“This is misery,’’ said Florival, whose 4-month-old daughter was crushed to death in the family home. “I don’t see any benefits,’’ said Alexis, whose shed is flooded with noise at night from a saloon next door that is appropriately named the “Frustration Bar.’’
The two men are among hundreds of thousands of Haitians whose lives have barely improved since those first days of devastation, when the death toll climbed toward 300,000. An estimated 550,000 people are still living in camps.
While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former President Bill Clinton, and others vowed that the world would help Haiti “build back better,’’ and $2.38 billion has been spent, Haitians have hardly seen any building at all.
At the time, grand ambitions were voiced for a Haiti rebuilt on modern lines. New housing would replace shantytowns and job-generating industry would be spread out to ease the human crush of Port-au-Prince, the sprawling capital with its 3 million people.
But now the government seems to be going back to basics, nurturing small, community-based projects designed to bring the homeless back to their old neighborhoods to build, renovate, and find jobs through friends.
The reasons for the slow progress are many. Beyond being among the world’s poorest nations and a frequent victim of destructive weather, Haiti’s land registry is in chaos - a drag on reconstruction because it is not always clear who owns what land.
Then there is a political standoff that went on for more than a year and still hobbles decision-making. After the quake, a disputed presidential election triggered tire-burning riots that shut down Port-au-Prince for three days. The international airport was forced to close and foreign aid workers had to hunker down in their compounds.
