from Bill Quigley

Hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple are liv­ing and sleep­ing on the ground in Port au Prince.  Many have no homes, their homes destroyed by the earth­quake.  I am sleep­ing on the ground as well — sur­rounded by nurses, doc­tors and human­i­tar­ian work­ers who sleep on the ground every night.  The build­ings that are not on the ground have big cracks in them and fallen sec­tions so no one should be sleep­ing inside.

There are sheet cities every­where.  Not tent cities.  Sheet cities. Old peo­ple and babies and every­one else under sheets held up by ropes hooked onto branches pounded into the ground.  With the rainy sea­son approach­ing, one of the emer­gency needs of Haitians is to get tents.  I have seen hun­dreds of lit­tle red topped Cole­man pup tents among the sheet shel­ters.  There are tents in every space, from soc­cer fields and parks to actu­ally in the streets.  There is a field with dozens of majes­tic beige tents from Qatar marked Islamic Relief.  But real tents are out­num­bered by sheet shel­ters by a ratio of 100 to 1.  Res­cues con­tinue but the real emer­gency remains food, water, health­care and shel­ter for millions.

Though heli­copters thun­der through the skies, actual relief of food and water and shel­ter remains mim­i­mal to non-existent in most neigh­bor­hoods.  Haitians are help­ing Haitians.  Young men have orga­nized into teams to guard com­mu­ni­ties of home­less fam­i­lies.  Women care for their own chil­dren as well as oth­ers now orphaned.  Tens of thou­sands are miss­ing and pre­sumed dead.  The scenes of destruc­tion bog­gle the mind.  The scenes of home­less fam­i­lies, over­whelm­ingly lit­tle chil­dren, crush the heart.

But hope remains.  Haitians say and pray that God must have a plan.  Maybe Haiti will be rebuilt in a way that allows all Haitians to par­tic­i­pate and have a chance at a dig­ni­fied life with a home, a school, and a job.  One young Hait­ian man said, “One good sign is the sol­i­dar­ity of the world.  Mus­lim doc­tors, Jew­ish doc­tors, Chris­t­ian doc­tors all come to help us.  We see chil­dren in Gaza col­lect­ing toys for Hait­ian chil­dren.  It looks very bad right now, but this is a big oppor­tu­nity for the world and Haiti to change and do good together.”