I Followed Lule, Our community liaison person, out onto the field today to distribute tarps, continue the strategy with the Needs Assessment camps and check in on the latrines. Camps open Wherever Have Formed Would allow space and a lot of camps Are very close to the Neighbourhoods They Fled. These camps take Advantage of this by Returning to Their dilapidated homes and retreiving Whatever They dog to help with the construction of temporary housing. There is the sound of hammering and signs of Collectivity everywhere. Some Have come together to fix Their own water sources, Others lend a hand in Constructing the shacks Which form rows of homes now. As I walk through the narrow lanes between shacks, I see crocheted drapes hanging in front of doors and shacks furnished with beds, tables, chairs. I tell myself that whatever they had before life in the shack must not have been that great since everyone looks so comfortable, but not true. I know a lady who is huddled into a camp with her sister. She lost her husband and her child. They had a nice home and great jobs. Her husband was cut in half by a fallen beam and child dead from falling. Camps are not just for the poor. No one is exempt.
Today's visit to Juvenat 7 and our new camp called Bremon will benefit 100 families. These tarps will lay overtop the shacks of which are old metal siding, rusted with holes and not good enough to protect from rain and drafts. No wonder tarps are of high commodity on the streets of Port au Prince these days.
AMURTEL Haiti continues to adopt a distribution approach which places more responsability on camp committees by giving them small rather than large quanties to reinforce and encourage their own leadership abilities.
