Wednesday night, no Thursday morning

19 inches of snow here since midnight last night. An unusual day, hours of shoveling, cooperation among neighbors. Our new dog, Ella, bouncing through the snow like a horizontal kangaroo.

My daughter is in Haiti, working for S.O.I.L. as its new "Program Manager," based in Port au Prince. She's writing regularly. Today's note mentioned that she had the opportunity to meet Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, an organization long active in Haiti helping to address health care issues in a (unfortunately) unique way (unfortunate because it would be wonderful if more organizations, governments, etc. modeled it) - by not isolating "health" from economic and social issues. At any rate, I'm going to "cut and paste" an email from Corinne with a list of good articles marking the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. It seems such a personal anniversary to me: I was in such a vulnerable position myself when it occurred, a serious cancer diagnosis, surgery, chemo, and about to start 5 weeks of radiation followed by more chemo. Unsure of my own future. Now here I am - I spent about 4 hours shoveling snow today. I am - thanks to having a job, health insurance, good medical care, great doctors, the support of family and dear friends - NED (no evidence of disease) and actually HEALTHY. One year later. That's me. And in Haiti? Less than 10% of the rubble of destroyed buildings is cleared. Hundreds of thousands living tents - that's a generous description (sticks with tarps stuck on them. Forget "good medical care, great doctors" - how about toilets and potable water!!! How can this situation be permitted to exist? How can the United States, its government, its great philanthropists, its people - including me - not do something, do MORE - to address this? I don't understand.f

At any rate, here's C's email with links to suggested articles.

I write to you from Port-au-Prince on the anniversary of last year's
devastating earthquake in Haiti with a request. I have found there is
an incredible lack of understanding of, and thus, quite often, a lack
of concern for, Haiti.

My request is simply to read one or more of the articles I've linked below.

http://www.iacenter.org/haiti/embargoes.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/why-the-us-owes-haiti-bil_b_426260.html

http://dyinginhaiti.blogspot.com/2010/11/if-you-dont-read-anything-else-about.html


and, this one I've sent to most of you already.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/million-plus-remain-homel_b_807251.html

With love and for justice,
C

Peace.