I wish the people of Haiti would try to help themselves more than they do.
>>I wish the people of Haiti would try to help themselves more than they do.
Haiti - formerly the French colony of Saint-Domingue - has been a mess ever since the slaves revolted circa 1791, and threw out all the whites, mulattoes and free blacks.
It used to be one of France's richest possessions, but needed slavery for the plantation system to work.
The slaves were taken from their own countries, deprived of their family structure and social structure, systematically mistreated, deprived of all human rights and dignity, and then after a horribly violent revolution, left on their own to cope as best they could.
And they've been unable to put themselves back together.
I spent five years there and you learn to love the people but hate the politics, that is their basic problem, little or no leadership from the top.
Heaven forbid if Jeanne actually was a hurricane when it hit (it was still a tropical storm). It truly would have been catastrophic.
I know what you mean, but its tough when the country's largest industry is making charcoal.
Sadly the vast majority of storm aid for Haiti comes from the U.S and having been hit so very hard so many times this year I know folks aren't as concerned about the plight of these poor souls in Haiti.
I live in Port St. Lucie and am about to get hit for the second time in just a few weeks. 14 hours of hurricane fron the 1st anf 4 hours of the eye. The damage around here is vast but I can't comprehend what the Island is like currently.
"Where is the UN? What good are they?"
This is a growing question. Given this UN Oil for food mess, it may have just rotted from the inside out.
I thought I saw and heard in one report, UN relief being off-loaded in Haiti today. I'm worried about disease outbreak if they don't get the mess cleaned up soon. I see them walking through the turbid flood water, covering their mouths from the stench. Awful...just awful.