Rural Haiti

Haiti is faced with many challenges: burdened by poverty, recurrent insecurity and natural disasters. The physical and emotional damage caused by the country’s recent earthquake resonated in the hearts of many around the world. But for much of its history this small island country has been labeled in negative terms. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere but it has a noble history of struggle that should be heralded. The culture that has arisen amidst a long run of dictatorships and adversity is strong and rich.

In rural Haiti, life can be vibrant: the natural rhythms of laughing children slapping a river’s surface while bathing, jubilant wedding ceremonies drifting across seemingly empty evening hills, the animated conversations of women walking to the weekly markets.

Life in Haiti is also precarious as it is any place where people must survive off the land. Over seventy-five percent of people living on less than a dollar a day in Haiti live in the rural areas. Education, healthcare, and other social and economic institutions are limited and severely limiting. The future for the people of Haiti appears as hard and demanding as the soil they till.