Life in Haiti's Countryside Amid Crisis

In the countryside of Haiti, life is unpredictable. Farm families cannot easily send their goods to market, and they cannot survive only on the crops that they grow. Instead of selling a tomato crop for a moderate price across 4 regional markets, they must compromise and sell all of it for a low price at the single local market before the crop spoils. But the compromise price for the farm families’ harvests is not enough for them to then purchase other basic goods such as rice or flour from the same local market. 

Prices can increase as much as 3 times the original price in just a few days if the gangs increase tolls that the transporters must pay to cross the gang roadblocks that control virtually every road in the country. 

When people must travel and cannot compromise to do something locally, routes that used to take 3 hours now require a circuitous end-around that takes 12 hours of fording rivers and passing gang roadblocks to find the safest route in an unsafe country. 

In the towns and villages, people of all ages limit their activities to daytime hours only, and even then they are always ready to run for cover in case any of the gangs should choose to be active that day. Kidnappings, house burnings, and threats are an ever-present danger, and there is not much hope that the situation will improve anytime soon.

—Anonymous