A busload of Haitians prepares to flee the capital, Port-au-Prince, for the countryside a week after the Jan. 12 earthquake. Already-poor relatives who took in the displaced now wonder how they'll afford the seeds to continue their subsistence farming. (Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times / January 19, 2010)
Reporting from Saint-Marc, Haiti -
But the exodus of an estimated 480,000 people from the capital has flooded dirt-road villages with city folk who need to eat and have little interest in hoe-and-spade work. Anyway, there were already too few farm jobs to go around.
"I don't go out. I don't hear music. I don't see the things I'm used to seeing," said bored-looking city dweller Richemononde Cius, 27, the sister of Roselaine. She and other family members piled into a bus headed for the country two days after the earthquake, which split the family house in Port-au-Prince, killing a cousin.
As a child, Richemononde Cius spent summers with her farming relatives, but she never wanted to live in the country. She now bides her time waiting for ideas from her fiance in Boston on how to join him there.
The 10 newcomers pitch in as they can, then stay outside in the dirt yard as late as possible before bunking down on concrete floors covered wall to wall with people.
Roselaine Cius said that feeding the arrivals -- they call themselves "deportees" -- means she has less food to turn into plates of rice, beans and bits of chicken to sell for $1.75 at her tin-roof hut. Most of her customers are in the same boat, though, with fewer able to buy.
"Every morning I have to think about where to get food for all these people," said her 53-year-old husband. "I can't let them go hungry."
With funds dwindling, he and his wife have yet to buy seed for the spring crop of beans, maize and rice.
Half a mile up the road, Luckner Monrinvil and his family have taken in 10 relatives from Port-au-Prince in two weather-beaten shanties.
The difficulty of finding something to eat has brought constant anxiety. A few spoonfuls of rice or a bit of boiled breadfruit, fortified with pieces of processed fish, may be all anyone gets.
The recent harvest of peppers and sweet potatoes was a flop, a fact Monrinvil attributes to the earth's trembling. He has no cash for seeds.
Monrinvil, 53 years old but taut as a teenager, offers to show a visitor his half-acre field, a hike of a mile or so. Under a scorching afternoon sun, he sets out past verdant stands of corn and a wide irrigation channel that also serves as a swimming pool and bathtub for residents.
But about halfway, Monrinvil reconsiders and asks to turn back. He is feeling the first pangs of hunger, and they remind him that he lacks a plan for food this day.
There are so many mouths to feed.
ken.ellingwood @latimes.com
"I don't go out. I don't hear music. I don't see the things I'm used to seeing," said bored-looking city dweller Richemononde Cius, 27, the sister of Roselaine. She and other family members piled into a bus headed for the country two days after the earthquake, which split the family house in Port-au-Prince, killing a cousin.
As a child, Richemononde Cius spent summers with her farming relatives, but she never wanted to live in the country. She now bides her time waiting for ideas from her fiance in Boston on how to join him there.
The 10 newcomers pitch in as they can, then stay outside in the dirt yard as late as possible before bunking down on concrete floors covered wall to wall with people.
Roselaine Cius said that feeding the arrivals -- they call themselves "deportees" -- means she has less food to turn into plates of rice, beans and bits of chicken to sell for $1.75 at her tin-roof hut. Most of her customers are in the same boat, though, with fewer able to buy.
"Every morning I have to think about where to get food for all these people," said her 53-year-old husband. "I can't let them go hungry."
With funds dwindling, he and his wife have yet to buy seed for the spring crop of beans, maize and rice.
Half a mile up the road, Luckner Monrinvil and his family have taken in 10 relatives from Port-au-Prince in two weather-beaten shanties.
The difficulty of finding something to eat has brought constant anxiety. A few spoonfuls of rice or a bit of boiled breadfruit, fortified with pieces of processed fish, may be all anyone gets.
The recent harvest of peppers and sweet potatoes was a flop, a fact Monrinvil attributes to the earth's trembling. He has no cash for seeds.
Monrinvil, 53 years old but taut as a teenager, offers to show a visitor his half-acre field, a hike of a mile or so. Under a scorching afternoon sun, he sets out past verdant stands of corn and a wide irrigation channel that also serves as a swimming pool and bathtub for residents.
But about halfway, Monrinvil reconsiders and asks to turn back. He is feeling the first pangs of hunger, and they remind him that he lacks a plan for food this day.
There are so many mouths to feed.
ken.ellingwood @latimes.com
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