2010-07-15 CNN
Milong Esting has been stuck in a makeshift camp for the last six months. From the moment I came here, she says, I don't know anything. They keep saying we're going to get this, we're going to get that, but I haven't seen anything.
Her son Wably broke his legs in the earthquake. He was in a body cast for month. He can walk now, but that's about the only good thing that has happened to Milong's family since the quake.
When the earthquake happened, did you think that six months, you would, later, you would still be living in a structure like this?
No, we didn't think that, says Milong's neighbor Marie Solis, but we don't have anywhere else to go. All of this makes you crazy.
Some 55,000 people now occupy Milong's camp. They live crammed together under plastic tarps.
Four people live inside Milong's structure. She has a bed, a single bed, but, which is frankly more than most people have. In this side over here, there's room for some clothing, some toiletries over here. There's cooking supplies, pots and pans, a few plates, and then a small little charcoal stove, which she uses to cook food for her family.
The structure is made out of plastic. There're heavy sheets which are stretched across wooden support. So, it's actually pretty sturdy. What you don't see on the, on video is just how incredibly hot it is in here. You're in here for literally a few seconds, you just are drenched in sweat. So, most people can't spend much time during the day inside these structures.
There are more than 1,300 makeshift camps throughout Port-au-Prince housing more than a million and a half people.
You see, with all these tents, they're right on top of each other. I think one match on a breezy day could pretty much run this whole place down.
Sean Penn and his organization, JPHRO, is in charge of this camp. They provide water and food, doctors and medicine. They have even built a school.
Penn would like to get these people back into their old neighborhoods, but many of the neighborhoods are still buried in rubble.
So, in terms of getting people out of a camp like this, I mean, there's multiple problems. There's the problem of the rubble that is still in all these neighborhoods, and getting that trucked out, so people can go back. There's the problem of figuring out who owns the land that, that people might move on to. And then there's actually rebuilding structures.
A lot of these areas have no grid. They have got no water, all of those things that you would need in a camp, clinics, lighting, those, you know, most of these neighborhoods are living in the pitch dark in rubble twice as high as our heads.
Much of the money donated and spent so far has gone to meet immediate humanitarian needs of the population. Many lives were saved, and there's been no outbreak of disease and no major civil unrest.
But the rebuilding has been plagued by lack of organization and leadership. There's still no master plan for removing the rubble, which prevents many from returning home, and only a small percentage of the billions in reconstruction money pledged by governments around the world has actually been sent.
There are a lot of NGOs who we're told are not coordinating with each other. President Clinton himself has said that they're not coordinating with his commission. Why is that?
I think that's as, I think that's as basic as people want to be the first, or they don't want to see it done at all. I think that they want to be the lead, but they don't have the courage in most cases to take it. There are, there are some NGOs that are working very directly and doing it, but it, it's like dropping grains of salt on the beach.
Penn's group has just begun using heavy equipment to clear a neighborhood, so some of the people in this camp can return to their old homes. He’d also like to see other funding used for new communities to be built outside Port-au-Prince.
Critically important, you're saying, is removing the rubble here with heavy equipment, but also getting people places that they can live outside of Port-au-Prince?
Yes, yes, both, because there's, there's whatever it is, 1.8 million. There are camps that are on hillsides like this that still have no lighting, have no drainage mitigations, where their whole neighborhood is in rubble.
And so to people in the States who say, well, look, I, I gave money six months ago, and, look, it's all still the same, and I shouldn't give any more money?
Well, I say, I say, no, that's not true, because if you gave money because you care, and you have anything to scrap up, if you don't trust an NGO, find a family to adopt. Get in touch with our NGO. You don't have to give us the money. I will find you a family to adopt. I will give you their number. You can talk to them and find out what it is. But don't stop, don't stop giving. We, we need it.
Anderson Cooper, CNN, Port-au-Prince.