"I would rather go live on the Moon than in a camp in the middle of a field," the 25 year old tells AFP. "I don't believe in any decentralization plans produced by the government, but I do have a lot of expectations from international assistance."

But Dunbar, who helps a Slovak medical team as a volunteer as he waits for classes at Quisqueyana University to resume, doesn't want the international community to held "rebuild" Haiti, but rather "build" it from scratch.

"This country simply was not built before the January 12 earthquake," he argues.

The 7.0-magnitude tremor has killed around 170,000 people, injured around 200,000 and left more than one million homeless, according to figures issued by the Haitian government.

Two days after France and some non-government organizations helped Haitian First Lady Elizabeth Preval inaugurate a displaced persons camp in Hinche, about 100 kilometers (65 miles) from Port-au-Prince, in the hope of defusing tensions in the capital, young people are frowning at the idea of abandoning city life.

"The government knows that there are not many jobs outside of Port-au-Prince," complains Dunbar. "Doctors are needed mostly here."

Not far away from where Dunbar is examining children and measuring the blood pressure of adults, 20-year-old Louis Catelly doesn't even try to hide his anger.

"If they want me to leave Port-au-Price, why don't they just give a visa to the United States?' he asks.

Catelly, who is trying to obtain his passport, is standing in line at the terminal of Asco-Aviation, in one of the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince, in the hope of finding a way to visit his parents in Saint Marc, north of the capital.

"After the quake my parents went to Saint Marc to live with relatives," he complains. "But there is nothing there for me to do."

These sentiments reflect general skepticism among Haitians in their government ability to solve the logistical problems that have arisen from the fact that the country now has a million people without a home.

The population views with indifference initiatives like the creation of the camp in Hinche.

"This is a place for people who want to leave the capital," explains Ricardo Seitenfus, a special envoy of the Organization of American States (OAS).

He points out that the Haitian government had no intention of moving the population by force. But nor has it produced thus far clear reconstruction plans, he adds.

Seitenfus, who has been participating in OAS and UN missions to Haiti since 1993, says the earthquake has given the Haitian government and the international community an opportunity to correct past mistakes.

Ninety percent of problems facing the country are economic and social, explains the envoy. However, in recent years, the international community has been spending 90 percent of its resources allocated to Haiti on security.

"It is absurd to have a peace force in a country where there is no war," says Seitenfus.

He points out that OAS supports rebuilding the country with master-plans and rules established by the government, but "never with measures that go against the will of people."

earlier related report
Haiti's schools struggle to resume lessons
Port-Au-Prince (AFP) Jan 30, 2010 - Schools in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, devastated by a catastrophic earthquake that left hundreds of students and teachers missing, are struggling to find a way to resume lessons.

School-aged children make up 40 percent of Haiti's population of over nine million people, but one in four children did not attend school before the disaster almost three weeks ago.

The limited number of schools in the impoverished nation also meant that many students attended classes in shifts, with the first set arriving in the morning and studying until 3:00 pm and the second beginning in the afternoon and leaving around 7:00 pm.

The shift system meant that when the 7.0-magnitude quake struck at 4:53 pm on January 12, classrooms in Port-au-Prince were full of afternoon students, who often come from poorer families and work during the day before school.

"It's a disaster. There were many deaths. I've lost irreplaceable teachers," said Marie-Marthe Paul, director of the Canape Vert school.

When the quake hit, the school was holding a seminar on future teaching plans. Twenty-three bodies were later pulled from the building's ruins.

"Not a single school in the capital was untouched, they were either destroyed or riven with cracks," added Jacky Lumarque, Quisqueya University's superintendent.

The university was destroyed in the quake and lost dozens of students and he doesn't foresee resuming any classes inside school buildings for weeks.

"People are afraid of concrete" after seeing the devastation wrought by the quake, he said. "A tent is more reassuring than a modern building."

The French school in Port-au-Prince escaped major structural damage, but lost a teacher and seven students during the quake.

Internet courses are being organized for the coming week, and a partial return to classes is planned by March 1, though it was not clear how many students were still in town to be taught.

Around half of the 700 children enrolled at the school have left Haiti for Miami, Montreal or France.

Jacques Norcius Jean, a teacher, said he had sent his children to Philadelphia in the United States.

"Their lives are going to change. They speak French, they're going to speak English now," he said.

A group of educators who belong to Haiti's Association of Directors of Private Schools are working to by February find "free spaces for learning activities for all ages."

"We're on track to count all the children in the area aged between six and 15 years old. We've located a place, now we need some benches, some chairs, some tents," said Balin-Paul, a member of the association.

International organizations working here are hoping to set up learning spaces for children throughout the city's neighborhoods.

"What is stopping us is the lack of tents," said Alain-Georges Bangoura, of French organization Aide et Action.

Plan International, a British group that focuses on children, has begun recruiting student volunteers to organize and supervise other children until classes can resume.

"In a month, all the NGO experts will have gone. That's how it is. So we are training students who can help provide support to children," said Steve Theobald, a spokesman for the organization, which had gathered dozens of future teaching assistants by Saturday.

Plan International was showing them how to teach children to take care of injured siblings or parents, but also, simply, "how to laugh again," he said.

For Lumarque, who heads Haiti's presidential commission on education, the tragedy is a chance to rethink Haiti's school and university system "to find ways to better respond to community-based problems."

Some 54 percent of Haitians are illiterate, and 90 percent of educational establishments are private, with less than a quarter of those accredited by the Haitian government.

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