Pure chaos. These two words describe the current state of Haiti after the recent 7.0 rated earthquake that struck on January 12, 2010. Thousands have been killed and bodies lie in the streets. Even without images, picturing what is happening there is unimaginable. The already poor Haitians now have to deal with the one thing humanity never truly takes the time to stop and think about: survival. Americans in general take for granted the resources we use everyday; transportation, food, and shelter to name a few. The quote made by the Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, “We want to get out of misery to get into poverty.” shows how desperate the people are for some sort of reality. The current situation in Haiti is partly due to the history of the country itself. It is a sad time right now and it is even worse to hear that Haitians now just want to get “back into poverty”.

The poverty the Haitians live in started in 1804 when the nation of Haiti was first formed by a victory of a slave rebellion. The French, losing the battle, demanded payment for the cost of the fighting. Ever since then, the Haitians have not had the proper education and strong government needed to successfully build a strong nation. Without a proper government to lead the nation, building a strong self reliant country is difficult. If government is not the central form of communication even on a day to day basis, it makes it worse when something like a natural disaster occurs. Now that disaster has hit and devastated Haiti, things are now unbelievably more difficult to overcome. As if living in hunger and with limited shelter wasn’t enough, the conditions now are unimaginable. Picturing fallen, crumbled buildings and bodies lying everywhere and people frantically searching for the things they need to make it another day; it breaks my heart to even wonder what I would feel like to go through it all.

Some would call the conditions in Haiti to be Hell on Earth; the term isn’t taken lightly. The things going on there aren’t too far off however. Thousands have lost their lives and families struggle day by day to find their loved ones, some of whom they will never see again. It is so horrifying that now poverty seems so good to what they have to live with now. At least within poverty they had some sort of shelter and were with their families. This is misery now, and the Haitians long to escape the grasp of it.

The turn of events occurring in Haiti is so terrible and we as humans must unite and help each other no matter our differences. If the Haitians long to get back to the way things used to be, we shall help them. No one deserves to go through what they are going through, but seeing as they are, we have to do our parts: our responsibilities.