A Death and a Beating are Part of Life in a Haitian Neighborhood
Anyone who’s been to Haiti will tell you they’ve seen some awful things. Even when we steel ourselves for encounters with extreme poverty, we can’t help being overwhelmed by trash piled on trash piled on in the streets… by a woman with no legs, begging, shaking her tin cup as you approach… by another, lying in the middle of a dirt road dead, or drunk, or halfway to one or the other. We return with a case of Barbancourt Rum, show pictures to our families, and tell stories to our friends in hopes of shining light into the darkness. Some tales are so bleak, we don’t want to tell them. Besides, how do we give voice to unspeakable despair? I saw—actually heard—two really horrible things when I was in Haiti last summer. Besides my traveling companions, I haven't said very much about these things. Until now, I have thought of them, shed tears over them, ached for them so many times, but I simply could not repeat them. Usually we groan about the roosters that rudely awaken us, coc...