Post Earthquake Jacmel (Haiti) Report and EMMA
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
30<br />
And now, flush with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, international NGOs <strong>and</strong> the<br />
government are beginning the rebuilding process. xxviii They are hiring teams of locals, mostly to<br />
sweep the streets, gutters, <strong>and</strong> to do low grade maintenance <strong>and</strong> rebuilding of retainer walls.<br />
Meanwhile, the great bulk of aid is directed toward external experts brokered by the <strong>Haiti</strong>an elite<br />
<strong>and</strong> the NGOs. Massive amounts of money are spent to write reports that are not read or that are<br />
about foregone conclusions, xxix while literally hundreds of thous<strong>and</strong>s of <strong>Haiti</strong>ans sit idle, having<br />
been knocked out of the economy by the aid tsunami. Contracts are being negotiated with<br />
foreign rubble removers, toilet operators, <strong>and</strong> construction companies, the same members of the<br />
merchant elite who have dominated both government <strong>and</strong> the import <strong>and</strong> export sector for<br />
centuries; having always fed off of the rural regions <strong>and</strong> given little in return, they now sit at the<br />
tables with the high paid consultants <strong>and</strong> try to central plan the new system. At a lower level the<br />
<strong>Haiti</strong>an agronom <strong>and</strong> aid workers (the majority of who did not suffer directly from the<br />
earthquake), flush with gifts of cash from their sympathetic NGO patrons (imagine that your<br />
neighbor dies <strong>and</strong> your boss h<strong>and</strong>s you a $10,000 sympathy check), desperately try to underst<strong>and</strong><br />
not so much what is going on in the rural areas, but rather what blan wants so that they can get<br />
more paychecks, more of the aid pie, perhaps a promotion <strong>and</strong>, if everything goes really well, a<br />
visa. At the very bottom is the average Southeastern peasant who has fled to a Dominican sugar<br />
plantation, considered among the most exhausting physical labor in the hemisphere, to work<br />
backbreaking 10 hour days over a period six months with the hopes of saving the US$500 dollars<br />
he needs to come back home <strong>and</strong> invest in his garden <strong>and</strong> livestock, all with the goal of shoring<br />
up the security-net upon which his <strong>and</strong> his family‘s lives will depend. Meanwhile, back in the<br />
office, the average NGO consultant sips his coffee, eats his three hardy meals per day <strong>and</strong><br />
consumes in salary, transportation, hotel, <strong>and</strong> food expenses about the same amount of money,<br />
per day.<br />
There has to be a more efficient way