18 images Created 18 Feb 2011
Cap-Haïtien and Shada
It is unfortunate that the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince so dominates news about Haiti, for nestled in the hills of the northwest is Haiti's second city, Cap-Haïtien. It is a beautiful city, much smaller and more peaceful than Port-au-Prince, featuring French colonial architecture resembling that of pre-Katrina New Orleans. However, as in even the most idyllic of settings in Haiti, poverty is eating away at the city's infrastructure and depriving Haitians of a quality of life to which they have a right. In the city's colourful streets, one finds industrious hardworking people as well as the tragic symptoms of socioeconomic breakdown. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Shada, Cap-Haïtien's largest slum where 40,000 people - all doing their best to move forward with their lives - live in unacceptable dysfunctional and unsanitary conditions.
