Memories of a Short-Term Trip to Haiti
Imagine a large country not far from America's borders and founded by Christopher Columbus in 1492 where voodoo temples are revered as hurricane shelters; where electricity is available a mere 12 hours a day; and where crops are successfully grown but many of the populace can't afford to buy food for themselves and their families. Picture the most thickly populated and grindingly poor nation in the Western Hemisphere; where creole is the language and gourd is money; and where disabled youngsters often are left in sewers, along roadsides and in hospital courtyards. The unemployment rate is 80 percent; chickens are used to pay for a child’s schooling; the minimum wage is $2.50 a day; needed imports come from Cuba, Venezuela and South Korea, and a recent missionary-veterinary team "saw young children lining up outside when we would eat a meal, in hopes that we would let them have any leftovers from our plates!" Such is daily life in Haiti (pop. 10+ million), a country the size of Maryland, where Christians are scarce, veterinarians are hard to find, and the country is bereft of the basics that are taken for granted in the United States. Read the rest of the story.
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