“Christmas of misery” for many in calamity-hit Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Maritza Monfort is  singing along to a Christmas carol in Creole on the radio, but  the Haitian mother of two is struggling to lift her spirits.
“I sing to ease my pain. If I think too much, I’ll die,”  said Monfort, 38, one of over a million Haitians made homeless  by a January earthquake that plunged the poor, French-speaking  Caribbean nation into the most calamitous year of its history.

With a raging cholera epidemic and election turmoil heaping  more death and hardship on top of the quake devastation,  Haitians are facing an exceptionally bleak Christmas and New  Year marked by the prospect of more suffering and uncertainty.

The Jan. 12 earthquake killed more than a quarter of a  million people and snuffed out what had been some encouraging  signs of revival in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest economy.

Following hard on the quake’s heels like an apocalyptic  horseman, the cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,500  Haitians since mid-October and is still claiming victims daily,  confronting the United Nations-led international community with  one of its toughest ever humanitarian assistance tasks.

“Yesterday my mother almost died because she got cholera. I  had to run with her to the hospital. This Christmas is a  Christmas of misery,” Monfort told Reuters as she cleaned with  soap and water the inside of the plastic tent where she lives  with her children in the Place Saint Pierre quake survivors’  camp in Port-au-Prince’s hillside Petionville district.

Ranked one of the world’s poorest states, Haiti has never  come close to emulating the glittering Christmas displays and  festive consumer offers to be found in richer neighbors, such  as the United States, less than two hours’ flying time away. But many Haitians still celebrated the feast of “Tonton  Noel” — Father Christmas in Creole — with gifts if they could  afford them and, for the very lucky, better-off minority, a  meal that could include meat, rice and Congo beans.

But only a handful of shops this year — among those left  standing after the earthquake that reduced to rubble many  commercial and residential zones of the sprawling, chaotic  capital — display any kind of Christmas decorations.

And there are no lights, tinsel or festive messages in  sight in the squalid crowded tent and tarpaulin camps housing  tens of thousands of earthquake survivors that carpet most of  the available open spaces in rubble-strewn Port-au-Prince.

“We cannot decorate dirty tents where we are living in  misery … we’re not in the mood to celebrate Christmas,” said  Juliette Marsan, 35, another occupant of the Place Saint  Pierre, Petionville camp.

“My concern is to feed my children and I can’t even do  that,” she added.

THIS CHRISTMAS “WORSE
THAN ANY OTHER”

Some Haitian children were lucky enough to receive  Christmas gifts handed out by former Alaska governor Sarah  Palin who helicoptered in on a lightning visit this month.