Laumène has been struggling for a long time. She and her first husband lived with their two kids just up the mountain from where she lives now, but poverty drove the man to leave for the Dominican Republic to try to earn a living. Not long after he left, she heard that he had been killed by a gang of livestock thieves.

She and her children moved in with her parents when her late husband’s siblings drove her off the family’s land. She stayed with her parents until she became partner of a man who already had a wife. He built a shack for her on a corner of his land, and that is where the home she built with the CLM program’s support now stands. She had more children with this second man, but as his secondary wife, she could never count on his full support. When it was time to graduate, he was not the one she invited to enjoy the celebration with her. Instead, she asked her daughter to come from Port au Prince. The younger woman came in the role of her mother’s godmother, appearing at the celebration with a graduation gift in hand, her one duty as godmother.

Laumène appreciated the present, and she enjoyed the graduation, but the certificate was the most important thing about graduation to her. “I’ll always be able to look at it to think about the program I was part of.”

In many ways, she flourished as part of the program. She is especially happy about her new home. Completing it was, she says, the most difficult challenge that the program put before her, but also the most important. Having a home is like have a bank account. “It is,” she explains, “what provides whatever else you need.” She could never have nice things because rain would ruin anything she tried to keep in her house. Since she finished building her home, however, she added the touches she always wanted: a table, tablecloths, and curtains. She now feels really comfortable for the first time.

Some program members are reluctant to join the program initially, or even if they join they doubt that it will lead to anything good. But Laumène insists that she never had any hesitation. “If someone calls you, either they have something to give you or something to say to you.”

She was happy with her case manager, Martinière, from the very start. “Other women said he seemed too mean, but if I had had another case manager it would have been a great loss. Martinière never tired of hiking to see me or of talking to me once he got here. He’s really been a father to me and the other women.”

When she talks about the progress she’s made in the program, she talks about more than her new home. “Now I have chickens, ducks, turkeys, and goats in my front yard.” And her pig just had piglets. She’d like to take another step forward and buy a cow. She thinks she can afford one. But she’s cautious. She’s heard rumors that there are neighbors jealous of her progress. She’s heard that they say they’ll poison a cow if she buys one. So, she’s holding off for now. She’s been talking with one neighbor, another successful CLM member who’s facing the same problem, and they are trying to figure something out.

But beyond her home and her livestock, she talks about having money when she needs it. “When you have money, you are close to anywhere you want to go.” She had to sell off one of her goats to pay the last installment of the loan she took out from her Village Savings and Loan Association. She had borrowed the money to finish work on her house and pay a balance she owed to her children’s school. But she chose a goat that had been refusing to nurse its young. It had little long-term value for her. And she had money left over after the sale to invest in her farming.

Rosemitha thought that the certificate she received was the most important thing about the graduation ceremony. It showed that “we did good work, so we finished the program well.”

But she pivoted almost immediately from talk about her certificate to talk about her frustrations. “I would have made more progress if my livestock had done better.” Her goats’ first two litters died. The two she now has just had another litter of two kids each, and though one of the four kids died, the others seem healthy, so she can be cautiously hopeful. She and her husband also have a pig that gave birth to six piglets. And if they survive they will provide a windfall.

As she talked about the livestock, and about other aspects of her experience in the program, she was frequently interrupted by her husband. He would jump in, then I would ask her to continue. But his interruptions would change her focus, adding to the confusion that my questions sometimes initially provoke. He’d insist that she didn’t know anything about their livestock, that he was the one who took care of the animals.

People call him Patekwe, which means “did not believe.” Things were a lot easier for the couple before Patekwe’s mother died. Her illness and then funeral were a major expense, setting them back on the path forward they had started to trace. It cost them their entire first littler of piglets, money that could have enabled them to achieve their first objective already. They might have been able to afford a small cow. And the older woman played an important role in the household. She was a reliable babysitter for the children and a good friend to both her daughter-in-law and her son. Patekwe complains, “Now one of us always has to be here with the baby. If Rosemitha leaves, I have to stay home.”

The couple’s plans moving forward are a little unclear. Two of their three children no longer live with them. Both Rosemitha and Patekwe brought children into the relationship, one each, but his daughter now lives with a cousin in Lakolin, near the hospital where his mother died. The cousin encouraged him to leave the girl with her while the older woman was sick, arguing that she’d have better access to an education. Patekwe visits regularly, and he’s happy with his daughter’s new situation. Rosemitha’s boy has moved in with her father, who lives nearby. Rosemitha is glad to have someone living with the older man, but her decision was also affected by her sense that her boy had grown less welcome with Patekwa than he had been when he was a younger brother and a playmate for his girl.

Rosemitha says she wants to return to small commerce, and she knows she can sell a goat to get the money to do so, but neither she nor her husband think it’s time to do that yet. And she and Patekwe will have to decide who will look after the child if she starts going to the market regularly. His mother’s boyfriend would spend time with them at first after his mother died, but he’s moved on to another woman. They aren’t seeing him much anymore.

In addition, what Rosemitha has told me in the past, but will not say in front of Patekwe, is that it is hard for her to sustain a business around him. When he is focused on farming their land – he inherited the plot above their home from his mother, and has been renting another for a long time – he doesn’t have time to earn cash by working for other farmers. So, he turns to any cash she might have to manage his expenses. When he isn’t busy, he likes to hang out in the market in Kaledan, down the road from where they live, and that involves having money in his pocket for gambling and snacks.

Idalia liked everything about the graduation, and she thinks it is an important part of the program. She explains that “it is something everyone can enjoy. As long as you march straight, you’ll graduate.”

She graduated with six goats, including two young kids, but she already used one to make an investment. Her husband was preparing their land for planting, and they needed the money to buy seeds. The goat sold for 3000 gourds, or about $48, and she was able to buy seven large cans of beans.

Her boar is starting to grow. She bought a small one when she collected the money that was owed her for the meat from a goat that died. It wasn’t much, so she had to buy the smallest, least expensive pig she could find. Now she’s eyeing the right moment to sell it and replace it with a sow that can give her offspring.

Her family’s medical issues persist, however. Unfortunately, our team was not very successful at helping her learn how she should follow up. One of her sons was diagnosed with a hernia, but he missed the follow-upappointment at the Mibalè hospital. Idalia says that he was waiting for a phone call, but the boy lives in Mibalè, near the hospital, and he knew the date.

Her youngest son’s situation is more complicated, but also not good. He has a condition that leads him to produce too many red blood cells. His blood ends up getting too little oxygen, so he’s short of breath all the time. The only treatment is regular removal of some of his blood, and we helped Idalia get him started down that road. It appeared to help. But Idalia and her husband are convinced that “they took too much blood,” so she isn’t bringing him back for further procedures. And the boy is very short of breath again.

And things are only going to get more difficult. Idalia and her husband are committed to leaving Gwo Labou, where they’ve been living since just before our team met them. They want to return to Jinpaye, but Jinpaye is even farther into the mountains, with more difficult access to care, than even Gwo Labou. Even if Idalia was inclined to get her boy the treatment he needs for his blood condition, she wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere near where she plans to go.

The family had originally fled from Jinpaye when they got into a conflict with neighbors about the rightful owner of some plantains. When we met them, they were living in a small space within a cousin’s home. The cousin himself eventually gave them the very small plot of land they built their house on.

But they feel as though they have no future in Gwo Labou. The cousin who gave them land to build on clearly wants them gone now that the program is over. Last year, he let them plant a very small garden around their house. This year, he planted his own crops to within ten feet of their front door. And with no land to farm, life is simply too expensive. Idalia’s husband has taken to traveling back and forth to Jinpaye to farm their land there, but that means he has to spend days at a time away from his family.

They don’t yet have the money they’ll need for the move. Their old house needs extensive repairs. But between their livestock and the crops they are planting in Jinpaye, they expect to be ready by the beginning of next year.

Louisimène was happy about the way graduation went. “They gave us jerseys, they welcomed us warmly, and we sang very well.”

She came down with a fever right after graduation, and she was still feeling sick a week later, but she was cheerful as she spoke of the day and of the completion of her CLM experience. “Everything they gave us is really ours. They are leaving, but they didn’t take back anything that they gave us.” It was as though she had doubted whether what she received was really hers even until the last moments.

She looks back at her experience with a strong sense of how much her life has changed. “I never had any kind of business activity of my own. I lived in misery. I was drenched by rain. I lived badly. I don’t live badly anymore.”

Even growing up, her life had been hard. She never knew her father. He died before she was born. Her mother remarried, but she was in the couple’s way. Her uncle decided to take her, and he’s the one who raised her. “He didn’t have much. He couldn’t send me to school. But I was rarely hungry.”

She’s been struggling to take good care of the livestock she acquired since she joined CLM. One of her goats had a kid, but her pig died. “I need to save enough money to replace it.” She bought a pair of turkeys, but someone stole one of them. The one she still has is nesting, though, so she may have more soon.

But Louisimène’s most important activity is farming. She and her husband work together. They lost their last crop of beans when the rains came at the wrong moment for them, but they have a small field of plantains that is producing well. It gives them something to eat, but also something to sell.

Having something to sell is important because Louisimène doesn’t want to get into small commerce, and she and her husband need cash sometimes, especially since their girl is finally in school. Keeping her in school has been a struggle. She missed some time when her school fees were overdue. But Louisimène is up to date with the payments now, and she’ll be able to send her girl back to school as soon as the Easter vacation is over.

In the meantime, Louisimène is planning her next planting. She and her husband are getting their field ready for a new crop of black beans, which they will plant in the coming days for harvest in June. She’s pinning her hopes to the upcoming crop. “The bean money will be enough for me to buy the pig I want as long as I don’t waste it.”

Miramène’s journey through CLM was somewhat unusual. She left Gwo Labou, where she lives and where she was part of the program, for three months. We don’t often have members who have such large gaps in their experience.

She was sick with persistent diarrhea. Her family took her to the government health clinic in Savanèt, where she was told that she had cholera. She was sent to the cholera treatment center there. She never went, however, because she was convinced that cholera wasn’t her problem. Instead, she went to the home of a medsen fèy, a practitioner of traditional herbal medicines. She stayed with him for weeks until the diarrhea was gone, drinking herbal preparations, then she left for Port au Prince, where she stayed with a cousin while she regained her strength.

While she was away, her case manager Ricot worked with her mother. The older woman took care of Miramène’s livestock. Miramène lives in a lakou with three houses in addition to hers: her parents’ and those of two sisters. One of the two sisters also qualified for the CLM program, so it was easy for Ricot and the other case manager to stay on top of the situation.

When Miramène was finally strong enough to come home, her assets were all in place. Though her goats didn’t increase, her pig had three piglets. She was also able to buy ducks and turkeys. She even added a cow to what she owned.

The cow is especially interesting because it has nothing directly to do with the CLM program. The father of her little girl, who lives in the Dominican Republic, bought it for her during one of his visits.

And his support for Miramène is probably worth dwelling on. It turns out that he was willing and able to do a lot for Miramène and their girl. She was, for example, the first CLM member in her neighborhood to finish work on her house. The man heard about the opportunity, and he came to Haiti long enough to help her through the process. And then he gave her an expensive cow.

This makes you wonder why Miramène was a CLM member in the first place. With a strong family structure in place where she lives and substantial support from her girl’s father, she might have been okay without the program.

But we couldn’t have known that. At the time she joined CLM, she had been without the man’s support for some time. As she explains it, he was living with his wife in the Dominican Republic, and the wife was pregnant. He focused all of his support on his pregnant wife. So, we took Miramène into the program. At the time, the case managers who selected her probably felt that they had no choice.

Miramène’s plans now that she graduated are straightforward. She’ll take care of her livestock and farm the land that’s available to her. She’s already got everything she needs to plant black beans for a spring harvest. She’s not interested in small commerce. “People buy on credit, then they get mad at you when you ask for your money.”

Even after 18 months, it is still hard to talk with Juslène. She’s friendly, even cheerful, and she’s happy to chat. She seems excited to see me whenever I come by.

But she just doesn’t have much to say. I ask her about graduation, and she says it was “bèl,” which can mean pretty or good, but when I ask her what she liked about it she says she doesn’t know. That’s just one example. A cheerful “m pa konnen,” or “I don’t know” is her answer to most questions, at least her initial answer. She can’t say what about the graduation she enjoyed except to say, “because I graduated,” nor can she say what about it is important to her. As her boy fumbles around in my bag, I ask her how old he is now, but she doesn’t know that either. She can remember only which local children were born before him and after him, and with that information a neighbor concludes that he’s probably four.

She plans on going to the final meeting of her Village Savings and Loan Association later on the day of my visit. It is an important meeting because she’ll receive the savings she accumulated through the year along with the interest it earned when association members repaid their loans, but she doesn’t know how much she’ll receive. She won’t even hazard a guess.

She does, however, know what she plans to do with the money. It’s planting season in Kolonbyè. She’ll buy black beans, which is an important cash crop in the area. The farming she does with her partner is crucial to the family’s well-being since her livestock never really flourished within the program and she never started a small commerce. Though she lists the goats and the pig she was given as the program’s most important elements, she didn’t succeed with either. We gave her two goats, and she graduated with two goats. We gave her a pig, and she graduated with a pig. All she was able to accumulate was some poultry: a turkey and two ducks. Most of the couple’s wealth is in their farming.

And their lives have changed. When she joined the program, she was living in the corner of a room in her sister-in-law’s house. Now she has a little house all her own. A plank nailed across two short posts that were driven into the earth next to her home’s front door serves as a bench, and she loves to sit there and chat with passers-by. It leaves me wondering what she says to them.

More important, however, is the transformation of her boy. When she first joined the program, he was badly malnourished. He was thin and mostly lifeless in her arms. The CLM nurse referred him to the local government health center for evaluation, and provided a transportation stipend to ensure that Juslène could get him there for regular appointments. Her was treated with fortified peanut butter, the standard treatment in Haiti, and now seems like a different boy. He’s curious, getting into everything. He maintains a constant banter. His development seems a little bit behind. Very little of what he says is clear to anyone but his mother, who talks with him constantly as her case manager taught her to do.