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“The entrance to Cité de la Joie in Port-au-Prince looks like the mouth of a murky and muddy river,” said Melody Munz, who oversees environmental programs in the International Rescue Committee.

Ten months after the 7.0 earthquake that shook Haiti and moved the world to unprecedented generosity, there are still 1.3 million people displaced from the natural disaster.Furthermore, the country is also dealing with an outbreak of cholera.

Cholera is a deadly diarrheal disease that is spread through contaminated food and water. Though the lack of clean water and food has been the case for decades, the problem worsened after the powerful earthquake there last January. About 440 have been killed by this epidemic, while an additional 6,700 are ill.

Haiti also has to deal with flooding problems from Hurricane Tomas. The hurricane just skimmed the west coast of Haiti, but the area was flooded enough that 10,000 people voluntarily left their homes. 

"The situation is bad. My tent has lots of holes in it, so we got wet," said Renette Dornis, 38, who lives with her three children in a tent at the Acra 1 camp in Haiti's capitol.

With all this happening, where is the generosity that I saw following the massive quake and its subsequent devastation?

More than $5 billion were donated to Haiti from over 100 countries. College campuses everywhere sported a “Help for Haiti” table, while event organizers planned multiple benefit concerts. Even America’s top 25 singers sang a remixed version of Michael Jackson’s “We Are The World” and the money on iTunes was donated to the cause. Facebook statuses were about texting to the Red Cross to donate $10.

Now with Haiti back all over the news, I am surprised to see the general sense of apathy towards the continuation of disasters. What did I see from January to April? Was it a just a fad?

It appears people got hyped up like they do in the spirit of a sports game or over a new Top 40 song. They want to help out because others are helping--they feel like they are a part of something. It is fun to go to a benefit concert; however, when no one is hosting them anymore,  people seem to stop caring about the cause.

What was really interesting about the donation campaign to Haiti was that people were more in tune with it than domestic problems. People jumped to their phones to donate to the Red Cross, but then divert their path when a canvasser asks money to support other causes.

However, this is not something that we can decide not to like because it was “so last month”.  People are dying and they need the necessities to live now. Haiti was ranked as the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere in 2004 and 2008. This is not just helping out any country. I am sure many Americans have the resources to donate $10 or, at the very least, perhaps something like a blanket.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, please remember to be thankful for what you have.
 
For information on how to donate, click here. 

Reach Evelina Weary here.