Something in the water

On the bank of the Méyé River, women wash laundry as children fill jerry cans with water for bathing and cooking. Clothes are laid out to dry on rocks that dot the river’s edge as the children begin lugging their family’s water supply home. Rolling dry mountains begging for rain etch the background.

Behind the barbed wire that runs along the eastern side of the river – a tributary of the Artibonite, Haiti’s longest waterway – blue and white buildings lie abandoned. This is the former base for Nepali peacekeepers who between 2004 and 2017 were part of the UN’s Stabilization Mission in Haiti, also known by its French acronym MINUSTAH. Now, save for some splashes and laughs coming from the river, the compound is eerily quiet. It is difficult to imagine that this is where, just