Voices of Haiti's Homeless

Bill Quigley of Counterpunch has recorded the following testimony:

Jean Dora, 71

My name is Jean Dora. I was born in 1939. I live in a plaza in front of St. Pierre’s church in Petionville [outside of Port au Prince]. I am here with twelve members of my family. We all lost our home.

We have a sheet of green plastic to shade us from the sun. We put up some bed sheets around our space.

I have many small grandchildren living here with me. My son and daughters live with here too.

My daughter will soon have a child. She will go to the Red Cross tent when it is time for the baby to come.

I worked for the Chinese Embassy for 36 years. I cleaned their offices. I retired in 2007. Until the earthquake I lived in an apartment with my family. The building was destroyed.

At night we put a piece of carpet down on the ground. Then we lay covers down and try to sleep. When it rains, the water comes in.

We bring bottles to fill up with water. But we have very little food.

There is no toilet in the park. We must go behind the church.

My son used to work to support us. He is a good chef. He worked at a restaurant by the Hotel Montana. The restaurant was destroyed. He lost his job. There is no work.

During all my days, I have never seen anything like this. I am not in a good position to say what will happen next. I think things are not going to change. I hope things will get better. But I don’t think so.

My son has no job and he cannot help our family. If my son is working, we can all stand up. If he is not working, we are down.

The future is not clear. It looks dark for us.

More voices here...

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The emerging horror in Haiti has caused countless Americans to reach for their wallets and purses. I made my donation to the earthquake relief fund set up by Yele Haiti, the foundation established by the Haitian-American musician Wyclef Jean. Small foundations sometimes grapple with the problem of seemingly excessive overhead -- it's a matter of scale -- so if that concerns you, MSNBC.com has provided a list of charitable organizations active in Haiti.

The avoidable part of the butcher's bill is coming due as I write. The real story of Hurricane Katrina was the failure of the levees. Now, Haiti's abject poverty and the destruction of what little infrastructure that it had will become frightful players in the tragedy. Port-au-Prince has little water, no hospitals, no fire stations, and no electricity. The rest of the country will be unable to handle the demands put on what little infrastructure it has. Haiti has no significant internal means of disaster response. So, despite what Rush Limbaugh has to say (which is that Americans support Haiti through their taxes), that poor country is going to need help and lots of it...

As probably everyone knows by now, Pat Robertson claims that the earthquake is divine retribution for a pact that Haitians made with the devil during their long struggle for freedom (1791-1804). What Robertson didn't mention is that the French colonial slavemasters were among the most hardened of that despicable breed, infamously dispensing gruesome tortures for the most trivial offenses while working their slaves to death on sugar plantations. If any Haitians made a pact with the devil, it's because they had good reason to think that God had deserted them...

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The great Fats Domino sings Charles' immortal "I'm Walking to New Orleans":