The need for shelter

12 February 2010: If you drive down the right street at the right time in Port-au-Prince, it’s tempting to forget last month’s earthquake even happened. Flowers are blooming, houses look fine and people are going about their everyday lives.

It is an illusion - one that a recent heavy rainfall has helped wash away. Yes, the masses of beautiful blossoms spilling over high – and often crumbling – concrete walls are real, yet in a way also surreal.

The houses left standing are empty, often with small tents pitched in the yard or parking spot. The structures may be safe but few dare to go inside until an expert does an analysis and gives the go-ahead.

First big downpour

The first big post-quake downpour happened the other night, reminding everyone that the start of the rainy season is less than 1 or 2 months away.

People sleeping in makeshift tents built with bed sheets and blankets got soaked if they didn’t manage to lash together pieces of tarp or plastic sheets to act as a water barrier. It didn’t take long to dry out after the sun came up, but this reality check reminded us all that hundreds of thousands of Haitians still need tents or other temporary shelters sooner rather than later.

Back to school

In the meantime, the term ‘temporary shelter’ is being replaced by ’transitional shelter’ in all the tent talk. The latter can endure for at least a year.

One of our engineers, brought in from the US, and our head logistician, from France, are working hard to get the 500 large tents we need to build 50 transitional schools. We are aiming to get kids into these schools within a month.

The tents are coming from various sources and being shipped by an equally complex network, which includes a US research ship that agreed to bring along one of our packed shipping containers.

An old adage says logistics wins wars. The common enemy here is time. The clock seems to be accelerating for those scrambling to rebuild. The exact opposite is true for hundreds of thousands of traumatised - and bored - children desperate to return to school and back to some sense of normality. For them, time has never moved more slowly.

Please donate to the Haiti earthquake appeal