For 37 years politicians have made promises, but the bridge has never been rebuilt.

As evening smoothes the wrinkles of the Estere River, big fish are chasing little fish and little fish are jumping. A bank of cumulus clouds has drifted over the bare, rust-colored folds of the Black Mountains. Farmers with their hoes on their shoulders and women with woven baskets on their heads are walking barefoot down the rocky path towards their mud-brick houses with thatch or tin roofs. The cows look thin, but the ten-foot millet stalks bend with the weight of the grain.

At a dam with a sluice gate, a part of the river boils through a valve into a concrete channel, then runs down to water the livelihood of the Artibonite Valley, the rice fields where the farmers have been working.

A barefoot man in his fifties wearing a straw hat ambles over to talk. His name is Michel Pierre-Louis. He speaks deliberately in French and Creole and looks you straight in the eye as he talks.

The river, he says, is very "fragile," volatile in Creole. The rains have washed all the topsoil off the bones of the mountains down into the river, choking it with silt. Every May, June and July, it floods almost up to where his house stands, a couple of hundred yards beyond the far bank of the river.

There used to be a bridge a little downstream, but that was washed out in 1958, a year after Papa Doc Duvalier , the dictator, came to power.

For 37 years, Pierre-Louis says, politicians have made promises, but the bridge has never been rebuilt. Most of them don't even come to the countryside to talk to people like him. This year René Préval, the candidate of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party, came to speak in the town of Ti Rivyè (Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite in French) a few miles away. "We'll see if he does anything this time," he says.

Does he think the elections will bring any changes? "Si Bondye vle," If God wills it so. Does God want change? He pauses a moment. "Oui."

a farmer with millet stalks

Pierre-Louis farms a hectare (about 2.5 acres) of irrigated rice further downstream, as well as some millet and corn. His plot is larger than most in the valley.

His son and two daughters are off in the capital finishing high school--there is no local high school. In the countryside, it's unusual for farmers' children to finish school. Pierre-Louis is happy that his kids are getting an education. He's not sure what they'll do, but he doesn't think they'll come back to farming.

His wife died a few years ago, so he's left working the land by himself. He shows the deep calluses on his hands. Many of the local farmers work in konbit , the old African system of work sharing that remains popular in the Haitian countryside. Pierre-Louis prefers to go it alone. He belongs to the local peasant association, though, and works with them to maintain the irrigation system for the rice paddies.

Some years he makes a little, other years he loses. His biggest costs are fertilizer and credit. Each crop of rice here needs two applications of fertilizer, which is imported from the Dominican Republic For his two yearly crops, that runs him $360, a huge outlay here. He has to borrow to buy the fertilizer and insecticide, and the interest is another bite out of his income. This year, he says, the price of rice was better than last and the harvest was OK. But he lost a little anyway.

He says he's going to vote in the elections tomorrow, although it's been hard to get information about them out here in the country. He doesn't say for whom he's voting. Still, he'll ford the river and walk a few miles into town to cast his ballot.

But when he talks about that bridge, his face gets eloquent and his gestures get large. "At the height of the rainy season that water comes up to your neck, you have to hold your load over your head. Kids can't get across to go to school. Sometimes goats and cattle and even people get swept away. When are the politicians going to do something about that bridge?"

Early the next morning, I pass him in town. He pulls his voter registration card out of his shirt pocket, shows me the two fingerprints inked on it, and smiles broadly.

The morning

"The real problem in this town is that the U.S. dollar is too strong"

The moon and stars in Ti Rivyè are so bright on a clear December night that they cast a sharp shadow as you walk into town. There are no streetlights, not much electricity and not many private cars.

From the old fort on the hill above the town, the sun jumps up big and red and the landscape comes into focus. The oblique light catches flocks of white egrets, who skim over the low haze of woodsmoke from cooking fires and land in the mirrored green squares of the rice paddies. Tiny women carrying white plastic buckets on their heads move slowly toward the river to fetch water. An irrigation canal sluices water for the rice from a broad bend in the Artibonite River.

In the old fort, some boys are walking on top of the ramparts. Two old cannons lie askew in their gun ports. An older boy comes over to talk in Creole. He says he's seventeen, but looks 13. Still, he knows his Haitian history.

Dessalines , a leader of the slave revolt that freed Haiti in 1804, defended this fort against the French, he says. "'Cut off their heads and burn their houses,' that's what Dessalines said to do to the French," the boy says. "Then the Marines came in 1915. The blans always come and take things from Haiti, and then they leave us here with nothing."

For historical background on Haiti, see:
Haiti Archives, Americas History section of World History Archives
http://neal.ctstateu.edu/history/world_history/archives/haiti.html

He says his name is "John." Besides history, he studies French and chemistry in school. When he talks about his country's past, his face gets very serious and he seems older.

A little down the hill from the fort, multicolored flags whip in the dawn breeze. Stone walls, each stone painted a primary color, surround the Central de l'Association de Voduisants Nationaux (Center of the National Vodou Worshipers Association). In the couryard of the temple, a few men are chatting. They invite me in and show me the separate rooms for worship, one for the goddess Erzulie , one for each of the other loas and one for healing. The one for communicating with the dead has a small coffin on a stand.

an altar to a loa

The main priest is a tall, burly man who wears a white T-shirt that says "Leave Me Alone" in English. His temple, he says, is the biggest in the valley and one of the biggest in Haiti. He introduces me to Volmy de Rosier, a tall, well-dressed man who is president of the worshipers association.

For information on Haitian religion, see:
Vodoun (or Voodoo) Information Pages
http://www.vmedia.com/shannon/voodoo/voodoo.html

De Rosier is also the town treasurer and a leader of KONAKOM, a social-democratic party with a history of opposition to the dictatorship. Nationally, KONAKOM, got only a small percentage of the vote in the parliamentary and local elections earlier this year. But here, the city government is KONAKOM.

Recently, local leaders dropped their party's candidate and came out in favor of René Préval, who was endorsed by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide, an ex-priest, was elected with 67 percent of the vote in 1990, and his popularity transcends parties.

The real problem in this town is that the U.S. dollar is too strong, says de Rosier. The Artibonite Valley is the country's biggest rice producing area. Rice farmers have to buy a lot of imported fertilizers and pesticides in dollars. When the dollar goes up, their expenses go up with it.

They don't export rice, though, so they don't benefit from the weak Haitian gourde. And Haitian consumers still prefer "Miami rice" from the States: it's cheaper per pound when cooked because it expands more, and it contains fewer pebbles.

For a story on the rice economy, see:
Haitian rice farmers work against the Yankee dollar

Many vodouisants are also Christians, says de Rosier, and don't see any contradictions in practicing both religions. Vodou is growing again in the area after surviving the three years of coup d'état relatively unscathed.

houses in Ti Rivyč

The Catholic Church here, however, lived in fear of the military. Down the hill on the central square next to the church, the walls of the priest's house are pocked with high-caliber bullet holes.

Father Gustana Valcourt says that in the 1987 elections, the church agreed to hold the ballots for safekeeping overnight in his rectory. A group of macoutes , the death squads of the Duvalier dictatorship, came by and shot up the house during the night. No one was hurt, but the message was sent.

The previous priest had been threatened by the military and had to leave town in fear of his life. Father Valcourt kept a low profile, and was not threatened by the army or death squads.

For a story on repression of Lavalas, see:
Aristide's people: Give me the souls

"What we need more than anything now is continuity," he says. "I speak in favor of democracy from time to time in my homilies. But every time a new politician comes into power, he wants to sweep away everthing. Aristide is very popular among the people and he wants to bring change for them. But people have suffered so long, and we have economic problems that are more critical than our political ones. The farmers here have their associations, but their level of technology is low. They need to raise it, and for that we need stability and continuity."

The evening

"If they are going to learn to have faith in democracy, they will need to see some improvements in their lives."

In Ti Rivyè, the headquarters of the Bureau Electorale Communale (BEC), the equivalent of a county elections commission, is located in an old stone building called the Palace of 365 Doors. It was built by the Emperor Henri Christophe in 1818, and remodeled in the 1930s. It has a lot of tall Romanesque arches, but no visible electricity or telephones.

Hand-written lists and charts are posted on the walls along with colorful electoral posters printed nationally. All of the voter lists sent out to the polling places are hand-written as well. The BEC has a small manual typewriter, but it doesn't seem to get used much. There is one desk and no filing cabinets, so boxes of ballots and forms are stacked on the floor.

In the background rasps a two-way radio, the only communications with electoral authorities in the rest of the country. The BEC has no vehicles, so it has to depend on the police and the local United Nations peacekeeping force for transportation.

The Vice President of the BEC, Jean-Claude Civius, points to one of the charts on the wall. Some of the polling places in distant rural areas of the district are inaccessible even by four-wheel drive, he says. The BEC has worked out a detailed plan with the United Nations force to get the ballots out there and back in.

Officials at the polling places will get together local people for security, and carry the ballot boxes for miles on foot to rendez-vous places. The U.N. will meet them and bring the ballots in the rest of the way. It's all sketched out on the wall in a careful hand. Even if all runs smoothly, results will not come in from the most distant spots until well into the next day.

But the BEC doesn't always have enough money to cover the expenses of the polling place officials, who are mostly poor farmers. In some areas, there has been violence over land disputes, and this makes it hard for people to work together in the elections, he says.

posters on a door in the BEC

In the musty semi-darkness, Civius explains: "We have planted the seeds of democracy. We have to protect them from the wind and water them. We still have a lot more work to do, and it will take a long time. But in these elections, we are seeing the first flowers. We are not working for money. We are working so that the Haitian people will soon be able to enjoy the fruits of democracy."

Outside, the Palace of 365 Doors is surrounded by coils of razor wire. The BEC requested security from the U.N., and so six soldiers from Operational Detachment Alpha of the U.S. Special Forces and eight Hondurans are camped in the schoolyard next to the Palace. They watch who goes in and out of the Palace from a discreet distance.

Two solid young men in fatigues are perking a pot of coffee on a gas camp stove. "It's been kind of slow here. The bad guys have gone back into their shell while we're around. But the local police are starting to gain some confidence, they don't back off so much now when they're dealing with crowds."

These soldiers returned for their second tour of duty in Haiti in October. Will they have to stay beyond their scheduled withdrawal in February? "We really don't know. We just get a worm's eye view of things here. I wouldn't be surprised if we stay a little longer."

A couple of members of the new national police force, which replaced the now abolished army, are lounging on chairs in front of the Palace. They appear relaxed, and chat with elections officials and passers-by. A late-model blue Chevy pickup, the only police vehicle, pulls up with several more officers riding in back. They are wearing nice new uniforms, but carry only holstered revolvers. They have not yet been tested against the bad guys' heavier weapons.

A white jeep stops and two U.N. police, one from France and one from Mali, get out. Everything seems calm out there, says the Frenchman, no problems. The officer from Mali served in the first U.N. force to go into Rwanda. "After Rwanda, this is pretty easy," he says.

For information on the United Nations in Haiti, see:
United Nations Mission In Haiti - 11/30/94
http://ralph.gmu.edu/cfpa/peace/unmih.html

Canadian Forces College/Collčge des Forces canadiennes
Operation Pivot - United Nations Mission in Haiti
http://www1.cfcsc.dnd.ca/Op_Pivot/

A Latin American observer has watched the three rounds of elections since June. "The organization is still loose here, a little chaotic," he says. "But today's vote is better organized than September's and less tense." He shrugs and smiles. "Each time it gets a little better. Maybe they're learning."

Outside the razor wire, people hang around to watch GI-TV, the hottest show in town.

On the way through town in the dusk, a young man asks: "Why are you bothering to walk around and watch? Haven't you heard? Préval has already won."

At the Petite Martinière school, the polling place officials begin their count in a hot, stuffy classroom. The president is a young woman in her twenties. The other four officials and the six poll-watchers from different parties are all young, too.

Dark has fallen, and they have only one candle and one flashlight for their work. The handwritten voter list contains about four hundred names for this precinct. The poll workers remove the large paper ballots from the cardboard box and count them: twenty. All the votes are for Préval. There is one poll watcher for every two votes.

At a small house on the outskirts of town, about twenty American and Haitian observers gather to compare notes. Some of the people have travelled by jeep and on foot to polling places far back in the hills. Some of the polling places were in courtyards among huts with thatched roofs.

All over the turnout was low, with most precincts in the ten to twenty percent range. And everywhere, Préval won by overwhelming margins.

In a few spots, observers saw what looked like ballot stuffing. While they watched, voting was slow, but when they returned later, the turnout had passed eighty percent.

But in the great majority of polling places, they say, local people worked conscientiously for long hours under impossible conditions. There were minor technical glitches, but most voting went smoothly and peacefully. A few who have lived in the area say this was in striking contrast to the violence and fear that marked elections under military regimes of the past.

For an analysis of the elections, see:
The table and the assault rifle

Outside in the blackness, men leading burros and women with baskets on their head pass quietly on the rocky, dusty road. Haitian journalist Louis Thelisca has been observing the voting today. "People don't trust most politicians," he says, "because they've been betrayed by them over and over again for the last two centuries. Politicians can't speak to the peasants' in their language, that's why they don't believe them."

"I don't support any politician, myself. I support values and principles. If a politician supports these values and principles, then they get my vote. Even Aristide. All the people support him, I support him. But if he changes, if he stops working for people's needs, he loses my support."

"We have a very unique history here: we were the first free black republic, and we were always scorned and invaded by the world. The solutions we find will have to be different from the solutions of other countries."

"Democracy is not enough in itself. People are tired of voting, tired of suffering so terribly. If they are going to learn to have faith in democracy, they will need to see some improvements in their lives."

Peter Costantini is Seattle correspondent for Inter Press Service, an international wire service based in Amsterdam. He has previously covered elections in Mexico and Nicaragua.