COLUMN: Haiti: a year in review
Haiti had a rough year.
2010 was a year of death for the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It all began on January 12th when a magnitude 7-point earthquake devastated the capitol city of Port-au-Prince. The shock wave of the initial quake was so severe it shook the homes in the neighboring Dominican Republic. With a reported 316,000 people killed and 300,000 more injured, it was one of the greatest natural disasters of the 21st century.
The world's attention was captured for months as rescue teams tried digging out survivors, some of whom were trapped for weeks in darkness without food or water. Over 1 million people were left without shelter. Tent-cities and refugee camps began popping up amidst the rubble. The value prices for the remaining houses soared and with no money to pay rent or businesses to provide jobs with income, homelessness added further to the tragic situation.
Haiti's most recent woe was the confirmed outbreak of cholera. The small intestine infection had not been very noticeable before the earthquake, but doctors believe the squalorous living conditions soon become ripe for it. With a large chunk of the surviving population now squatting, cholera easily spread throughout the new slums. The first wave of death reached 4000. More are expected.
Millions of relief dollars have been donated and an entire army of medical workers, volunteers, and media have come and gone. Celebrities and politicians have raised awareness and funds. But much of the money intended for the people of Haiti never arrived. Some of it remains stuck in litigation, but many suspect that a lot of it slipped into the pockets of corrupt Haitian officials. Even the money that does reach them has no chance to be invested in long-term goals. People are desperate, quickly spending it on what food they can just to get through each day without starving. Even with all the aid, it seems Haiti is worse off now than ever.
2010 marked a miserable low point for the little country that sits on the far corner of the island Columbus came ashore on hundreds of years earlier.
I got an opportunity to be right in the middle of it all this summer when I was working there as a correspondent. The amount of human suffering I witnessed was overwhelming. Living in their world broke my heart for them and has left a scar that I hope will never leave me. Now, from Mount Pleasant, I try to help them the only way I know how: I write their story.
This year I hope you will make the effort to walk a mile in the shoes of someone less fortunate than you. In all the New Year's resolutions, I hope you will make a choice to do something about this broken and violent planet we live on, and will help reach out to those who live in nightmares.
I hope you will remember Haiti.
