26714: LOCCM (reply) : Re: 26700: Lebleu: (ask) Digital Map Request of Port-au-Prince (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: LOCCM@aol.com

I am returning to Haiti for my 155th trip since 1971.  I have a home  there
as well as two orphanages, 37 churches several schools and clinics.   I am very

familiar with the current situation in Haiti and have never seen it  this bad
before.  The architecture is generally described as extreme  squalor with
shacks built of cement blocks or sticks and mud actually built  on top of one
another.  Some have roofs so low that you cannot stand  upright in many parts
of

the homes.  Roofs of rusting tin leak rain on  the interiors and sometimes
dwellers have to stand upright during  rainstorms to escape the drips.  I try
to

tell then that even chewing gum  will fix many of these leaks but they do not
have the ambition or  understanding to try even this simple repair.  They wait
instead for  me or someone else to fix it for them or they continue to buy
lottery  tickets.  The beautiful gingerbread houses like the hotel Ollafson
that

 graced the city for a century or more are deteriorating and not being
maintained  for lack of interest.  Since Aristide returned to office,  life
for

everyone except the politicians has gone from desperate to extremely
desperate.

Even the rich are afraid to leave their homes for fear of  kidnapping and
robbery.  Some poor have been kidnapped for as little as  $20.  The poor cling
to
life without hope in quiet crisis day by day.   Many eat once every two or
three days with no hope of jobs.  Hundreds of  families who spent their days
squatting behind a small pile of wares in the  filth of downtown P a P hoping
to

sell enough to survive for another day, have  been robbed so many times that
they have been forced to "set up shop" in smaller  surrounding villages like
Croix du Bouquet and have blocked the streets with  their merchandise that you
can scarcely squeeze one lane at a time without  running over them.  The only
other comment that I can give you about the  architecture is that I expect many
building in PaP to be burned down during or  after the coming election.  I
doubt that my comments have helped you but  you may contact me today if you
like.

John Ba Mwen