I was in Haiti, in the city of Port-au-Prince during the middle of December 2009. I spent an entire week driving between the capital and the port city of Miragoane, about 2 hours distance by car. Every night my boss and I would return to the capital city, and we stayed in one of the best hotels there called the Karibe.
I wrote an article this week which I published on Ezine Articles regarding Haiti. My goal was to present an objective assessment of the locations where I visited during my stay, and to describe the incredible level of poverty before the disaster.
Today, a good portion of both cities has been destroyed by the earthquake of January 12, 2010. How many people that I met during my stay are alive today? I want them all to have survived, but I doubt it very much!
Over the months I have posted many pages with my thoughts on prayer and holy water. I have mentioned before that we are subject to the capricious behavior of nature. Knowing the natural laws and how they can affect us, we take precautions. In California, construction laws determine the way that houses and buildings must be built in order to conform. It is paramount that all structures be able to sustain the effects of a strong earthquake and the post-tremors.
In Florida, most structures are built of concrete blocks to protect the structure and the residents from hurricanes. In Haiti no such precautions exist. I saw many shanty town houses built of concrete blocks, metal sheets and cardboard. None of these structures could sustain any movement of the earth. Perhaps the Karibe Hotel did hold up, because it was a new structure, and which apparently survived the earthquake.
Haiti was extremely poor before the earthquake. It is now worse than ever, and it will get worst as time passes. People outside Haiti must come to understand that this country has no chance to stand by itself. It required massive amounts of aid before the disaster, and it will require more help than ever now that it has been grounded to its knees.
Not even the Archbishop of Haiti survived the tragic event. Is there a lesson to all of this that I just don't understand? Many of the churches in Port-au-Prince are not even standing any longer.
You watch the news and you see the dead bodies of humans who just a week ago were alive, and moving about the city going somewhere. Now those same bodies are being dumped in mass graves, and others are being piled and burned in order to prevent massive decease from occurring. How much is a human being worth in Haiti? If you are dead, I guess you're worth nothing!
How sad that a beautiful people like the Haitians cannot live or die in dignity. Was anybody aware of the extreme poverty that these people lived under before the earthquake? Did anybody foresee the dangers that the many tectonic faults (massive plates moving in different directions) on the island could someday unleash a terrible and inevitable disaster?
Let us pray for the Haitians who have passed on, and those that must bear the loss of members of their family, but who will continue to live hopefully under a better and a healthier environment.
Tony McCleary
tonymcclr@gmail.com
http:///www.prayer-be-strong.blogspot.com
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