PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 11 (AFP) - Hungry Haitians have run out of patience with their crippled government one month after the country's huge earthquake, with the president facing calls to quit over his low-key response.

President Rene Preval has rarely appeared in public since the January 12 quake that killed 217,000 and left more than a million homeless, and protests have begun against his government by those desperate for food and housing.

The protests have come despite the quake having killed government officials and destroyed an astonishing amount of its institutions, including the stately National Palace and several ministry buildings.

All ministers escaped the quake alive, but several of their senior aides died.

"The situation is not easy for you, and nor is it easy for the government, which is working in difficult conditions," Preval said recently. He has called on Haitians to remain calm.

Even before the quake, the Haitian government's ability to provide basic services was severely limited, with aid groups and a United Nations mission providing heavy support.

Since the quake, many have criticized the government's response as non-existent, and some have called for the return of ex-president Jean Bertrand Aristide, forced from office in 2004 and currently exiled in South Africa.

On top of the homelessness and despair, employees for state companies have said they were not being paid, and some 60,000 public workers are now without jobs.

Graffiti has begun to appear calling on Preval to step down.

With so many buildings destroyed, the government has taken up residence in makeshift offices, with the seat of power a concrete police complex near the airport where Preval and Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive work.

Just after the quake, the cabinet met outside under the trees, afraid, like many Haitians doing the same thing at their homes, that the building could collapse if there were aftershocks.

The two leaders receive a steady stream of aid organizations and foreign envoys -- it is where ex-US president Bill Clinton met Preval last week, and a couple hundred protesters clamored for tents outside.

"Our children are burning in the sun. We have a right to tents. We have a right to shelter," said Mentor Natacha, 30, a mother of two and one of the protesters that day.

Ministers have been assigned new tasks that may seem incongruent with their old jobs. The tourism minister, for example, has now been put in charge of reconstruction.

Some of the plans announced by the government, such as decentralizing the congested capital by resettling a portion of the population outside the city, have been ridiculed.

"I would rather go live on the Moon than in a camp in the middle of a field," 25-year-old medical student Willy Dunbar told AFP recently.

"I don't believe in any decentralization plans produced by the government, but I do have a lot of expectations from international assistance."

The United States has been the de-facto head of the aid operation, with the Haitian government essentially handing over control of its airport to Washington after the quake hit.

Scores of aid workers -- there were already huge numbers before the earthquake -- have set up clinics and rushed to deliver food and shelter.

Preval has at least one strong defender, however: his wife.

"The Haitian state and my husband are working day and night to try to direct the community of donors to the most important areas," said Elizabeth Preval.

"You don't see him much outside, but he is constantly in talks, in meetings with (UN mission) staff." (By Clarens Renois/ AFP)