A Childhood in the Middle of Chaos

Haiti, 2004

A world a child should never have known.

I was only four years old when I began to witness things no child should. At that age, I should have been learning about the world through play, discovering new things, and relying on adults to keep me safe. Instead, some of my earliest memories are of gunshots, dead bodies, hunger, fear, and violence.

I was born in Tabarre, Haiti, on October 2, 1999. My childhood unfolded in and around Port-au-Prince, where my mother, Marie Chausemene Joseph, worked as a street vendor to provide for her children. I did not understand the political situation in Haiti. I did not know why people carried guns, why men were being killed, or why the streets could become dangerous. I was too young to understand the forces shaping the country around me.

But I remember what I saw.

I remember the sounds of gunshots at night. I remember people screaming and crying over those who had been killed. I remember waking up hungry. I remember going with my mother to sell food. And I remember a particular day when I saw a man who had been shot in the head, with blood surrounding him.

These memories come from a time when Haiti itself was in profound turmoil. Looking back now, I can see what was happening in the country and understand that my childhood unfolded during one of the most difficult periods in Haiti's recent history.

But back then, I was not thinking about history. I was a little girl trying to get through the day.

Haiti in 2004: A country in crisis

To understand the world surrounding my childhood, it helps to understand what was happening in Haiti in 2004.

That year marked the two-hundredth anniversary of Haiti's independence. In 1804, formerly enslaved people and their allies defeated French colonial rule and established an independent nation. Haiti's revolution changed world history and made the country a symbol of freedom and resistance.

Yet the generations that followed inherited enormous challenges. France forced Haiti to agree to an indemnity in exchange for recognition of its independence, imposing a financial burden that drained resources for decades. Later, political instability, foreign intervention, dictatorship, economic inequality, and weak public institutions further complicated the country's development.

Haiti's history is not simply a story of poverty or violence. It is also a story of people who fought for freedom and continued working to build lives for their families despite extraordinary obstacles. Still, understanding that history helps explain why political crises could have such devastating consequences for ordinary people.

In February 2004, an armed rebellion that began in Gonaïves spread across the country. Haiti already faced deep political divisions over President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his government. On February 29, Aristide left the country amid a disputed and highly controversial political transition. An interim government took power, and an international military force was deployed. In June, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH, began its operations. The mission was tasked with helping restore

However, the presence of international forces did not mean that ordinary Haitians could suddenly return to peaceful lives. Armed groups remained active, political tensions continued, and the government's ability to maintain security was limited. Human Rights Watch described 2004 as a year of turmoil, lawlessness, and humanitarian disaster.

Later that year, Port-au-Prince experienced another surge of political and gang violence. Reports described attacks on civilians, shootings, killings, and the disruption of everyday life. Markets and other public services were affected, leaving people struggling to carry on ordinary activities amid insecurity.

This was the broader historical reality surrounding the memories I carry from that period.

I cannot say that every gunshot I remember was connected to a particular political event, nor can I identify the people responsible for the man I remember seeing. My memories do not provide all those answers. What I can say is that the violence I remember existed within a country experiencing serious armed conflict and instability.

For adults reading about these events, they may appear as dates in a report, a change in government, or another chapter in Haiti's political history. For a four-year-old child, the consequences were much more immediate. History was not something happening far away in a government building. It was part of the world I woke up in, ate in, walked through, and tried to survive.

The morning I saw a man who had been shot.

One of my earliest memories begins after a night of barely any sleep.

I woke up hungry and told my mother I wanted something to eat. Hunger and thirst were familiar to me. I was a small child, and I did not have the power to change my circumstances. I depended on the adults around me and whatever food they could find or provide.

Then I remember hearing people yelling.

I saw a man who had been shot in the head. There was blood around him.

I was only four years old.

I did not have the understanding of an adult who could explain what had happened, recognize the circumstances surrounding the shooting, or make sense of the violence. I saw what was in front of me. I saw a human being who had been violently injured, and I remember the blood.

The fact that this memory is from my early childhood is deeply disturbing. At four years old, I should not have had to encounter the aftermath of a shooting while going about my day. A child should not have to begin learning about death through violence in the street.

Yet this is one of the things I remember.

The world did not pause because a man had been shot. People were yelling, life continued around us, and my mother still had to find a way to provide for her children. Our family's needs did not disappear because the streets were dangerous.

My mother was a street vendor in Port-au-Prince. She sold food, including cornmeal, rice, and vegetables. This was how she supported her family. She had children to feed, and she had to keep going.

I went with her to her vending spot and helped her.

When I think about that, I think about the contrast between what a four-year-old should have been doing and what my days could involve. I was not simply watching the world from a safe distance. I was alongside my mother as she worked to make a living in a place where violence could become part of the day's reality.

I also remember eating mud cookies.

Hunger is not an abstract idea when you are a child experiencing it yourself. It is a physical feeling. It is wanting food and needing to eat. Adults may discuss poverty through statistics, income levels, and economic conditions, but a hungry child experiences it much more simply: she wants something to eat.

My mother worked to provide food, but our circumstances were difficult. Her hard work did not mean every day was easy or that every need could be met.

I remember the city being in chaos. As it got dark, we went home because being outside after dark was dangerous.

That detail has stayed with me. Darkness was not simply the end of the day. It was a time when we needed to be more careful about where we were and whether we could safely remain outside.

The day, as I remember it, moved from hunger to the sight of a man who had been shot, to accompanying my mother to work, to eating mud cookies, and finally to returning home before dark.

I didn't know how to make sense of these events. They were things that happened in the life I was living.

When the streets were not the only place of danger

The violence surrounding my childhood was not limited to the streets.

My father was an alcoholic. He got drunk every night, and he beat my mother and the children. How badly he beat us varied depending on how drunk he was.

A home should be a place where children can rest, turn to their parents for comfort, and be protected from danger. But when an adult is violent, the home can become another source of fear.

I grew up in a world where danger existed both inside and outside the home. The streets could expose me to gunfire and death, while my own family life included violence from a person who should have been protecting us.

My mother was trying to provide for her children by selling food. At the same time, she was dealing with a husband who drank and became violent. Those two realities existed together. She was working to keep the family going, but she could not make every danger disappear.

As a child, I could not have understood why my family lived the way we did. I couldn't analyze my father's behavior or understand the full consequences of our circumstances. I depended on the adults in my life, even when they didn't keep me safe.

And then there was the sexual abuse.

When I was four years old, my father and one of his friends sexually abused me. I remember being told not to scream. I remember being made to perform sexual acts, the physical sensations, and the blood. I remember my father telling me that I liked it.

Those are painful memories to carry, and the words he used matter because of the confusion they could place on a child.

I was four years old. I could not consent to what those adults did to me. Whatever physical sensations I experienced, whatever I understood or did not understand, and whatever questions I later had about my reactions, none of that made the abuse my fault. A child's body can respond to physical stimulation without that response meaning desire, agreement, or consent.

The responsibility belonged to the adults who abused me.

I am including this because it is part of the truth about my childhood. I do not want to describe the conditions around me while leaving out what happened to me in the place where I should have been protected. The political situation in Haiti provides context for the world I was growing up in. Still, it does not explain away or excuse the violence I experienced within my own family.

These were separate forms of harm, and both belong to my story.

The man I saw in the street was a reminder of the violence taking place around me. The abuse at home was a different kind of violence, committed by people who had access to me and who should never have hurt me.

I was too young to separate these experiences or understand what they might mean for my future. I only knew the life I was living.

The truth about the world I knew

Looking back, I see a little girl navigating circumstances far beyond her control.

I remember hunger. I remember my mother working. I remember gunshots and people crying over the dead. I remember seeing a man who had been shot in the head. I remember how dangerous it was to be outside after dark. I remember the violence my father brought into our home and the sexual abuse I endured as a child.

I also understand now that my memories unfolded during a period when Haiti was struggling with political conflict, armed violence, and insecurity. In 2004, those problems were not merely theoretical. They were documented realities affecting communities and families across the country.

But I don't want my childhood reduced to a description of Haiti's political crisis. I want readers to understand the human reality behind the history.

A report can say that armed groups controlled streets, that civilians were killed, or that a government struggled to maintain order. It cannot tell my story for me. It cannot describe exactly what I remember from the morning I saw that man, what it was like to be hungry, or what I experienced at home.

Those parts of the story belong to me.

As an adult, I can look back and recognize that the circumstances I experienced were not things a child should have had to accept as normal. I can understand that a four-year-old cannot be expected to make sense of violence, protect herself from adults, or comprehend the political crisis surrounding her.

At the time, I was simply a child living through my own life.

I am writing about these memories because they happened. I don't want to make them more dramatic than they were, and I don't want to make them sound less serious than they were. I want to describe them honestly, with the context that helps readers understand the world in which they occurred.

In 2004, Haiti was a country in crisis. I was a four-year-old girl in that country, living my own crises on the streets and at home.

The history explains part of the setting. My memories explain what that world looked like from where I stood.

And that is where this story begins.