No one said that rebuilding Haiti would be easy. Late in 1994, the Caribbean country's military dictatorship stepped down and former Catholic priest Jean Bertrand Aristide returned from exile in the United States to the presidency. Now, however, Haiti once more seems to be running toward national ruin. Public restrooms are any open spaces on the street.
Rivers are like cesspools around gigantic mounds of garbage.
The countryside is denuded of 90 percent of its forests and 50 percent of its topsoil. Haiti's literacy rate is stuck at 20 percent. Up to 85 percent of the people are jobless. Political assassinations are reported regularly, the police still commit human rights abuses, criminals rule the streets, and nothing works. While pessimists jump off the country's bandwagon almost daily, there are still reasons to hope.