Its a whole other story when you've been so involved with haiti but from so far away. I remember being the "news-room" and posting things like x market has collapsed, x strip mall was destroyed, etc etc etc. I remember knowing what it meant, knowing that most of what I grew up with had turned into piles of cement blocks spilling out dead bodies left right and center. Its a whole other experience to be here, look into an empty space and think, this is where I had my first date, this was my best friend's school, this was our only cinema, this was so&so's house etc etc.
Its a whole other thing to see so much rubble and so many-oh god- so many tents everywhere, even though its been a year, even though those camps conditions had been classified over and over again as inhuman.

My stomach is twisting up with the realization that tents and tarps I (we) helped send under the express condition that they be used as a temporary shelter pending reconstruction(s) are still being used as permanent settlements. As it was in the beginning, so it remains- tents everywhere, in front of the palace or what's left of it, in and around the nothingness that's left of the Champs-de-Mars, (wasn't exactly the Champs Elysees but I suppose we had done what we could).
What's worse, I know exactly what's going on here- as do all haitians, I'm sure. But the disappointment is so overwhelming that I'd rather say "I don't get it".

All of that being said, my heart hasn't been as devastatingly broken as it was last year all over again. I'm sad of course, but I'm not devastated again. Most of the broken houses have been cleared out, hence the empty spaces. Its made an intense dent in the national budget, and, I should hope, money from international donations- I'm guessing optimistically here. The dead have been buried, for the most part, and, to be slightly flippant, we've grieved and soldiered on.
My room is earthquake proofed, my house is more damaged than my mom said it had been, but she won't acknowledge it, so I won't point it out. I can most definitely stomach it all. After all I've put into this last year, it'd be incredibly surprising if I couldn't.
The first day I was a slight bit sadder than I thought I would be, all my experience considered- but now I can say I'm fine. Its my country, after all. I'm with my mother (who is amazing and I can't go on about this fact enough) and we're road-tripping cross country to the beach together for a day or two, and I honestly feel better than I have in a very very long time.