Earlier this year, Haiti was hit again by political unrest, and the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was driven from power.
Front-page photos showed street violence and people so hungry they were mixing mud and flour to bake bread. The international community promised aid, the U.S. quickly helped install an interim government, the U-N sent peacekeepers, and just when people thought it couldn’t get any worse in Haiti, it did.
Last week, rain from Hurricane Jeanne buried the city of Gonaives in mud, killing more than 1600 people and leaving an estimated quarter-of-a-million homeless.
Looking at and beyond this latest disaster, award-winning novelists Edwidge Danticat and Madison Smartt Bell, who know and love this island nation, talk about finding hope for Haiti, when it seems the people there have nothing left to lose.
Guests:
Guy Delva, Reporter for Reuters News
Edwidge Danticat, author of “The Dew Breaker”, and “The Farming of The Bones”
Madison Smartt Bell, author of a trilogy of novels about Hiati including the award-cinning “All Souls Rising”;Dr. Louise Ivers, clinician for Partners in Health in central health