Play Video
ABC
News
– First Lady's First Trip .PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – First
lady Michelle Obama made a surprise visit Tuesday to the ruins
of the Haitian capital, a high-profile reminder that hundreds of
thousands remain in desperate straits three months after the earthquake.
The first lady and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, took a helicopter
tour of Port-au-Prince, where many people are still homeless, before
landing at the destroyed national
palace to meet President Rene
Preval. They later talked with students whose lives have been
upended by the disaster and walked along a vast, squalid encampment of
families living under bed sheets and tents.
"It's powerful," Obama told reporters. "The
devastation is definitely powerful."
A number of past and present world leaders have visited since the
earthquake, including former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But few have the star power
here of the American first lady, whose husband is widely popular in Haiti and throughout the
Caribbean.
"It was important for Jill and I to come now because
we're at the point where the relief efforts are under way, but the
attention of the world starts to wane a bit," she said. "As we enter the
rainy season and the hurricane season...the issues are just going to
become more compounded."
The U.S. government historically has had a troubled
relationship with Haiti, occupying the country for nearly two decades
early in the 20th century
and later backing brutal dictators, but many Haitians are grateful for the aid and
security that the U.S. has provided since the earthquake.
The U.S. has provided nearly $1 billion in
humanitarian aid and pledged more than $1 billion in additional aid to
the impoverished country.
Obama and Biden's visit is intended to underscore
U.S. commitment to the Haitian reconstruction effort and to thank
American officials who have worked in the country for the past three
months, the administration said in a statement.
It is Obama's first solo trip as first lady, and she
flew on to Mexico City on Tuesday night for a two-day visit. Haiti was
included when the trip was planned a month ago but not announced for
security reasons.
The first lady praised U.N. peacekeepers and the
Haitian people for their strength and resiliency during the quake and
its aftermath. Building part of her speech around a Haitian proverb,
"little by little the bird makes its nest," she assured the audience
that the U.S. will stand with them during reconstruction.
"Little by little Haiti will move forward," she said
in a speech to U.N. peacekeepers and workers for humanitarian groups
gathered at the U.N. base. "Little by little we're going to keep making
tomorrow better than today."
Obama smiled and waved her way through the wrecked
center of Haiti's capital.
After greeting Preval with a kiss at the crushed national palace,
she set off with Biden and Haiti's first lady, Elisabeth Debrosse
Preval to a post-quake child care center where 450 boys and girls
are participating in art
therapy classes in converted city buses donated from Santo Domingo.
Obama jumped, danced and clapped with the singing
children. Then the delegation entered one of the green buses for a
painting session. Biden made a blue house, Preval a green and yellow
sun. Obama painted a purple fish in the ocean.
"It was a request, the kids asked me to," she said.
The children's paintings were harder to read, a mix of letters and
symbols. Asked what they represented, Obama said "their lives."
People were eager for a glimpse of the first ladies at the huge
Champ de Mars camp — and hopeful that they would be seen as well.
"Make sure you get a good look at us!" a man living
in the camp yelled at a passing press bus.
Obama said she felt that Haitians deeply appreciated the outpouring
of help from the international community, but some Haitians felt more
could be done.
Frenel Pierre, who was living in a tent pitched on the grounds of a
collapsed school with her husband and six children, said they needed
more food and water.
"I hope this visit will bring us help, because they've brought us
practically nothing," she said.