The G-Spot

My main goal today is to update the post that I wrote on January 30, 2009, entitled “Thank you TICOS”. In that post, I thank the Costa Rican community for all the support they gave to their fellow earthquake survivors by collecting money, food and clothing for them. Well, little did I know, the affected communities actually haven’t seen a single cent!

Every day, the news informs us about the great humanitarian efforts that are taking place in the communities affected by the earthquake: Spain donated $285 000, El Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica donated 115 million colones, USA donated $30 million dollars, China donated $66 million, bla, bla, bla. The truth is that, to this day, nobody has seen a cent from all the money that has been donated by our country and the international community.

I visited the communities of Vara Blanca and San Rafael de Vara Blanca this past Saturday. Most of the houses in these communities are damaged; families are staying at hotels, relative’s homes, or neighbor’s houses. All of the gathering points for social activities are gone: the church, school and community center are inhabitable.  There is no water, some places don’t have electricity and some communities are still without communications. We are talking about the January 8 earthquake that happened more than a month ago! It’s been more than a month and there are still people with no water or electricity here!

What are the governmental institutions waiting for? These people need the help now, today…. not a year or two from now. The million of colones that were collected during the Channel 6 and Banco Nacional campaign are sitting in bank accounts today… do they seriously expect us to forget about it and then use that money on political campaigns or personal issues one more time?

I mean, I understand that it is difficult to organize the money donated before spending it. I understand that it is necessary to study the situation of each family and community before determine what to do about each case, but my criticism comes from the fact that to this day NOTHING has been done. There are basements full of food, clothing and personal hygiene supplies under the government supervision, those are meant for the affected communities, but members of those communities claim that they haven’t seen any goods since the past two weeks.

We know it, it happens after each tragedy:  everybody seams upset, touched by the pain and the damages and are willing to help for a while and then, when it is not news material, everybody forgets about it. We saw it happen when the 2004 tsunami in the south pacific, then we saw it again in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina and it is now happening in tiny Costa Rica, after the Cinchona earthquake.

Shame on us!

The following picture was taken by Alejandro Arley of Al Dia newspaper on Jan, 14, 2009.   To read more on the January 8th Costa Rican earthquake go to http://www.nacion.com/disenos/v7/subhomes/n-terremoto-poas.html