Like the country itself, Burial Road stretches between those who have everything and those with nothing. Even modest funeral parlors offer elaborate services starting at $1,100 — far beyond the means of most Haitians, who live on $2 a day or less.
No matter how rich in love they may be, most people can’t pay those fees. And so, the bodies of their sons and mothers wait here so long that their faces melt, their skin unravels. They are stacked one atop another in gruesome, wet piles that resemble medieval paintings of purgatory.
The men who have finally come to their rescue aren’t friends or relatives. They don’t know their individual stories. But they recognize poverty.
“They didn’t have a chance,” says Raphaël Louigene, the burial team’s stocky, soft-spoken leader. “They spent their lives in misery, they died in misery.”
Mr. Louigene and the other men work for the St. Luke Foundation for Haiti, a charitable organization started in 2000 to help the country’s poorest.
Haiti: The Heroes of Burial Road @riotta @radio3mondo https://t.co/efvwFwkc2m via @nytimes
— A. Cafasso Vitale (@Alcavi) December 14, 2017