Haiti’s Parliament gets new quarters

Officials inaugurated a new building for Haiti’s Parliament yesterday, more than 15 months after an earthquake destroyed the national assembly’s headquarters. The $700,000 prefabricated structure, built on the site of the destroyed assembly building, gives the 129 newly elected representatives a place to conduct business. Until yesterday the reps were using makeshift facilities as they [...]

Haiti’s vote for president: It’s a civic duty no matter the candidates

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — When Haitians return to the polls for the final runoff for president Sunday, they will be choosing between two candidates they say don’t excite them very much. It is the first election since the January 2010 earthquake devastated about 20 percent of the country, causing more than 300,000 deaths and another 300,000 [...]

Hustle and bustle of Port-au-Prince brings sense of normalcy to Haitian capital

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Despite huge mounds of rubble where buildings once stood and an estimated 800,000 people living in overcrowded and squalid tent settlements in the most devastated parts of the city, a sense of normalcy has returned to Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. The evidence? Traffic galore, streets crowded with pedestrians going about their business [...]

Earthquake-damaged community in Haiti wants its own neighborhood parish

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — For a quiet neighborhood in the sprawling Delmas community of the Haitian capital, building a Catholic parish has become a top priority. Born out of last year’s earthquake, the idea is slowly gaining ground in the neighborhood known as Delmas 33. About 150 worshipers joined Msgr. Pierre Andrew Pierre for Mass yesterday [...]

Carnival returns to Port-au-Prince, but celebration is more subdued

Editor’s Note: CNS staff writer Dennis Sadowski and staff photographer Bob Roller arrived in Haiti yesterday afternoon to report on the aftereffects of the January 2010 earthquake. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The pre-Lenten celebration of Carnival returned to the Haitian capital this week, but not with the usual sense of jubilance that marked the three-day affair [...]

USAID assessment finds vegetable seeds are plentiful in Haiti

Back in June, Haitian peasants threatened to burn any vegetable seeds showing up in seed stores that were donated by the Monsanto Co. Peasant leaders said the hybrid seed, not bred for local conditions, would upset agricultural environments and make farmers more dependent on unwanted seed varieties from outside of the country. Monsanto defended its [...]

Life in camps no better for Haitians than in days following earthquake

Seven months after the Jan. 12 earthquake, a large part of Haiti continues to reel in the aftermath of the disaster. Haitians are praying and hoping that relief comes their way soon and that summer tropical storms bypass their country. A brief description of life in the displaced persons camps arrived this week from Junior [...]

Keep Haiti in the headlines, advocates urge

Headlines in the media about the Haitian earthquake have fallen to a trickle now that the disaster is more than three months in the past. But that doesn’t mean it should be forgotten, advocates working on Haitian relief efforts believe. Several concerns about the lack of involvement of Haitians in recovery efforts as well as [...]

Determined Haitians stand strong in the face of insurmountable obstacles

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – While leaving the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince this morning we passed by a U.N. World Food Program food distribution site. Dozens of earthquake victims were hurrying back to their tattered shelters a few blocks away, large sacks of rice in their possession. The eagerness of the Haitians to return to [...]

Charlie Jacques prays the rosary for comfort outside destroyed Port-au-Prince cathedral

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Just about every morning since the Jan. 12 earthquake Charlie Jacques visits what’s left of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption and prays the rosary. “It gives me comfort and gets me through the day,” the 33-year-old Jacques told Catholic News Service today, unwrapping a bright green rosary from his [...]