This upcoming January marks the tenth anniversary of the massive earthquake in Haiti. It came on a Tuesday afternoon, 12 days into the new year, and destroyed or severely damaged a quarter of a million homes, killing more than 100,000 people.
Eight months later, in September of 2010, I traveled to Haiti with several journalist colleagues to document the country’s slow recovery process.
Driving through the streets of Port-au-Prince for the first time, I saw collapsed buildings everywhere and piles of rubble that had yet to be cleared.
The city was swarming with U.N. officials and foreign aid workers in vehicles emblazoned with their organizations’ logos. Meanwhile, people who’d been displaced from their homes had erected tent cities on pretty much every inch of vacant land. They had shelters and tarps that bore the names of groups like World Vision and Food for the Poor.
On today’s episode, I revisit my journey and some of the reporting I did, looking at the state of Haiti’s rapidly shrinking middle class, widespread political apathy in the country, and the important role of the media. I also check in with Haitian freelance journalist Etant Dupain to see where things stand in Haiti today. He tells me about the daily protests that have been paralyzing the country over the past few months, calling for the President to step down and face charges after being implicated in a massive corruption scandal.
Watch this video of my driver and translator Daniel giving me a tour of one of Port-au-Prince’s supposedly most dangerous neighborhoods:
Then check out the latest episode of Far From Home:
If you’d like to make a donation to help the Haitian people, I recommend one of the following groups:
Sakala - a youth community center in Cite Soleil that was co-founded by my translator Daniel Tillias, who was recently named a CNN Hero
SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) - the organization my brother and I supported when we were on the Mongol Rally (as documented on the first season of this podcast), which is taking a creative approach to tackling environmental and public health concerns in Haiti by installing hundreds of compostable toilets and turning waste into nutrient-rich fertilizer that farmers use to increase their crops
Partners in Health - a group that delivers comprehensive, high-quality health care in some of the poorest and most remote regions of Haiti
Fonkoze - a family of organizations that work together to provide financial and non-financial services to empower Haitians — primarily women — to lift their families out of poverty
Until next time, thanks for listening!
Scott
This podcast includes music composed by Anthony Kozar, which is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License