Haiti must go down first on a list of "least among us". For those of you who have spent any time in this area of the world and away from the tourist destinations, the object poverty and meagerness of daily life really hits hard.
From years back, I accepted responsibility for the kids of a good friend and his wife as he was transferred to their island neighbor Dominican Republic to build their telephone infrastructure. The assignment carried with it tons of "duty" insurance on everyone's life. He frequently went to Haiti as the telephone lines and systems had to mesh with theirs. He traveled with guards and, importantly for him he said, several days of food and water although at that time bottled water hadn't hit the market so I am guessing canteens or the almighty thermos. For people living right on the very edge of existence anyway, with the basics that we take for granted and give no mind, it is fairly hard to grasp the implications of now having nothing in a land that had nothing to begin with and my friend's cache of emergency provisions would like the feast of Eden to a few million poor souls.
I collect cookbooks, by the way, and I've sorted through a couple of mine (pictures courtesy of Amazon). The food is exotic although very basic. Cooking a gourmet meal of Haitian cuisine suddenly has become a distant memory to those folks and, beyond unfortunately, just a future dream....all 710 miles away.
Comments
Post a Comment