Sewage runs, garbage piles up at Haiti quake camps

Reuters ^ | 21 Jan 10 | Catherine Bremer

[SkyPilot]

* Sanitary conditions deteriorate as survivors camp out

* Thousands eat, sleep, wash and defecate in open camps

* Health risks mount, emergency latrines needed

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 21 (Reuters) - A child squats to defecate yards away from a sidewalk where women press plantain into bite-sized pieces for frying and a naked toddler plays with a pile of rice on the filthy ground.

Nearby, a dead body has been dumped on the street, right in front of a sea of morose people sitting on grubby mattresses, and a garbage collector uses a shovel to scoop up soggy black mounds of putrid trash composed of plastic water bags, polystyrene plates, orange peel and tin cans. Stray dogs forage.

Sanitary conditions in tent cities like this one in Port-au-Prince's once elegant Champs de Mars park around Haiti's crumbled presidential palace are worsening by the day as hundreds of thousands of survivors of last week's earthquake cram together to eat, sleep, wash and defecate.

"It's miserable here. It's dirty and it's boring. There's nothing to do but walk about," said Judeline Pierre-Rose, 12, who misses her comfortable home with its couch and TV.

"People go to the toilet everywhere here and I'm scared of getting sick. My twin sisters vomited last night," she said.

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As families settle in after nine days camped out -- preparing food on the dirty ground, cooking on charcoal fires and walking about in flip-flops through toxic dark gray puddles, nobody is doing anything about hygiene.

"It's up to the government to resolve this kind of problem, they must take responsibility and tell us what to do," said Wesnel. Then he added: "Maybe they are in the middle of working out a plan."

[cherry]

we're like you....donating but not sure it will help....

they need strong leadership which they don't have, a solid police force, which they don't have,and an ambitious population, which they don't have...

we would be remiss if we didn't help, but its going to be a massive human disaster there....much, much worse before it gets any better.

[AuntB]

“She’s 12 years old, you “moron.” While she might pick up the garbage, things are so out of control, where’s she going to put it? What power does she have? How on god’s green earth is she going to bury a body? Your kid bury any bodies lately?”

I missed the 12 year old part, and apologize. I will tell you this, my kids would help bury a body and help others before they’d stand around complaining about being bored.

In times of emergency, war/natural disasters, plenty of ‘kids’ had to do this work. Check out the civil war for some reality. Haitian kids can help too, if they weren’t so indoctrinated in the idea that someone else should do it all for them.

[verity]

Catherine Bremmer is suffering from culture shock which has been exacerbated by a natural disaster.