When i went there last month the rubbles was cleared and tent cities were gone. Some fancy new hotels had been built but garbage is still burned outside since there is no real sanitation infrastructure.

and um yeah:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2015/01/12/376138864/5-years-after-haiti-s-earthquake-why-aren-t-things-better
Haiti's magnitude 7.0 earthquake of Jan. 10, 2010, left 220,000 people dead, 300,000 injured and rubble nearly everywhere.

The catastrophe also unleashed an unprecedented flood of humanitarian aid — $13.5 billion in donations and pledges, about three-quarters from donor nations and a quarter from private charity.

Haitians protested in the streets of Port-au-Prince on Sunday, calling for the resignation of President Michel Martelly.i
Haitians protested in the streets of Port-au-Prince on Sunday, calling for the resignation of President Michel Martelly.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
But today Haiti is a long, long way from realizing the bullish goal of "building back better."

"There have certainly been improvements," says Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a nonprofit in Boston that fights for human rights on the island. "The rubble is off the streets. Haiti's back more or less to normal. But there have not been the improvements there should have been, given the resources."

Unfortunately, "normal" in Haiti includes perpetual political turmoil. As NPR's Carrie Kahn reports, the earthquake's anniversary, on Jan. 12, is also the day when the terms of all but 10 senators expire, leaving President Michel Martelly in total charge of the government. A political impasse threatens to put legislative and local elections on hold for 39 months if a deal can't be reached by Monday evening.

That kind of political morass is one big reason — though by no means the only one — why the billions in relief and recovery aid haven't been enough to rescue Haiti from the disasters that fate keeps flinging its way.

A makeshift latrine hangs over the water at the edge of Cite de Dieu, a slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS
Why Cholera Persists In Haiti Despite An Abundance Of Aid
The outside world's response to Haiti's continuing cholera epidemic offers a revealing window on this disheartening dynamic.

Cholera was unknown in Haiti for the past century or more — until 10 months after the 2010 earthquake. Then it exploded along Haiti's largest river, the Artibonite River, and spread quickly throughout the nation.

The source is clear to public health experts: Cholera was brought to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers quartered in a United Nations peacekeeping camp that spilled its waste into a tributary of the Artibonite.

Over the past four years, cholera has struck more than 720,000 Haitians and killed almost 9,000.

A child walks near the ruins of the National Cathedral in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. After the 2010 earthquake destroyed the cathedral, a new church was built next to the ruins.
A child walks near the ruins of the National Cathedral in Port-au-Prince on Sunday. After the 2010 earthquake destroyed the cathedral, a new church was built next to the ruins.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The U.N. has, so far, refused to acknowledge responsibility for the cholera catastrophe, but two years ago U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a plan to eradicate the disease. The U.N. says the 10-year effort will cost $2.2 billion.

That's less than the $2.5 billion the U.N. has spent on its Haitian peacekeeping mission since the outbreak of cholera. But over the past two years, the U.N. has persuaded member nations to pledge less than a fifth of the amount needed to eradicate cholera, a report from the U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti said this month.

At current donation levels, it will take 40 years to eliminate the cholera in Haiti, says the U.N.'s own coordinator for the response in Haiti, Pedro Medrano.

Why?

Lack of confidence in the Haitian government is one reason. The original plan was to set up a trust fund that would be controlled by the Haitian ministries of health and environment.s

A family looks out from behind the tarp that serves as the front door to their home. The structure was built five years ago over the land where their home stood before the 2010 earthquake. At one point, about 1.5 million people lived in tents across Haiti. Now about 80,000 people live in these structures.i
A family looks out from behind the tarp that serves as the front door to their home. The structure was built five years ago over the land where their home stood before the 2010 earthquake. At one point, about 1.5 million people lived in tents across Haiti. Now about 80,000 people live in these structures.
Joe Raedle/Getty
But that's not the way foreign aid to Haiti works. With few exceptions, donor nations and non-governmental organizations insist on keeping control of their projects, which are set according to their own priorities.

Jake Johnston of the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy and Research cites post-earthquake aid from the USAID, as an example.

"USAID has spent about $1.5 billion since the earthquake," Johnston told Goats & Soda. "Less than a penny of every dollar goes directly to a Haitian organization."

A growing reliance on U.S. and other international contractors helps explain why the payoff of foreign aid in Haiti often seems so low. For instance, it cost more than $33,000 to build a new housing unit in one post-earthquake program, a report from the Government Accounting Office said last year. That's five times more than one nonprofit, called Mission of Hope, spends per house, using local contractors.

"International companies had to fly in, rent hotels and cars, and spend USAID allowances for food and cost-of-living expenses," Johnston wrote in the Boston Review last year. So-called danger pay and hardship pay inflated salaries by more than 50 percent.

Haitians protest against United Nations peacekeepers in Port-au-Prince in 2010.
SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS
Activists Sue U.N. Over Cholera That Killed Thousands In Haiti
Interestingly, the only part of the Haitian government that receives direct funding from the U.S. government, the health ministry, has racked up impressive post-earthquake gains in childhood vaccination rates and access to life-saving HIV treatment.

So far, however, the idea of setting up a trust fund to allow the Haitian government to eradicate cholera, by providing clean water and sanitation has been a deal-killer among international donors.

A 2013 donor conference on cholera eradication was scuttled because of resistance to the idea. Even after the trust fund was abandoned, a donor conference last October failed miserably to raise needed pledges.

So as Haiti approaches the fifth anniversary of its cholera epidemic later this year, the main hope for eradication rests on political and legal pressure on the U.N. to come up with the money.

In December, 77 U.S. congressmen sent a letter to Ban Ki-moon demanding that the U.N. "create a fair process to adjudicate the claims made by cholera victims that allows for remediation of the affected communities."

Meanwhile, Haitian plaintiffs and their advocates suffered a setback on Friday in their legal attempt to hold the U.N. accountable for the cholera epidemic. U.S. District Court Judge J. Paul Oetken rejected a class-action lawsuit that seeks to compel the U.N. to compensate victims and fund cholera eradication.

The U.N. and its agents are "absolutely immune from suit in this Court," Oetken ruled.

"The Court's decision implies that the U.N. can operate with impunity," said lawyer Beatrice Lindstrom of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, which represents the plaintiffs. "We don't think that is the law, and we don't think the Court of Appeals will find that either," .

Concannon, executive director of the Institute, says the plaintiffs are prepared to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, a process that he estimates could take two years.

"If we do get a final order that the U.N.'s immunity doesn't apply, we would expect the U.N. to put in clean water and sanitation and compensate the victims," Concannon says.

That's the optimistic view.

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<--------- my cousin
www.richardlouissaint.com
photobloggin' it:
http://blog.richardlouissaint.com

How do people make a living day to day?
How large do companies scale on the island? Are their national brands? And if so, who owns them?
How broad is internet penetration?
What are the major industries? Who controls them and how do those interests ally with politicians in Haiti?



"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..." -The Bard

to ask. it's so complex.
If you live in the cities versus rural areas i think politics affect you very differently. as in rural people see very little difference in their lives aside from Nonprofits who might come and build schools and clinics

and not including foreign interests like Bill Clinton who is not very well liked since he is buying up a lot of land for specific reasons
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<--------- my cousin
www.richardlouissaint.com
photobloggin' it:
http://blog.richardlouissaint.com

And the cholera outbreak was just insult to injury

Didn't know the fatalities were so high
That's higher than the ebola #s

)))--####---###--(((

bunda
<-.-> ^_^ \^0^/
get busy living, or get busy dying.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2015/01/12/saving-themselves-haitis-unsung-grassroots-heroes-do-the-work-of-rebuilding-communities/

Today marks the five-year anniversary of the deadly earthquake that devastated Haiti, killing over 300,000 people and nearly leveling an entire country’s infrastructure. The country continues to grapple with rebuilding itself even after over $12 billion in aid was pledged by over 50 countries, 80 percent of which has been distributed, according to the United Nations.

In 2014, photographer Felipe Jacome began taking portraits of Haiti’s change makers, taking a closer look at local leaders and grassroots organizations trying to bring change to their communities, often with very little resources in the face of tremendous hardships.

“Over past the four years working as a documentary photographer in Haiti, I have encountered a remarkable amount of stories of individuals and grassroots organizations creating positive change,” Jacome tells In Sight. “The types of initiatives range widely as they tackle the long list of Haiti’s illnesses. There is the story of KOFAVIV, a support group of rape survivors helping the thousands of women and children raped in the aftermath of the disaster. There is the tireless campaign of Haiti’s amputee soccer players to demand respect for the marginalized handicapped population.”

Jacome’s portrait piece seeks to highlight the stories of Haitians changing Haiti, a story sometimes overlooked by the international aid apparatus and muffled by the country’s political instability.
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<--------- my cousin
www.richardlouissaint.com
photobloggin' it:
http://blog.richardlouissaint.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2015/01/12/saving-themselves-haitis-unsung-grassroots-heroes-do-the-work-of-rebuilding-communities/

Today marks the five-year anniversary of the deadly earthquake that devastated Haiti, killing over 300,000 people and nearly leveling an entire country’s infrastructure. The country continues to grapple with rebuilding itself even after over $12 billion in aid was pledged by over 50 countries, 80 percent of which has been distributed, according to the United Nations.

In 2014, photographer Felipe Jacome began taking portraits of Haiti’s change makers, taking a closer look at local leaders and grassroots organizations trying to bring change to their communities, often with very little resources in the face of tremendous hardships.

“Over past the four years working as a documentary photographer in Haiti, I have encountered a remarkable amount of stories of individuals and grassroots organizations creating positive change,” Jacome tells In Sight. “The types of initiatives range widely as they tackle the long list of Haiti’s illnesses. There is the story of KOFAVIV, a support group of rape survivors helping the thousands of women and children raped in the aftermath of the disaster. There is the tireless campaign of Haiti’s amputee soccer players to demand respect for the marginalized handicapped population.”

Jacome’s portrait piece seeks to highlight the stories of Haitians changing Haiti, a story sometimes overlooked by the international aid apparatus and muffled by the country’s political instability.
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<--------- my cousin
www.richardlouissaint.com
photobloggin' it:
http://blog.richardlouissaint.com
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<--------- my cousin
www.richardlouissaint.com
photobloggin' it:
http://blog.richardlouissaint.com

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/12/health/feat-baby-jenny-today/

CNN)For 10 days following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, two CNN colleagues and I lived in a tent hospital run by Project Medishare. Our hearts ached as we heard the cries of the injured, as we watched surgeons performed amputations without general anesthesia, as people died in front of our eyes.

But, in the midst of this despair, a miracle arrived at Project Medishare. CNN Senior Photographer Ferre Dollar caught these images seconds after she arrived. Look closely at the center of the photo.

Baby buried in Haiti quake
Baby buried in Haiti quake
This 4-month-old baby had spent four days alone in the rubble and was unconscious and extremely dehydrated. No one knew if she would live or die.

But look at her now!

A baby found after four days in rubble from the Haitian earthquake is now a healthy 5-year-old.
A baby found after four days in rubble from the Haitian earthquake is now a healthy 5-year-old.
CNN medical producer John Bonifield and I had the pure joy of seeing this wonderful young lady again last week. Her name is Jenny, and she's 5 years old and a pre-kindergartner in Miami. She can write her name and loves to color and dress up as a princess and is adorable and spunky and smart and funny.

Here are all the miracles that it took to save her life:

1. That someone happened to find Jenny in the rubble four days after the quake.

2. That at a time when vehicles were in short supply, Jenny's rescuers flagged down a car to rush her to the hospital.

3. That the Medishare team of doctors and nurses, led by Dr. Karen Schneider, an emergency medicine physician at Johns Hopkins, managed to get fluids into her. Jenny was so dehydrated her veins had collapsed and Schneider had to put a needle through her shinbone and directly into her bone marrow to deliver fluids. They didn't have to sedate her -- Jenny was so unconscious she didn't even cry.

Here's Schneider reunited with Jenny a year after her rescue.

Baby Jenny one year after the Haiti earthquake.
Baby Jenny one year after the Haiti earthquake.
4. That Project Medishare found a flight headed immediately to Miami, because she needed surgery the tent hospital couldn't provide. Hospital workers flagged down a UN truck and promised the driver they'd name the baby after her if she got the airport on time.

5. That the baby, then named Patricia after the truck driver, survived the flight to Miami and the emergency surgery.

When the baby arrived in Miami, it was presumed her parents were dead. She'd been found in the rubble next to the body of a woman, thought to be her mother.

But that woman turned out to be her baby sitter. Shortly after the baby arrived in Miami, a couple came forward saying they were her parents. Many people doubted them, thinking they just wanted to get to Miami, but DNA testing showed they were telling the truth and the baby's name was actually Jenny.

Now Jenny and her parents, Nadine Devilme and Junior Alexis, and her 17-month-old little sister, Naima, live in an apartment in North Miami. Her parents have explained to Jenny that the bumpy scars on her left arm are from when she was crushed in the rubble of the Haiti earthquake. They've told her she's a miracle, that Jesus saved her.

Jenny nods her head and says she understands. But really she's a little embarrassed by all the attention and just wants to go put on her Cinderella dress and go outside and ride her bike and then draw pictures of big red flowers under a sun and sign her name:

Jenny Alexis.
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<--------- my cousin
www.richardlouissaint.com
photobloggin' it:
http://blog.richardlouissaint.com