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In the month since the worst
disaster in Haitian history, an enormous international aid effort
has not provided the people of the Marassa 14 neighborhood with the
food, shelter and security they need. So they built a new community
from scratch.


      Cardboard street signs mark the rows of makeshift plastic tents
where more than 2,500 people sleep in the dirt. Handwritten ID
cards stamped by a security committee show who belongs, and women
serve cheap fried plantains and breadfruit for families struggling
to feed their children.


      One month after 40 seconds of terrifying shaking killed more
than 200,000 of their relatives and neighbors and leveled most of
their capital, Haiti's endlessly resilient people are struggling to
recreate their lives.


      Food has yet to reach all of the 3 million people who need it.
Infrastructure problems and supply backlogs continue to hamper an
international aid effort that has drawn $537 million from the
United States alone. Schools remain closed. And on Thursday
morning, in a taste of the new horrors the impending rainy season
promises to bring, an early morning downpour muddied the dirt in
which 1.2 million people have pitched makeshift camp.

      Downtown, hundreds of Haitians marched Thursday from the
destroyed National Palace to the temporary government headquarters
demanding the resignation of President Rene Preval, who has been
largely out of sight since the catastrophe. He appeared Wednesday
to bicker publicly with his own communications minister over the
death toll.


      Amid the chaos and unmet needs, there are obvious signs of
progress: The United Nations, itself devastated by the quake, has
established a tent-and-trailer city on the airport grounds to
coordinate the efforts of 900 aid agencies who finally appear to be
overcoming huge problems with communications, transportation and
infrastructure.

      Cell phone coverage has vastly improved. Gas stations have
reopened - though that has also meant traffic is back to its
normal, intolerable state. Massive amounts of rubble are still
everywhere - loaded into dump trucks, the convoy would stretch from
Port-au-Prince to Moscow, officials said - but at least it has been
pushed to the side of the road.

      And while handwritten signs still plead for foreign help,
opportunistic vendors are back on the streets, selling miniature
American flags as soldiers' wide desert-camouflage Humvees roll by.
The once ubiquitous dead, and their overpowering smell, have
largely been carried away.

      But even though top foreign and Haitian officials say immediate
needs are being met, in villages like Marassa - a district whose
name means "twins" in Creole - children are going unfed and
families are competing for disgraceful shelter they know will not
hold up for long.


      In such communities, people are looking out for themselves.


      In Marassa, people have made their homes in a dry riverbed that
constantly floods in the rainy season. Before dawn Thursday, a
surprise downpour soaked everyone's few belongings, rendered their
cooking charcoal unusable and coated their beds in mud.
      "We're living in a hole," said Dieusin St. Vil, a 46-year-old
tailor who heads the new neighborhood's security committee. "We
heard on the radio that the government was supposed to build tent
cities around here, but they haven't come by."


      That's because, unbeknownst to the people of Marassa, those
plans have changed. On Wednesday, with just 49,000 of a requested
200,000 tents provided, officials announced that deliveries will
stop. Foreign governments, aid groups and Haitian officials have
decided that tents take up too much space and will not last long
enough.

      "Tents are great, they're a lot better than nothing, but they
basically impede the process of economic development and
reconstruction," said Lewis Lucke, the U.S. Special Coordinator
for Relief and Reconstruction.


      Instead, 250,000 families will get one sheet of plastic each
between now and May 1, and will later receive temporary,
earthquake-resistant structures of metal and wood. If those numbers
hold up, they will help about 60 percent of the population in need.

      The European Union, criticized for its slow response to Haiti's
earthquake, said Thursday it will mount a military operation to
bring strong shelters to Haiti that can withstand the Caribbean's
heavy rains and hurricanes.

      In the meantime, there's not enough space, even in the riverbed
that is Marassa - and the self-appointed leaders decided to split
their sprawling community into two camps.


      In the western half, members of St. Vil's security committee
patrol with sticks and make sure residents produce ID tickets that
match numbers written in no obvious order on their tents.

      The eastern half is similarly organized by a different
committee.


      An abandoned grandmother named Dieudonne Bernard kept getting
her tarps stolen, so the security committee on the western side
told her to move into the hollowed-out wooden trailer of a junked
tap-tap, as Haiti's colorful buses are known.


      Since she can't get to one of the 16 fixed U.N. food
distribution sites, the 87-year-old woman eats only if relatives
bring her rice or a neighbor snags a high-energy biscuit from a
handout meant for children.

      Even when food aid does arrive in the village - as did 2,000 hot
meals of rice and beans from a Dominican Republic government agency
Thursday afternoon - those without the right connections risk not
getting any.

      "Even if the government says they are going to help everyone,
everyone isn't going to get help," said the Rev. Moise Farfan, who
holds prayer meetings amid the tents of Marassa every night because
his church collapsed in the earthquake.


      Nearby, an earthquake widow sold fried bits of potato,
breadfruit and plantain from her tent, charging whatever her
neighbors had in their pockets.


      St. Vil appeared with a scowl, furious that it would keep them
from receiving food.


      "The journalists are blocking the aid!" he bellowed as a
heated argument broke out among residents.


      His concerns are not entirely unfounded. When pleading for aid
it is much easier to speak in absolutes than to explain the much
more complex reality: There is food in Haiti, but especially
following the earthquake it has grown increasingly expensive and
hard to get.


      The price of heavily subsidized imported rice - already at
levels that caused rioting in April 2008 - has shot up 25 percent
since the earthquake to $3.71 a 2.7-kilo (6-pound) bag, according
to USAID. Corn is up more than 25 percent, wheat increased by half.
Charcoal, needed for cooking, has shot up 17 percent.


      With no jobs or homes, and nowhere to go, help from others - and
each other - means everything.


      "The conditions here are no good, but being dead is even
worse," said Johnny Joseph, a 48-year-old father of six. "As long
as you're living, you might have a friend who's alive too.
      

Gallery

In the month since the worst disaster in Haitian history, an enormous international aid effort
has not provided the people of a Haitian neighborhood with the food, shelter and security they need. So they built a new community
from scratch.

After 1 month of chaos, Haitians help themselves

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