeless, people were forced to change their lives. Tent cities started sprouting up as a "temoprary" fix. However, today, a year after the quake, the tent cities are still thriving with life as people spend their time "liv[ing] like hyenas," using portable toilets and getting water from a foreign aid agency. More than one million people are still living in these tents, and not enjoying it. Men and women are forced to bathe in public and try not to recount the tales of sorrow. Families try to send their children off to live with family, but not everyone has a place to go. It is said "Women and girls are raped and abused in the darkness of night." A 14 year old girl who was kicked out of her family's tent "meets men," she stated some beat her and some pay her, and usually she asks them to use a condom. A man adds, misery makes people fight, another man once tried to kill him for his phone. Many of these people do not forsee change anytime soon, they remark that "the government doesn't care about them; that the government likes it when they live this way." Not only do they have to worry about violence and weather, they also have to worry about diseases; one of the biggest stresses right now is cholera.

One can do so much in a year's time. It's displeasing to see that people have been living so cruedly for an entire year. We all understood after hearing of the tragic earth quake that bringing the country back to working and "normal" condition would take time. However, to hear that over a million people are still living in tents a year after the quake is slightly shocking. I would have guessed that the government would have stepped up more and have the people living in apartments or hotels or something better then tents on the street by now. This article also commented on how numerous symbolic sites are still in dis-aray. It seems that the government has done little to no work since the quake, which is extremely disheartening considering that mulitiple countries offered help; supplies, money, etc. Obviously, something needs to change and somehow these people need to get back to homes and normal lives. No one deserves to live the way they are, especially when they did nothing to get into that situation and they can do basically nothing to get out.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/01/06/haiti.earthquake.anniversary/index.html?hpt=C1