Tag: Haiti

  • What would I do if I was in charge of the American Red Cross?

    After I published my post last week on the American Red Cross (ARC), a few people have asked me what I would do if put in charge of it. Given all of the bad publicity that they have generated with their response to each major disaster, they certainly need to change their approach and to rebuild trust. The ARC plays a critical role in disaster response. They have an incredible ability to raise funds and are part of a broad international organization that has branches in nearly every country. They are perfectly placed to provide leadership on disasters all over the world.

    So how do they pull themselves out of their deep hole and reestablish their leadership? I would suggest focusing on the following three areas:

    1. Figure out what they are best in the world at doing and focus on it: The ARC seems to try to be all things to all people. They provide emergency kits, build shelters, feed people, finance grants, rebuild communities, and on and on. Sometimes they work through the local Red Cross, sometimes they set up their own organization and work around the local partner. Instead, I would have the ARC keep only a small number of high level experts who would implement only through the local Red Crosses and other partner organizations. The role of the ARC team members would be similar to the role of the OFDA staff. They would provide technical assistance to their partners and review grant requests. By being in the field and focused on implementation, they could help their partners be flexible in their approach. Given that the ARC is an NGO, they ought to be the most flexible of the funding organizations. By having highly trained people in the field, these experts could be trusted to guide the funding decisions.
    2. Embrace Radical Transparency: Since the ARC will be subcontracting out most of the work, it will be easier for them to be very transparent. Their management costs should be around 10-20% of the donations that they receive. This would cover all of their home office costs and the costs for their field teams. The rest would be given out in grants. They can require that all funded proposals are published and have an open database that tracks the results. Financial data should only be published at the line item level (showing for example how much goes into all salaries but not showing how much an individual is paid). In this way, it will be clear not only what the ARC is doing but how their money is spread around. After all, the money being spent isn’t really the ARC’s money—it is money donated through the ARC to help the disaster victims. By having the funded proposals published, other organizations can see what is being done and better understand both how to coordinate with the implementer and how to learn from the funded approaches. This would encourage learning by doing and improve the quality of proposals over time.
    3. Publish Evaluations Consistently: Because the ARC is focused on being the best in the world at what they do and on being radically transparent, it only makes sense that they conduct thorough evaluations and publish the results. Yes, these will highlight mistakes and shortcomings and will sometimes be embarrassing both for the ARC and for their partners. Implementing projects in a disaster or post-disaster environment is tough. You have to move fast which means making mistakes. But we shouldn’t be repeating the same mistakes. If the ARC committed to conducting thorough evaluations and publishing the results, the ARC could help share best practices and prevent repeated mistakes. Besides, as most politicians have learned, the best way to avoid a public scandal is to own up to your shortcomings.

    The ARC ought to be a very powerful force for good and a key actor in every major disaster. Instead, their brand seems to be continually weakening. Each scandal hurts not only the ARC but every NGO who ends up painted with the same brush. 

  • If only the American Red Cross was as efficient as the US Government…

    Pointing at the ceiling

    Inspectors assessing the earthquake damage in a house in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

    "I still have a lot more questions for the Red Cross," said Sen. Charles Grassley in a statement. "I have other questions about the spending numbers and how they add up and the overhead costs for both the Red Cross and the grantee organizations. Also, I'd like to see more details of the results achieved from each of the partner organizations."

    Propublica and NPR have done an admirable job of trying to figure out what the American Red Cross (ARC) has done with the nearly half a billion dollars that they raised for the Haiti earthquake. However, I fear that Senator Charles Grassley will lead this in the wrong direction. The ARC should be encouraged to give out the money that it raises rather than trying to do it all themselves.

    As we’ve seen with nearly every disaster, the ARC does a great job of raising money and a lousy job of using it. Even in domestic disasters like Katrina or Sandy, the ARC seems poor at delivering results. Imagine how much harder it is to set up a large organization in a foreign country in the middle of a disaster response. It is just a recipe for failure.

    Instead, the ARC should follow the example of the US Government’s disaster response agency: the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). As soon as a disaster hits, OFDA sends a small team of experts to help assess the situation and to review funding requests. They focus on working with organizations that are already on the ground with a solid track record of success. Because they are on the ground, they understand the situation and can work with their grantees to ensure that proposals make sense. The field team is senior enough that they can frequently review proposals on the spot.

    This model allows OFDA to quickly get funds injected into where they are needed the most. They keep their overhead low by focusing on channeling money to those who can use it effectively. Their field teams are able to work with their partners to keep projects moving. By channeling money through other organizations, they build local capacity and make it easy to wrap up their work as quickly as possible.

    The ARC’s problem is that it establishes a large bureaucracy that is unable to implement projects directly and very slow to issue subgrants. I did succeed in getting a large grant funded through the ARC, but it took nearly 10 months to get it worked out. Once awarded, we were micromanaged from beginning to end. I have worked with funding from a wide range of donors and found the ARC to be the most difficult. We did succeed in repairing 4,000 houses for the ARC and the work was of higher quality than what he had done for OFDA and others, but it was a soul-sucking process that left all of us exhausted.

    I would love to be able to support the American Red Cross. With their incredible name recognition, they have enormous potential to help. Instead, their repeated and very public failures make it that much harder for everybody else to raise money and help out.

     

  • Why is the Ebola Response considered a success and the Haiti Earthquake Response considered a failure?

    The International Response to the Ebola Outbreak was a huge success. Back in September, it seemed as if the Ebola outbreak was spinning out of control. When the death toll didn't seem high enough, the stories became that the toll was under reported and stories that the outbreak could plunge Liberia back into civil war.Remember the September 23 New York Times headline: Ebola Cases Could Reach 1.4 Million in Four Months, CDC Estimates?

     

    Instead, the number of new cases began to decline in late November. By late December, they had slowed to a trickle. Liberia has only had 12 cases in the last 21 days. Guinea and Sierra Leone are down to less than 200 new cases a week. The total case load will likely not exceed 25,000. This dramatic turnaround was a direct result of the strong international response.

    Three activities were key to stopping the spread of the Ebola:

    1. Community Awareness: Ebola was spread through contact with the bodies of those that it had killed or were dying. Funeral rites had to change. People had to be convinced to give their loved ones over to foreign doctors draped in protective gear. Physical contact had to be limited. Changing attitudes is hard, but this was key to slowing the spread of Ebola. Some organizations took this on as a primary mission through radio messages and posters that still blanked Liberia. Others added this component to their work such as distributing Ebola awareness information to the farmers with whom they work.
    2. Safe Burials: An Ebola victim is hardly contagious until he is so sick that he can hardly move. His body remains highly contagious long after he has died. Touching the body of an Ebola victim is one of the easiest ways to contract Ebola. Traditionally, mourners would hug the corpse of their loved one to say goodbye. Stopping that practice was a key component of the community awareness. But bodies still had to be disposed of. In Liberia, the US government funded a large program to provide safe burials for all Ebola victims. This was very dangerous work and done very effectively by Global Communities. It is probably the reason that Ebola disappeared first in Liberia even though it had been hit the hardest.
    3. Constructing the Ebola Treatment Units: As the Ebola outbreak was growing, there was not enough room to treat the victims. The few treatment units were overwhelmed and the centers were forced to turn away people who were clearly very sick. Building more treatment units became an international priority. Once there were enough treatment units to house those who needed care, it was possible to isolate those sick with Ebola and prevent them from contaminating others. It also became easier to trace their contacts and seek out others that might become sick.

    I believe that a decade from now, we will talk about the Ebola response as one of the great victories of foreign assistance. The international response was critical in turning the tide on the epidemic. Those people who went to Liberia to help and those who stayed in country are the heroes that saved West Africa and the rest of the world from a terrible disease.

    The response to the Haiti Earthquake was also a great success and yet is frequently portrayed as a failure. Five years after the earthquake, Haiti’s economy is stronger than it has been in decades. There is more electricity, government services function better, and there are even twice as many international-standard hotel rooms. Does the International Community not get any credit for helping to rebuild Haiti?

    In both cases, there was great chaos in the response. In Haiti, one of the biggest wastes of money was building camps and temporary shelters that ended up housing people who had never lost their home in the first place and became very difficult to close. In Liberia, one of the biggest wastes was the construction of the Ebola Treatment Units—although desperately needed in the beginning, construction of new ones continued long after the need for the units had disappeared. There were still units being built in January when there were only a handful of cases of Ebola. In both cases, once a need is identified and projects are funded, it is very hard to redirect that funding.

    I loved that Time magazine named the Ebola Fighters as Person of the Year for 2014. I think that those who responded to the Haiti earthquake and those who donated to support it deserved the same honor in 2010.

  • Still Looking for a Good Book on the Haiti Earthquake

     
    DSC_0046-1

    I seek out books on the Haiti earthquake in the hopes of
    finding one that captures what I experienced and perhaps helps me to understand
    it better. Instead, all of the books seem to describe a different event. Like
    the story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant, one author talks
    about the leg and another about the trunk. Perhaps all I know is the tail.

    I had high hopes for two books that just came out: Jonathon
    Katz’ The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster
    and Amy Wilentz’ Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti. Each book captured
    part of what I experienced, but they each described a world that I didn’t know.


    Jonathon Katz was an AP reporter that had lived in Haiti for
    a couple of years before the earthquake. His account of the actual earthquake
    and the events of that night were the most powerful part of the book. I found
    it to be especially spooky because Carolle and I had lived and been married in
    the house that collapsed under him. I had hoped that his book would show a
    strong understanding of Haiti and how the events unfolded. The best parts of
    the book were his description of the night of the earthquake and then his quest
    to find out the UN’s role in introducing cholera. Unfortunately, most of the
    rest of the book felt superficial—more of a drive-by viewing of the disaster
    response.

     


    Amy Wilentz’ book was the opposite. Whereas Jonathon Katz
    tried to tell a straight forward story of the disaster, Amy’s book seems to be
    more her grappling with the earthquake and its aftermath. The book reads more
    as a collection of thoughts than a coherent story. It is a very personal book
    as she openly wrestles with her feelings towards Haiti and journalism—is she
    helping Haiti by getting people’s stories out or is this just voyeurism? Her
    first book had been on the epic struggle to get rid of Duvalier and of
    Aristide’s rise to power. But Aristides’s presidencies were failures and
    Duvalier is back in Haiti. Perhaps it wasn’t such an epic time after all. Her
    book clearly reflects her personal struggle with the impact that she is having.

    Both books skewer the disaster response provided by the
    international community. The subtitle of Katz’ book nicely sums up his view,
    How the International Community Came to Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster. Amy
    Wilentz wrote “It’s fair to say that one of the biggest issues to rise from the
    earthquake’s dust is whether aid agencies and international development
    organizations can ever be trusted, either by the victim community or by the
    donors who fund them. Are they honest—do they know how to be honest; can they
    be honest and survive?” She goes on to complain that aid agencies are not
    effective at working themselves out of a job. 

    Yes, it was confusing and there were some big mistakes made
    (the construction of the Corail camp out in the middle of nowhere being
    one—providing services in makeshift camps was another). Both lionize Sean Penn
    for running a camp as well as the pros. But if the pros are running camps as
    well as Sean Penn, doesn’t that mean that the “pros” were doing something
    right, too?

    This is where both she and Jonathon Katz got it wrong. The
    earthquake response that I saw was an exhausting slog against incredible
    obstacles and through a bizarre maze. Although some of the early journalists
    seemed to have believed that Port-au-Prince had been completely destroyed, that
    was never true. Half of all the buildings in Port-au-Prince were not
    significantly damaged. Although President Preval’s government seemed to
    disappear in the first days after the earthquake, it soon reasserted
    itself. 

    The biggest complaint against the work that the NGOs did is
    that we did not build a shiny new Haiti from the rubble of the earthquake. Yet
    that was never our mandate. As weak as the Haitian government was, it was still
    the national government. It was the only institution that could have declared
    eminent domain to seize land to create camps, widen streets, or enforce a new
    city wide master plan. Neither the NGOs nor the United Nations had this
    authority. When the government was unwilling to take these steps, no one could.
    But what’s the point in bashing the Preval Government? Its weaknesses were
    quite well known and documented.

    I ran the  earthquake response for the Pan American Development Foundation, one of the larger NGOs, from the
    day after the earthquake until this past January. Of course I made mistakes—we
    were trying to move as fast as we could in a very complex environment and using
    whatever resources we could find. We passed out food and other goods that had
    been collected in the States to help the poor Haitians. I would much rather
    have received cash, but our local partners were happy to receive whatever we
    could give them. I would much rather have purchased local rice rather than
    receiving donations of fortified rice, but the imported rice was free and we
    didn’t have much cash. Our first attempt at home repair in the Jacmel area fell
    flat—we had budgeted too little money and the repairs were too isolated. 

    We also had huge successes. We helped evaluate the safety of
    over 400,000 structures throughout the earthquake impacted area. This gave
    hundreds of thousands of people the confidence to return to their safe house
    and provided a blueprint for the repairs that were needed. We trained hundreds
    of engineers, masons, and contractors in improved construction techniques and
    used them to repair 10,000 houses. We helped neighborhood committees come
    together to determine how they wanted their neighborhood rebuilt.  We helped scores of microentrepreneurs to
    start small businesses.


    In Dr. Farmer’s earthquake book, Haiti After the Earthquake, he
    seemed to believe that his organization was the only one to do a good job. I’ll
    bet a lot of us feel this way. My organization did a great job. It’s too bad
    that all the other organizations couldn’t do as well. Naturally some organizations
    did better than others. Unfortunately, most people who donated, donated
    blindly. They gave to the Red Cross because they always give to the Red Cross,
    even though the Red Cross’ reputation as a slow bureaucracy is documented after
    every disaster. They gave to Wyclef Jean because he is a famous Haitian, not
    because they thought that he had a professional organization behind him. I wish
    that more of the funds had gone to PADF and other organizations that were well
    established in Haiti, but I thank God that people did give.

    Perhaps someday I’ll find a book that tells the story of the
    earthquake as I saw it—the story of a hard struggle to have the greatest
    possible impact as quickly as possible in an incredibly complex situation.

    Our work wasn't perfect, but it was the best that we could possibly do and Haiti is better off for it..

  • Le Grande Rue Languishes while Petionville booms

    IMG_0101

    Le Grande Rue–the historic buisness center of Port-au-Prince

    For the first time in quite a long time, I ventured into the traditional heart of Port-au-Prince. It was a sad sight. Most of the buildings along the main street (Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessaline or Le Grande Rue as it is commonly known) were so severely damaged that they were unusable. Vendors squatted in the shade of the porches selling their goods while sunlight streamed through the shattered building behind them. Although all the loose rubble was gone, there were few signs of the reconstruction.
    Even before the earthquake, this area was withering. The streets were a mess and never drained. The roads were blocked by traditional market vendors with stalls extending into the street. Crime had become a bad problem. Most businesses had moved to Petionville. 
    Then came the earthquake. The New York Times beautifully captured the devastation on Le Grand Rue with a  sweeping panarama. As the panorama shows, large number of the buildings collapsed or became unstable. The National Palace is only a few blocks away and also crumbled. Throughout 2010, the government talked of the need to develop a master plan to rebuild the area. President Preval imposed a moratorium on construction to ensure that all new construction would follow the master plan. But then no plan was ever approved.
    In 2011, Digicel's CEO, Dennis O'Brien stepped in to rebuild the Iron Market--a bizarre  19th Century Egyptian train station turned outdoor market. He spent $12 million to rebuild the market to make it better than it had ever been–a beautiful symbol of the rebirth of Port-au-Prince. 
    President Martelly has rescinded the construction ban, but little has been done. The market remains beautiful, but it still stands alone. It wouldn't take much of an earthquake to bring many of these crumbling buildings down on those squatting under them.
    I found my visit to the center of town to be quite striking due to the contrast with Petionville. I spend most of my time in Petionville where the traces of the earthquake are largely gone. New hotels, restaurants, and shopping complexes have sprung up all over. It is easy to believe that Haiti is better off now than before the earthquake–Petionville is booming.
    Naturally money follows money–people are building in Petionville because others are building in Petionville. Perhaps the rebirth of downtown Port-au-Prince will only start when the government begins rebuilding its home–the palace, the parliament building, and the ministries. We can only hope that this starts soon. 
     

  • It is not about the tents

    _JMZ5637
    Cite Soleil–is this really any better than a tent?: Photo by Jordon Michael Zuniga

    When journalists discuss the progress of reconstruction in Haiti, they frequently
    cite the number of people still living in tents as an indication of how much
    work is left to be done. In the New York Times recent article about housing,
    Deborah Sontag wrote:

    Two and a half years after the earthquake, despite billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, the most obvious, pressing
    need — safe, stable housing for all displaced people — remains unmet.

    She later went on to state that 390,000 people
    that were displaced by the earthquake remain homeless.

    I do not dispute that 390,000 people still live
    in tents and that they live in terrible conditions. However, at least a million
    other people live in tin shacks in places like Cite Soliel. Their living
    conditions are no better than those who live in tents plus they have to pay
    rent for their shack.

    Living conditions for Haiti’s poorest were
    terrible before the earthquake. Many people moved into camps not because they
    lost their house, but because they did not have a decent house before the
    earthquake. I strongly agree that one of Haiti’s most pressing needs is for
    safe, stable housing. I hope that this is for all of Haiti’s poor—both urban
    and rural—and not just for those living in tents.

     

  • Two years later: a long slow fight

    Hope In Progress
    photo by Jordan Michael of Red 1 Studios

    Two years ago, the ground in Port-au-Prince shook and tens of thousands of buildings collapsed. The January 12th earthquake was the worst disaster to ever hit the Americas. The early days after the earthquake were unimaginable. When I drive through some of the neighborhoods that I visited that first week, I get terrible flashbacks. Poor Haiti had been in such bad shape before the earthquake, I just couldn’t imagine how it would ever get rebuilt.

    As we commemorate the second anniversary of the earthquake, there are lots of stories highlighting what has and has not been done. A lot of articles focus on the apparent slow progress with headlines like Haiti 2 years later: Half a million still in camps. Except that most people are not in camps because they lost their house and are waiting for someone to rebuild it. They are in the camps because they are desperately poor and have nowhere to turn. The Miami Heralds video, Nous Boke: Two Years Later nicely highlights this problem by talking with people living in the distant Corail camp who are desperate for work.

    Nou Bouke: Two years later from The Miami Herald on Vimeo.

    This desperation existed well before the earthquake. The earthquake made a bad situation much worse. The important question is where should Haiti be today? Given how bad the situation was before the earthquake and how bad the damage was, have we made good progress?

    At the one year anniversary, I had strongly mixed feelings. On one hand, I was disappointed at the lack of progress. The camp populations seemed enormous. Although the rubble had been cleared from the roads, the wounds seemed very fresh. I wished that we had made greater progress. At the same time, I couldn’t image having worked harder or pushed my team any harder. I found the same reaction when I talked with others working to rebuild Haiti. We wished that we could have done more, but had no idea how we could have gone any faster.

    At the second anniversary, I feel far better about the progress. The rubble is gone from most public spaces. The government’s program to empty six camps into sixteen neighborhoods (“6/16”) has emptied the camps that used to occupy Place St Pierre and Place Boyer—two of the most visible camps. As I drive around Port-au-Prince, life seems to be much more normal.

    One of the challenges is that change comes slowly. After the earthquake, we all hoped that Haiti could be quickly rebuilt and rebuilt better. We dreamed of modernizing Port-au-Prince to have wider streets, of building modern building, of making Port-au-Prince into a livable city. Two years later, we are still dreaming of this. In Delmas, we are working with an urban planner who has drawn pictures of townhouses on palm tree lined streets. Maybe someday we will get there. However, we have to first finish repairing the existing buildings, clear out the collapsed buildings, and start repairing the streets.

    When I left Haiti in May 2010, I did not intend to return. I was proud of what I had accomplished and wanted to try something new. I also feared that if I stayed in Haiti, that Haiti would break my heart. I stayed and it did. But I am glad that I stayed. Brick by brick, micro-entrepreneur by micro entrepreneur, we are helping to rebuild Haiti. It is a long slow fight, but I believe that we are moving in the right direction.

    What do you think? Should we be proud of what we have accomplished or should we be embarrased that we have not done more?

  • Notable books on Haiti

    Several friends have asked me for recommendations on books about Haiti. The following are books that I have read and would recommend. I have divided them into four categories (fiction, non-fiction, dubious but interesting, and coffee table books). I thought about leaving out entirely the books that I consider a bit dubious, but the all have facinating information. (Note all links are amazon affiliate links)

    Fiction

    The Comedians  by Graham Greene: Classics just never go out of date. This is still a great book about Haiti.

    Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende: a moving portrayal of the Haitian revolution told from the point of view of a slave, her owner, and people both sympathetic to the revolutions and fighting against it. Note that the second half of the book takes place in New Orleans.

    The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat: the story of the massacre of Haitians in the Dominican borderlands in 1939.

    Breath, Eyes, Memory also by Edwidge Danticat: fictionalized story of growing up in Haiti.

    Non-Fiction

    Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti by Michael Deibert and Raoul Peck: a great overview of the collapse of the second Aristide government.

    Rainy Season: Haiti-Then and Now by Amy Wilentz: a fascinating look into Aristide's role in the downfall of the Duvalier Government. It was written before Aristide's government collapsed and does not look into the darker side of what later happened.

    The Immaculate Invasion by Bob Shacochis:  the story of the 1994 US occupation told by an embedded reporter. This nicely brings out the rambling, lack of focus that characterized the occupation.

    Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American ;the autobiography of Jean-Robert Cade. Tells the story of the abuses that he faced as a child slave in Haiti. Knowing how many kids never escape form this fate makes it a painful read.

    Mountains beyond Mountains : Tracy Kidder the fascinating story of Dr. Paul Farmer and the start of Partners in Health.

    Dubious facts, but interesting reads

    Anything by Paul Farmer: Dr. farmer is a hero for the work that he has done in Haiti and around the world. In his books, he plays fast and free with the facts to back up his own point of view.

    The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic by Wade Davis: A supposedly scientific investigation into voodoo. I don’t believe the insights into how voodoo works, but it does have good insights into Haitian rural life.

    Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola by Michele Wucker: provides a great, east to read overview of the history of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. However, the central thesis that the island is too small to allow for strong presidents to govern in both countries doesn't really hold up.

    Coffee Table/gift books

    Paroles et Lumieres-Where Light Speaks: Haiti (English and French Edition), by Hiebert; Phelps; Yates; Cav: A beautiful look at Haiti by two people who love it well.

    Hispaniola: A Photographic Journey through Island Biodiversity  by Eladio Fernández: A beautiful catalog of the animals on both sides of the island.

    What other books would you recommend on Haiti?

     

  • Death of a Dominican Hero: Sonia Pierre

    Sonya_Pierre_presidente_de_MUDHA

    Sonia Pierre was both lauded and harassed by the Dominican government for her work to protect the rights of people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic. While the Dominican Government was threatening to revoke her citizenship, her photo was being displayed downtown Santo Domingo as a Dominican Hero.

    I worked with her in 2008 as we were preparing a proposal to improve conditions in the the bateyes. I was impressed with her drive and vision as well as with the quality of the work that MUDHA was implementing.

    Human rights work is thankless work. The Dominican government knows that it needs to have a clear, coherent policy towards dealing with Haitian migrants, but it is split. There are those who want the cheap labor and those who want to protect Dominican jobs–just as we have in the United States. Haiti has the same split–because Haiti cannot provide jobs or liveable conditions for so many of its citizens, it needs the escape valve provided by the Dominican Republic while at the same time deploring the way its citizens are treated. I saw this as an unsolveable problem and did not focus on it. Sonia Pierre saw this important work and devoted her life to it. 

  • Signs of Progress in Haiti

    IMG_0073

    One of the greatest challenges in rebuiding Haiti is fighting the expectations. To some, the picture above is a picture of poverty. Women squatting in the street selling their meager wares surrounded by poor buildings. I fear that a lot of journalists would look at this image and see it as proof that Haiti is not being rebuilt.

    But I know that this is a great victory. I wrote of my visits to this neigborhood last March. At that point, we had just started the rubble removal. I was thrilled to see how our work had transformed the neighborhood. And that is the challenge. If your starting reference is the scene below, the picture above is a beautiful success.

    6a010535eb1199970c0120a9730ae1970b-500wi[1]

    I am guilty of having written against the idea of just rebuilding the chaos.  Now I recognize that reconstruction has to go through steps. Just removing the rubble was a huge victory. Getting the unstable houses demolished and the damaged ones repaired was another huge victory. We have to help people rebuild their lives before we can help them to build a new neighborhood.

    We are continuing to move forward. We are working with the local leaders and the mayor to build a better Delmas 32. Little by little, the bird will build its nest.