QWANZ

VENANTE LINO, a small-business owner who lost nearly everything in the devastating earthquake in January, stood in line here along with dozens of other impeccably dressed women, all waiting to pay the latest monthly installment on the emergency loans they received to rebuild their businesses....   >>>

VENANTE LINO, a small-business owner who lost nearly everything in the devastating earthquake in January, stood in line here along with dozens of other impeccably dressed women, all waiting to pay the latest monthly installment on the emergency loans they received to rebuild their businesses.



Mrs. Lino approached a folding table in the courtyard of one of the few remaining buildings in this town, located near the quake’s epicenter. She emptied her pockets of cash and gave all $40 to the loan officer.



“Every day, I wake up and ask God to make this better. Many days, I don’t think he’s listening,” says Mrs. Lino, a 63-year-old grandmother who lives under a tarp in her backyard with three grown children and four grandchildren, surviving on the meager income from a small food and cooking-oil business she reopened this summer with loan money. “Without this help, I don’t know where my family would be.”



Here in this once-bustling coastal town about 20 miles west of Port-au-Prince, more than 30,000 people — a third of the population — died as a result of the quake. Throughout Haiti, the toll may be as high as 250,000, and the economic effects have been staggering. The country’s economy is expected to contract by as much as 9 percent this year, and more than a million residents live in tent cities. And an outbreak of cholera, as well as a hurricane early this month, have left the nation even more vulnerable.