Rural scenes of Haiti's Central Plateau

A blurry snapshot but the best I could do after a busy day...it's about a three-hour drive to Hinche, a town in Haiti's Central Plateau, where Mercy Corps is starting up programs to help those who fled Port-au-Prince post-January 12th, and to also assist the rural families who took them in. These families were barely getting by in the first place, so much help is needed here.

The plateau is not flat, but punctuated with steep knolls. Since the rains have come, the landscape is green, but it's true, there are not many trees, it's been greatly deforested.

A few notes scrawled along the bumpy road:

Two women sitting over basins, doing their wash in the middle of a limestone field.
Two boys in a tree in a middle of a bend of the road, seemingly far from anywhere.
A woman alongside the road, balancing her purse on her head.
A thick, fecund smell of earth, combined with smoke.
Muddy rivers where people are doing their wash.
Far below, where the gorgeous Artibonite River has been dammed, men gliding wooden kayaks across the water.
A woman in a long jean skirt walking a bike across a field.
Men and boys carrying hoes, snacking on mangoes.
Houses next to the road often have a small field of banana trees and outdoor kitchens, some have cactus fences.
A young man in an orange t-shirt, seated on a rock in on the side of a steep hill, a notebook balanced on his knees, writing.
Towering cumulus clouds in the sky.
A boy in a blue shirt holding two water jugs, peering over an edge where the earth drops away. His house, a ways behind him. Below, a pool of brown water; he is on an errand.