How is Haiti?

This is a question I'm frequently asked when I'm traveling back and forth from Haiti. Really anytime that I am not in Haiti, people will ask me this. And often times I feel like it is asked in such a way that I need to find a really concise way to tell people how Haiti is. So I'm going to answer in a more long winded way here:

First, I have a fairly small prism in which I work and view Haiti. It isn't unusual for me to only see a couple of square miles in a month.

Within this prism, I work with a lot of Haitian men who have had fairly consistent work for almost a year now. Add to this that the wages we pay are generally considered to be fair wage in Port-Au-Prince which has a higher cost of living. This means there is a fair amount of money that is being infused into the community. I see houses going up quite a bit faster than I'm used to seeing elsewhere in Haiti.

But generally speaking I'm expecting that people are wondering about the earthquake. How has Haiti recovered? Where is it at now 2 years later?

The best answer I can give is that it's not recovered. But there is progress. There are still a lot of people living in tent camps. Hundreds of thousands. But people are migrating away from where they had been living. Cholera is still a huge issue. We've reached the dry season which means a downturn in occurrence but it'll continue to be an issue. PIH is going to be testing the effectiveness of vaccinating large numbers of people against it in January. Economically, there hasn't been much change. People still need work. Peoples families still take care of each other.

But all of these aid related things are heavily tied to the strength of foreign economies. And the weather forcast isn't looking good for the world. This will have an impact on how fast Haiti recovers. Hopefully it doesn't take long.

Thoughts, comments, complaints, etc. I'd love to have feedback. Toodles