Nan tan grangou, patat pa gen po

In times of hunger, the sweet potato has no skin - Haitian Proverb

There is always a measure of truth in a proverb and the Haitian people, as I understand it, have an abundance of proverbs. In times of hunger, the sweet potato has no skin, they say. The expression fails to capture the desperation Haitians have been experiencing over recent months.

Of course you cannot afford to be choosy in times of hunger. That goes without saying. In the UK, we have be reading about violent protests in Port-au-Prince , but we are not getting a picture of what those protests are really about.

Haiti is so far away. We are hearing gun fire rather than the voices of the people and that makes it difficult to feel any real sense of sympathy or solidarity with them.

Few news reports give a balanced appraisal of the hunger in Haiti. I have found one that comes close: