Tuesday, April 10, 2007

a family in misery

The little girl sloshing cloudy water out of her bucket-tub, popping a red plastic toy into her mouth and sucking out any pooling liquid through her sparse set of teeth lends a strange sense of normalcy to the whole pathetic scene. Moun se moun (people are people). The baby’s eyes, confirming this, seem to say, “If I only had a chance, who knows what I could become.”Remove the micro lens, pan out and see the reality of poverty upon which the bucket-baby scene plays out and know that there probably is no hope for this little girl – just as there is precious little for her neighbors and the majority of her contemporary countrymen.
Her neighbors are the family St. Jean. They do not own their land. They do not own their home. They rent one room in a thatched roof hut (the room with the pink curtain on the far left side). Their current rent is $700 Haitian/year, which is about $95 US/year. They haven't paid in a while so they were served notice in January and will have to vacate in the next two weeks. They do not yet know where they will go.
Seven people were living in the "home." Since we took Mackenson (7) and Claudia (5), there are now five sharing the room. One of those is a child of 2 years whose bright orange head of hair testifies to the degree of her malnourishment. The remaining four are "able bodied" adults, one of whom is working. The latter, the father of the children, works as a shoe shiner and often does not find work. The mother, her younger sister and the younger brother of the father all live in the home but do not work. When asked why no one else works they shrug and say they cannot find it.

“La misère,” my friend Bertony whispers to me as we sit deciphering Madame St. Jean’s hushed responses. Yes, it certainly is misery. The woman who bore the three children cannot be older than 22. She giggles in the back of her hand and says she cannot speak for the family when her husband is not at home.“If we could help you, how can we help you?” Blank stares.

“We need everything,” she finally answers.

“Madame, I cannot write on your behalf for ‘everything!’ So, please, give me an idea!”

“A home.”

The baby shrieks happily and splashes water onto the mud.

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