Life in Port-Au-Prince These Days

• As much as is possible, life has returned to normal. Ti machann (street vendors) are everywhere, tap taps and buses are running and the grocery stores that weren’t irreparably damaged are open with limited hours and heavy security.

• As much as is possible, our own lives are returning to normal. We’ve cut down from 12-15 to approximately 10-hour work days. We are shopping in the market again, taking public transportation and wondering why the news is reporting a "security situation."
  
• Speaking of which, Haiti is now host to 34,000 troops: 20,000 American, 12,000 UN Peacekeeping, 2,000 Canadian (more on that later).
• We thought traffic would get better because so many cars were smashed under rubble. Unfortunately, traffic is as bad as ever - the problem of too many cars on too few streets being compounded by military trucks, earth- (or in this case, rubble) moving machinery and a superabundance of aid vehicles.
  
• Port-Au-Prince is experiencing a massive influx of aid and development workers. They’re everywhere and, as in the past, are doing a lot of good and a lot of harm.
• This increase of development workers post-earthquake makes me sad on several levels: In the days following the earthquake, many organizations evacuated their personnel that live in Haiti, speak Creole and understand Haitian culture and are now shipping in hundreds of personnel that don't speak the language but can “manage an emergency situation.” It also makes me sad that the thousands of people coming to Haiti for the first time in the context of this earthquake (not only development workers but journalists, too) will only ever know and see Haiti in this context. It feels like Haiti is finally getting tourists, but that they’re here for the body count and rubble. The public parks (Place St. Pierre, Place Canape Vert, Place Boyer and others) have become IDP camps. Port-Au-Prince lost a number of iconic churches and monuments - including the Iron Market and the Saint Trinite and National Cathedrals (see photos below) and I mourn that newcomers to Haiti will never get to see these. Lastly, the services that serve these people and their generally exorbitant salaries (hotels, restaurants, international schools, elite clinics, gyms) will almost certainly be the first ones to be rebuilt; while it will probably be years before the population as a whole has access to many basic services.
  

More on us:

• We’re still sleeping outside. Although our house has been officially okay’d by structural engineers (we’re even told that it will withstand a second earthquake), we’re still getting daily tremors that freak us out.
• Bryan and Sharon have come in from Desarmes to help out and are staying with us, usually along with another friend or two.
• We are eating enough.
• We’ve had city water twice since the 12th, but it seems that our main water cistern cracked in the quake so for the time being we’re using our rainwater cistern for water to bathe, do dishes etc.
• During the earthquake the wall came down between our house and our neighbor’s house. This has facilitated lots of neighborliness and we’re drawing power from their generator every night via an extremely long extension cord. We suspect that it will be months before EDH (Electricite d’Haiti) is functioning again.
• Luna is doing well and has been an unexpected source of comfort for many of us over the past few weeks. For a viewing, look at her cute, tiny self peering into an empty flowerpot in the photo below.
  
• I have lost not one, but TWO phones since the earthquake.
• We know that we can’t sustain the pace at which we’re working without processing our experience during and following the earthquake. We’re planning to take a two-week stress leave in February to see our families and work through some things.