Trash, there is trash everywhere in Port-Au-Prince.
There are sections where this is the common scene.
It does at least seem that they pile trash in one place.
It is easy to be pretty judgmental about this situation, until you stop to think about why it may exist.
First of all it was extremely difficult to drive our big SUV there, how would one navigate the trash trucks?
Not very well as seen in this picture.
In fact, one of the times we would see the trash trucks the most was on Holidays.
On the anniversary of the Earthquake there were garbage trucks everywhere.
Another huge problem, cost. We literally paid about $40/mo for trash removal. When the average Haitian does not make much more than that in a month how do you afford for trash removal?
Plus, when you are just trying to feed your family and find a place to sleep are you really worried about trash. And if you are the government and trying to help your people find housing and food, are you really trying to gather trash? This is still a country very much in survival mode.
And another huge issue, we saw so many houses that needed to be taken down. What do you do with all the rubble. You hope you can reuse it, but where do you put all the things you can not reuse?
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This house was completely taken down while we were there. |