Last week I traveled to down town Port Au Prince for the first time since the earthquake. Even though I have been here since the quake, I had not yet had an opportunity to travel down by the palace or through some of the most heavily damaged areas.
So, almost a year after the earthquake changed our lives, I saw the damaged palace for the first time. By now the dust has settled, and the chaos that filled that square last year has settled along with it. The palace is surrounded by a chain link fence and cars are parked in what used to be the beautifully kept green lawn.
Across the street, where a larg park used to be, tents and makeshift homes hide the space and the sidewalk. In another direction, more tents, tarps, and tin homes crowd around the statue of Henri Christophe on his horse. Where students once lounged in the lawn to study, mothers wash clothes in metal basins and children wait in line for water provided my NGOs.
Photo of Bicentennial Monument yard before the Quake. This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Port-au-Prince
The beauty of that well kept place is gone, the need of the people pressed right up against the walls of the fragile government structures.
But what bothered me most wasn't just the raw reality of need, but the permanance of it. Almost a year later, people seem to be settling in to their new homes. Porta potties have been brought in to line the edges of the cities and water stations have sprung up amidst the tents.
A boy in the doorway of one of the tent sat polishing his shoes as we drove by. Meanwhile I listened to one of the missionaries tell me about reports of an increase in rape in the tent cities and answer back the news I had heard about AIDS being on the rise in these settlements, too.
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