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Mark Hare - Page 3 |
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(Left) Walking into town on market
day. Women weave the fabric of daily life, especially buying and
selling. They are the masters of setting prices. When I first arrived
in Papaye, the single most repeated piece of advice seemed to be,
“Let one of the women buy that for you.” These women
will sit on the small chairs you see sticking out of the dishpans
as they sell their wares in the marketplace or on the street. |
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(Right) Sacks of charcoal on a burro’s back.
Over half of Haiti’s population lives in the countryside.
Their standard of living is entirely dependent on what they can
produce with their own labor. With crop production usually uncertain
due to erratic weather (flooding and drought both result in partial
or total crop losses) and poor soils, charcoal production is usually
the most dependable source of ready cash, which pays for schoolbooks
and tuition for the children as well as clothes, medicine, and tools
for the rest of the family. The high population densities in Haiti’s
cities provides a constant, overwhelming demand for charcoal, which
is a relatively cheap cooking fuel. |
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(Left) Public transportation in the Central Plateau
region is usually by small pickups, redesigned to make space for
a maximum number of passengers in the back. On one trip by public
vehicle to visit a project about 17 miles from Papaye (a two-hour
trip on a good day), I rode back to Hinche in the back of the public
vehicle with a man’s leg on my lap. He had broken it the previous
week and was that day going home, with the help of a friend. The
weight of the leg and cast was less troublesome than the grimaces
on the man’s face and the groans that he let escape now and
then when the pickup plowed through a particularly rough set of
ruts or mud holes. From what I understood of the conversation, he’d
broken the leg during a practice soccer match. |
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(Right) A bridge near Hinche in the Central Plateau,
where everyone in the surrounding area comes to buy and sell. At
least half of the “transportation” in the Hinche area
is by foot. |
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