The Hotel Montana is on a hill, surrounded by a fence and accessible only via a gated entrance. For Haiti, it IS safe(r).
What gets me about the girls on that trip was that they come from an expensive private college in Boca Raton. This trip was a five day wintersession program to "help po' folks."
That's it. FIVE DAYS to be humanitarians! They went to Haiti for FIVE DAYS, and they stayed at an expensive, secluded hotel!
I've nothing against missionairies and the like who want to devote themselves to working with the congenitally poor. But why even bother going at all if it's only for five freaking days??
The school's website says that they were going to pick up trash on the beach, help feed "po' chillrin," and help build a house. Uh huh.
All those able-bodied Haitian men who sit on their butts all day can't go down and pick up trash on the beach? How about hammering a nail into a piece of wood?
What is this for the Lynn University kids, Dilettante Philanthropy 101?
How much did it cost Mums and Daddums to send their earnest college kids to "help" in Haiti for five breathtaking days (vacation included, since the kids who did survive did so because they weren't in their rooms but were lounging at the hotel's POOL!)
Wouldn't it have made a lot more sense to just SEND a charitable organization the money they wasted on their Haitian adventure? They know what to do with it much better than drive-by collegians looking to tell everyone about their adventure among the po' folk in exotic locales!
If these kids were that devoted, why didn't they take a train to Newark, NJ or Detroit, MI? there are lots of poor black babies in those cities, and a host of others, right HERE who could've used the help (or at the least, it would've been cheaper and the Lynn collegians would be alive.)
That being said...Obama is a monster to not help the well meaning but dimwitted parents get their kids OUT. The surviving kids knew where the rooms were where the missing Lynn kids were staying, at the back left of the hotel. The parents had gotten together a rescue team, as did Lynn University, to go to the Hotel Montana and work on getting the kids out. They were NOT allowed into the country, which is beyond bizarre. i mean, what would they do? Kill somebody?? Why not let them TRY? It wasn't on Obama's dime (i.e., our dime), or the Haitians' dime (i.e., our dime.)
Haiti was and is a soup sandwich. A complete and total insoluble disaster. The well meaning but hopeless naive parents risked their kids' lives by sending them to one of the worst third world hellholes on earth for a five day "feel good about yourself" trip.
All you can do is hope that other parents with too much awe of their kids' "brilliance" and way too much money on their hands will think twice before they give their kids the money to slum and play philanthropist for five days during college break!
What a freaking WASTE all around.
Dead on. Really good rant in general.
I see this all over the Caribbean, BTW. Hordes of welfare feeders sitting on their dead butts, doing nothing, out in front of some concrete crap-hole corroding in the humid air.
A ton of money comes into those places to "help them". It's a total waste. Half the money goes into the pocket of the local Thug Daddy and the other half pays for crap construction. And then they move in, and the aforementioned sitting begins, punctuated only by the occasionaly foray to rob or assault someone. The more enterprising usually go into that business full time, with a vengeance.
And a few co-eds on a little feel good adventure weren't ever going to accomplish anything except impress on them why they need to stay in the clubs in Boca.