The following are aerial photos of Port Au Prince (PAP). The air here has an almost tangible quality. The stench from death (both animal and human), sewage, garbage, burning fuel stoves, car exhaust and the odious smell of pure human misery mixed with an oppressive heat, create a feeling as if someone where placing a blanket over your head.
Yesterday on Camp Kinser, on my way out of our gym, I caught a cool breaze blowing across the island. I stopped, held my breath, closed my eyes, and for a fleeting moment I was almost on a Carribean Island; but as I inhaled it became all too clear that this was just one more misery this island should endure: the remembrance of what it once was, the dream for what it might have been and shackled by the reality of what it is.
The extensive deforrestation of the island is painfully apparent in this photo. After all Economic and governmental systems collapsed here, the people slashed and burned the island for both rudimentary agriculural and lumber for construction and fuel. This in turn, eroded all the top soil, dooming the agriculal efforts and washing over and killing the coral reef surrounding the island. The top soil and raw sewage dumped onto the water ways anihilated the fishing industries.
Haiti is now left with no government, extremeley limited agricultural efforts, no economic base and no fishing staples. There could not have been a more devestating plan.
The river you see in the coastal pictures is so full of sewage that it is black.
