After a three-week hiatus from Haiti to help present Real Medicine’s strategy for the country to key contacts in Washington, including a Director on Obama’s executive committee at the White House, it’s been very strange being back on the ground in Port-au-Prince.
I’m not sure what has specifically changed. The crush of relief workers, military personnel and patients is less pronounced but still ever-present. There is still unbearably bad traffic in the mornings and afternoons on the major arteries, UN peacekeepers / Haitian police continue to prowl the streets and setting periodic roadblocks, and the massive tent communities continue to loom, sweeping through the city’s interior up into the suburbs. But overall, things seem to have settled down into an eerie sort of aftermath calm—a grudging acceptance of the new baseline—where the original problems persist, but have been allowed to recede just below the surface.
One of the topics of discussion you hear everywhere is the concern over where and how the money donated for the reconstruction is being spent. A recent article mentioned close to $10 billion in aid that has been pledged so far for the long term rebuilding and development of Haiti. But if you are here on the ground, that money is hard to see. The tent communities are now getting drenched each night in the inevitable nightly monsoon that happens at about 7pm. These rains are expected to get much worse as the season progresses.
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