This was written yesterday by Bob Thorp, a member of our Complementary Interventions team, who has been in Haiti working with our staff since shortly after the earthquake.
“I’ve witnessed a metamorphosis here since arriving here 21 days ago. Then, the words I could use to describe what I saw was a whole city in shock, walking around like zombies, walking wounded. Blank stares. Hollow eyes, caked with mud, now dry from an inability to produce more tears. A survival mentality had set in – each one for themselves. Walk right past someone trapped, because they needed to get home to find their own loved ones. “Today, car horns blare from 4:00am on late into the night. The continual roar of traffic, occasional squealing of tires, movement everywhere. Life is returning to Port-au-Prince. It started like a drip – in dire need of food and water, street vendors started setting up shop – hawking anything and everything. Fruits and vegetables started appearing. Clothes, used and new – recovered from the rubble of someone else’s house – who knows – now hand on clothes hangers covering a filthy crumbling wall like royal curtains. Mountains of shoes have also made it to the street vendors. Even seen a place where you could buy just one shoe! Not sure why, either they had a niche for those that could only find one of their shoes. Or more morbid, selling shoes to all those who lost limbs because of this tragedy.”
Read the entire blog post.
