* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Esther Williams works for Christian aid organisation Tearfund, which says its vision is to see 50 million people released from material and spiritual poverty through a global network of churches
By Esther Williams
It's clear to see as you walk through the streets that everybody is needy in Port-au-Prince.
The earthquake was not a disaster affecting only the poorest of poor, like the familiar stories of people living in absolute poverty that we are used to hearing. Middle-class people who worked their whole lives to build their own homes lost
everything in 35 seconds.
Interestingly many of the poorest people didn't lose their homes because they were not living in concrete buildings. Others did not even own homes before January 12. Many of them have moved into camps because they know that this is where they will get food aid, and an opportunity to receive shelter.
Aid agencies are trying to get people who have homes that are secure and standing to return to them before the rainy season starts, due to the risk of disease in the camps. But many are afraid of going back, which is understandable.
As I walk through the camps, some of them sheltering more than 4,000 residents, I ask people what they think about what is happening to them now.
"We have a government by name only," says 35-year-old Quinet "I woke up in the morning with a three storey house, a wife and two children. By 5 p.m. I had no house, no wife - just me and my
two-year-old daughter survived. If had been running this country it would never have been in this state."
Aid agency Tearfund's Country Representative, Jean Claude Cerin, who is Haitian, says: "The government should be ashamed, there have been warnings for years that a huge earthquake was
imminent. There was time to educate people on what to do. Instead we hear stories of people who were outside running inside and people running upstairs when they shouldn't have."
"Buildings were poorly built - at the very least government offices, schools, universities and hospitals should have followed proper building codes," he adds. "Instead more than 200 schools collapsed on children."
Jean Claude would like the government to work with civil society, businesses and local churches -- which played a vital role in the emergency response -- to establish a national plan of action for the next few years. "At the moment it seems they are just talking amongst themselves and haven't even spoken to the opposition parties to find a consensus on the way forward two months on," he says.
Many people from urban areas are now moving to the countryside to stay with family whose homes were not as badly damaged. This means rural communities are now faced with added pressure on their already limited food supplies.
The Haitians I speak to want schools to reopen. They are also concerned about shelter, which weighs heavily on their minds ahead of the rainy season, which starts in April.
