A lot of humanitarian aid has made it into my neighborhood in the last few weeks. Two weeks ago my roomates came home on consecutive days with half-filled 50 lb bags of rice as wells as bags with beans and corn given to them by WorldVision. I have no idea how challenging it was for them to haul all that food across PAP - I would have had trouble! I was happy to see people getting food but a little annoyed that most of the food aid I've seen is from the US, the Dominican Republic, etc. Granted, Haitian agriculture is much less developed than the US and they can't feed all of their population, but I hope some of the aid agencies are purchasing food aid locally to stimulate the local economy. From what my roomates tell me, a representative walks around the neighborhood and hands out cards/tickets to different households that say where and when the food will be distributed. This seems like an ardous task because Haitians are living anywhere they can. It is hard to know where one household ends and another begins. How can you know for sure if someone is just following the aid distribution from neighborhood to neighborhood?

This last week Doctors Without Borders created a scene in the neighborhood. As they weaved their way through the neighborhood, their truck was completely surrounded by Haitians desiring any kind of help they were giving. Although I presumed they were distributing medicine, it turned out they distributed hundreds of tents (doesn't seem directly in the mission of Doctors Without Borders to me but I don't think my neighbors cared). Although my street had a few tents before, now the entire street is lined with tents (see picture). Some tents have additional tarps over them to protect them from rain, but I'm guessing the bottom of the tents become damp. As rain has become more common (we've had rain 3 out of the last 4 nights - but only for 30 minutes or so), I am concerned people will become sick.

As one can imagine, all the tents and rubble around Port-au-Prince create a lot of traffic. Occasionally, sections of roads will be closed for a few days to allow workers and dump trucks to clear rubble. Although my boss can make it to his home outside PAP in 30 minutes with no traffic, now it takes 3 hours some mornings! There is still an immense amount of rubble that needs to be cleared. One government official estimated it would take 1000 dump trucks 1000 days to clear all the rubble from PAP! Some good news is that we can see electricity getting nearer to our apartment at night. Now it is only two blocks away. I hope that in the next couple weeks, our electricity will be restored but I am trying to not be too optimistic. Ironically, my roomate told me our apartment only had electricity installed two days before the earthquake. What luck! So far, however, not having electricity has not bothered me too much. My smartest move was investing in a headlamp that I use nightly to read or frantically look up words in my creole-english dictionary. Ok - time to get back to work. Bon Weekend!