The Backbone of Her Country — Haiti is a country of cash markets run by millions of women who hold the country together, with no support from government and little from NGOs. They are the women you see in Haitian market…

“Hello Patricia,” the email began, “Certainly you have received a mail or a call from Gislaine who is Robert’s wife…In fact it’s not good news… Robert is dead … .” It was August, 2008 and barely two weeks had passed since I’d shared lunch in Martinique with Airhitch founder Robert…

The tragic irony of Peigne’s trajectory and the random act of violence that befell him is that he had never wanted to leave Haiti in the first place. It took Roberto Peigne 13 years to become a doctor in Haiti and an instant to end his life; not in his…

WAYNESBORO Va. Brenda Johnson answers my knock on her half-opened screen door and welcomes me in, a stranger, without a second’s hesitation. Her single-wide trailer makes a dim, air-conditioned retreat from the 90-degree heat wicking off the park’s asphalt and metal surfaces. “Momma was born across the mountain. Daddy was…

Haiti is a country of cash markets run by millions of women known as madam sara and ti machan. These women hold the country‘s informal economy — its only economy — together, with little support from government or NGOs. They are celebrated in Haitian market paintings, but the real women behind the canvases are unknown. In 2013 I traveled with a camera and anthropologist Talitha Stam into the mountains above Kenscoff to observe their work. Our guide was Madame Gerard, a madam sara in her 50s, who had been buying and reselling since she was ten.

1. Men at work “Man, I wish the ocean would roll over this place and wipe it clean.” FORT PIERCE, Fl. Newberry is tall and tan with small eyes in a pie-dish face. He extends a slim hand inside the convenience store on Avenue D. On Sunday at 6 a.m., the store’s lone light…

Growing up, there were reasons why I wanted to fly. “When I’m blue, I look out the window at the birds and think, ‘Fly high, little sparrow. Fly above it all.’” My mother wrote those words to me from her library where she tapped out her weekly food page, her…

FISHERSVILLE — She was a toddler when a family member poured boiling water on her head, scalding her to within inches of her life. Back then her name was Galina Nickanova, and the authority that took her from her mother wasn’t Virginia. It was Russia.

ST. THOMAS — When Winston LeDee saw a Coast Guard vessel heading toward his boat at 6:30 in the morning, the lobsterman didn’t think twice until it was on top of him, and he and the crew dove into the water just before it ploughed through their middle and continued…