Haiti In the Land Where Hope Never Grows

Why a dirt-poor nation is destined to remain so

At first light Mercius Pierre rises and leaves the stuffy interior of his mud hut. He opens the door and window that have been shut tight against strangers and the loups-garous, the werewolves that stalk the nights of the superstitious. Pierre's movement stirs up the rats nesting in the thatched roof, as well as his wife Annaise and three young daughters. Annaise lights a fire with a few scarce twigs, then boils coffee with the last drops of water from a gourd and sweetens it with a piece of sugarcane. Her daughter Melina, 6, places the gourd on her head and...

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