Haiti: Four Months after Catastrophe

Four months following the devastating earthquake that claimed numerous lives, Haiti is still in need. Forgotten by some, many Haitians still living in the Port au Prince area are going through the rebuilding of their city and remain hopeful. Read bits of CNN reporter Moni Basu's online article, "Four months after 'the catastrophe,' Haitians still in emergency mode". View the entire article and video here http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/05/11/haiti.then.now/index.html?iref=allsearch


Four months on, the tragedy of the massive January 12 earthquake is fresh.

Relief operations thwarted widespread hunger here and so far, there have been no reports of killer disease outbreaks. But Port-au-Prince is very much running in emergency mode. Still.

No humanitarian worker will argue with that sad fact.
Despite the efforts and good intentions of a host of foreigners and a government that got a wake-up call, progress has been timidly slow.

The future has a different meaning now for Haitians such as Edline Pierre, who worries not about where to enroll her three daughters in school but how to get them up off the floor fast enough when the rains start falling.

Haitians, who have lived through political turmoil, extreme violence and grinding poverty, will tell you the earthquake was the worst experience of their lives.

Whether a new city can rise from the rubble of Port-au-Prince remains in question, though Haitians are hopeful something good must come out of an event this tragic. They have to be.

They have nothing left but hope. And faith.

That's why if you peek down lanes on a steamy afternoon, you'll see a gathering of people under a tent, their arms stretched skyward, their eyes closed. And you'll hear the Lord's Prayer.


You'll hear it, too, every Sunday morning, before the sun gets hot, at Notre Dame, the main cathedral in Port-au-Prince. The building is shattered, but not the congregation's faith. They still come to the place where, every week, they are re-energized by their belief in Christ.


Several Haitians said they feared the world's goodwill would quickly fade now that the throngs of media have left and the spotlight has turned elsewhere. Edna Dunrod was one of them.


She worried she was forgotten, lying on a smelly mattress under three tattered bed sheets that serve as a roof in the Champs de Mars tent city. Last month, she gave birth to Marvins, asleep in a plastic tub under a foldable umbrella.


Life with a newborn in this congested camp, she said, was unbearable.


"I want to go somewhere else," she said. But where, she worried. And who would help her reclaim her life?