PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Since Haiti’s earthquake struck, the clientele at the Muncheez pizza joint has been transformed — the affluent professionals are gone, replaced by lines of people being quietly kept alive with free meals from the restaurant chain’s owners.
Every day, 1,000 to 1,500 Haitians left homeless and hungry by the Jan. 12 disaster come to the popular spot in Petionville, a relatively well-to-do section of the devastated capital city.
Those who have one of the bracelets given out in advance by co-owner Clifford Rouzeau are given a free meal, anything from pizza to spaghetti, macaroni, chicken or rice.
“Whatever we have,” said Rouzeau, who was born in New York to Haitian parents and still speaks English with a U.S. accent despite moving to Haiti when he was 4.
Vast quantities of aid are flowing into Haiti from all over the world, and its people are grateful for the desperately needed assistance. But with millions suffering in a country that was struggling even before the quake, some of the most critical help has come from close to home.
Rouzeau’s three casual restaurants were not damaged in the catastrophe that killed up to 200,000 Haitians and left millions more injured and homeless.
With his country devastated, the businessman has responded by handing out food every day since the earthquake. He says he will keep it up for as long as he can, and is also sending food to hospitals.
“I’m not going to open a restaurant and cater to people who can afford to buy my food when there are hundreds of thousands of people in the streets starving every day,” he said.
The victims’ needs remain enormous and unmet, as aid groups struggle to coordinate relief for the Western Hemisphere’s worst natural disaster in modern history.
The teeming capital city is filled with scrawled signs reading, in English and Spanish, “Please help us!” Some international aid drops have become chaotic, with young men rushing to the front and trying to take the lion’s share of the food, shutting out children, the sick and older people.
And there is widespread concern in the streets that a notoriously corrupt government will steal aid money, although U.S. officials insist the process will be audited and President Rene Preval notes that almost all of the money goes to groups administering aid projects, not to his government.
Business owners like Rouzeau have launched small-scale aid operations, many doing so while they themselves rebuild from the disaster. Hotel owners have provided rooms or outdoor camping space to people left homeless. And the hectic tent camps scattered throughout the earthquake zone are filled with tales of people who have shared what little they have.
“We have a lot of solidarity,” said Maronatha Pierre-Louis, 26, who has been living beneath tarpaulins in a public park with nine relatives and about 7,000 other people since her house collapsed.
“What people have, they give to each other, and we are sharing. If someone needs food, we give them food if we have it. If someone needs a bed, we give them a bed.”
