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Introduction: Haiti is incomparably beautiful: The second highest mountains in the Caribbean form a spectacular backdrop for fishing boats drifting atop clear blue waters.
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Day 1: Life in the Capital
The streets of Port-au-Prince were teaming with people: beggars and men pulling huge, wooden handcarts. Hundreds of women earning a few gourdes by selling meager supplies of pencils, old clothes, soap, charcoal or other goods. And scores of children elbowing their way past me to public faucets to get water to carry home in pails perched on their heads.
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Day 2: The Naked Hills of Haiti:
There was an eerie silence, heavy with heat, as we drove northwest through valleys surrounded by barren mountains. Other parts of the passing landscape were more exotic, with 13-foot-tall cactus and yellow-bark thorn trees scattered across the flatlands, all painted grey by dust.
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Day 3: Drying Out Haiti's Slums:
The seaside village of Raboteau is connected to the world by a thin ribbon of rocky road with small fishing boats bobbing in the distance. Families live in thatched or blocked homes slightly larger than the size of a typical office elevator. Joel Constant explained that the whole area used to frequently flood with waist-high waters. Three years ago, CARE offered to help the community fix their severe drainage problem.
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Day 4: Bigger Babies, More Crops:
The sound of babies crying echoed around the last bend in the road before we reached the clinic. Outside the small concrete building, there were two lines formed. The line to the left of the clinic was for baby vaccinations. The line to the right was for weighing babies.
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Day 5: Feeding Haiti's Children:
At Sanon Derac elementary school, the director and eight teachers put their hearts into their calling, working late into the night to arm their students with a basic education. The school's director said that he prefers having 96 kids in his class rather than having them in the streets.
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Epilogue: We Must Not Turn Our Backs On Haiti:
There are glimmers of hope for development in Haiti. Many Haitians work in grassroots self-development activities in agriculture, education, microcredit and other programs like the ones I describe in this virtual field trip. Programs that are designed to improve everyday life. But without continued support and resources, any progress that has been made surely will be lost.
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