 It is on the same island as the Dominican Republic (Hispanolia)  Half of the island was owned by the Spanish and half of it was owned by France  Population just under 10 million people  Capital city = Port au Prince  Haiti has two official languages: French and Haitian Creole

 47% of Haiti's population is illiterate  There are not enough public schools  Many kids are forced to attend private schools which charge between $100 and $200 a year per student  For poor families, these fees are out of reach, and their children do not attend school

 Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere  80% live below the international poverty line of $2 a day  54% are living in abject poverty surviving on just $1.25 a day  Very high infant mortality rate  Life expectancy = 62 years (In Canada it is 81 years)  More than two thirds of Haitians lack formal jobs  Cite de Soleil is their biggest slum

 The Cite de Soleil slum

 About half the population practices some form of voodoo  Voodoo is one of the official religions of Haiti, it is a mix of old African religions and Christianity  They believe in God, but also in a multitude of spirits that live in everything  During religious rites, believers sometimes enter a trancelike state

 In 1492 Christopher Columbus landed on the island  The island remained under Spanish control until 1698, when it was split into two separate colonies (one Spanish, one French)  The white colonizers made a lot of money in sugar, rum, coffee, cotton, and the slave trade

 There was a slave revolt in 1791  Then there was a 13 year civil war  The slave armies claimed victory over the French in 1803  In 1804 they declared themselves free  They re-named the country ‘Haiti’, or ‘Ayiti’ in Creole, meaning “mountainous country”

 Another civil-war 1807 – 1820  The Spanish tried to re-conquer them  American Marines occupied the country from

 Dr. Francois Duvalier was President in 1957  The corrupt Duvalier, better known as ‘Papa Doc’, changed the constitution to make himself ‘President-for-Life’  Tens of thousands of Haitians were killed or exiled on his orders  He died in 1971, and his 19 year old son, Jean Claude, became President  “Baby-Doc” was even worse than his father, killing and torturing thousands

 12 January, 2010  Catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake  52 aftershocks  Death toll 100, ,000  250,000 houses and 30,000 buildings collapsed or were severely damaged

 Many things exacerbated the death toll: ◦ Poverty and national debt ◦ Lots of other countries won’t trade with them ◦ Poor housing conditions  It led to the worst outbreak of cholera in recent history  From , it killed 8,231 Haitians and hospitalized hundreds of thousands more while spreading to Dominican Republic and Cuba

 The soil erosion and deforestation have caused severe flooding  In 2004 floods killed over 3,000 people on Haiti's southern border  Today less than one percent of Haiti remains forested

 In 2014, the country received 1,250,000 tourists (mostly from cruise ships), and the industry generated US$200 million in 2014  There are periodic travel advisories warning us not to go  Several big hotels were opened in 2014  Haitian Carnival, Jacmel Carnival