Ti Mako was a guy who worked for tap-tap drivers, filling the trucks with passengers. He got eight cents for each truck. With that money he took care of his wife and children. One day, chaos broke out in the country, and trucks were burned. People were calling for Aristide’s return. All the drivers decided to go on strike for three weeks.

Poor Ti Mako, an honest and respectable guy, loved his wife and children very, very much. During the first week, he didn’t go to work. He was so well known for paying pay his debts that people sold to him on credit for a week. Ti Mako discovered that he couldn’t watch his wife and children suffer. He had to rent a wheelbarrow from Mr. Anol for thirty cents a day.

On the first day, there was so much shooting that he only made seventy cents. He gave Mr. Anol the thirty cents rental, and gave his wife the other forty cents to buy breadfruit that she could boil to give the children. They all went to bed. The next day, Ti Mako took the wheelbarrow again and went to work. The shooting was worse; there were even more bullets. Ti Mako couldn’t go on. He returned home without a cent.

When he explained to Mr. Anol, Anol was very angry. He was counting on the thirty cents to buy a little rum to drink to help him sleep because he was terribly afraid of the shooting. He took back the wheelbarrow to see whether he could find someone else to rent it to. He wanted his thirty cents of rum every day.

Ti Mako found no other work. The whole family went to bed hungry. They spent three days that way.
The fourth day: Ti Mako couldn’t watch his children cry. He didn’t know what to do.

There was a tailor who lived close to him. The tailor left his scissors on a wall below his balcony. Ti Mako stood below the balcony thinking about what he could do to give his wife and children something to eat.
He saw the scissors. He walked up slowly and took them.

He went home and spoke to his wife: “Here are our neighbor’s scissors. I stole them. Don’t tell anyone. You and the children can’t just die of hunger.” He sold the scissors for $ 1.30, and they used the money to make a meal.
Things changed. He got back to work. He had a dream, and he used the dream to win the lottery. He won a lot of money. But he was very unhappy because of the scissors he stole. He told he wife that he didn’t know how to return the scissors to his neighbor.

He said that he’d wait until his neighbor had a problem and that he’d help him then. That would make up for the scissors.

A few days later, he was arguing with his wife in their home. His wife went out onto the balcony, and said, “I know what you are: a scissors-thief.” The tailor heard her. He asked her whether it was her husband who stole his scissors. Ti Mako felt such shame that he wanted to kill himself. He waited for a few days and then said to his wife, “Let’s go to the beach.” He puy her on an innertube and they went far off into deep water. He left her there and departed.

What do you think of Ti Mako? What do you think of his wife? What do you think of a country that going badly?