After the earthquake, I remember thinking, how could this happen. Haiti and its people didn’t deserve this. Haiti has had a brutal history and after all its been through mother nature gives them an earthquake!? Not just an earthquake but what has been called one of the worst disasters in history by UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, and others.
That’s what I thought last January, but now 10 months later I can’t help but have the same feelings. Its been 10 months of people sleeping in tent cities. Some even with tents set up in the medians of busy streets. 10 months of sleeping on cold and rainy grounds. 10 months of facing the uncertainty of the future. As if all this wasn’t enough, the Cholera outbreak started.
Then within days of news about the Cholera there is news of a hurricane heading directly towards Haiti. When I heard about the hurricane I thought of my grandparent’s house in Florida and all the precautions there house has to keep them safe. And I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have to hide out in a tent during a hurricane. News reports said that some of the people who stayed in the camps just sat with sheets around them trying to stay warm and dry during the storm as the rain pounded on them. Its unimaginable and something that should never be acceptable.
And now the news says that the Cholera has spread to Port au Prince. Close to 800 people have died and there seem to be no signs of the epidemic slowing down.
The night before the Hurricane Tomas was expected to hit Haiti I was talking to one of my Haitian friends. We didn’t say much. All we could think to say was. Its too much for one year. It’s just too much.
