Every little helps

I don't understand why it takes all this time to clear up the rubble in Haiti. Every town in Germany in 1945 was just as flat and the Germans sorted. In Berlin most of the chaps were dead, or minus various limbs and so the women cleared the rubbish up, sorted the re-usable bricks out and built a mountain with the stuff they couldnt re-use. It still stands to this day.  I had a friend who in 1945 lost his entire family in the bombing and built his own house (took him 5 years) by picking up bricks from the rubble, cleaning the mortar off them and when he had enough he built a small house. Am I being cynical thinking the people of Haiti are waiting for an NGO/UN to pop in and re-build the place.

Something else I dont get is the housing stock in this country. When I was a kid I lived in a back to back cul-de-sac with a factory at one end belching smoke. We had an outside loo and I used to have a bath in the sink. When we built a small bathroom on the back it was total luxury to be able to lie down in the bath. I remember when they opened the nearby housing estate and the houses had hot water, bathrooms and fitted kitchens. My Aunt burst into tears the first time she turned the tap on! We were so proud of those houses and kept them spotless with roses around the path. Now those houses are total slums. What happened?

Wife has a tendency to make words up. Todays Gem: "Lithuanian Batteries"