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Article: Dancing in Haiti: come for the beaches, the culture and art.(ESSAY)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- July 20, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I landed on the steaming tarmac in Port-au-Prince ready for a week of heart-wrenching exposure to grinding poverty. This was Haiti, a nation battered by years of political violence, AIDS and environmental devastation. A week in the Caribbean in April at first blush might sound like vacation, but I was in Haiti, not Barbados, and part of a delegation of Americans examining the environmental crisis and grass-roots responses to it, not a tourist on a cruise.
"Haiti?" Everyone had said, their voices rising with alarm when I mentioned my April plans. "You're going to Haiti?"
I collected my bags, shuffled through customs and back into the brutal sun in a ...