My name is Marie. I do not know how old I am, I have never had a birth certificate. I was born in the village or Coutanceau. I have worked the earth my whole life. I never had a chance to attend school, so I cannot read or write. I have lived in Coutanceau my whole life. I have one living sister and one living brother. My parents are both dead, and my god parents are dead. I had one child that died when it was 8 days old. After that I was never able to have any children.

I live in a 2 room home that is falling apart. My friends built it for me many years ago and I pray that God will continue to bless them for that. There are 2 others that live with me at the house. We do not have a bathroom but do have a place where we cook food outside. I am blind but it is me that does all the cleaning at the house. After that I can not do much.

The one thing I like to do is go to church. I love church. There is one church in the village and no schools. There is also a vodou temple. We do not have water everyday. Sometimes we go three days with no water. When this happens we use water from the river, but sometimes this makes people sick. Sometimes if someone is around with a vehicle they will go and get water in gallons or container for us. For me; people in the area will bring me a gallon of water to use. I cannot see now but people tell me that others are building new houses in the area. This makes me happy that the area is growing.

There is a story that I will never forget. I was living in a 1 room home. The roof was make of sugarcane leaves. Every time it rained the rain came in. The ground of the house was dirt. So everytime it was the season when it would rain I would have a difficult time. I did not have a bed. So when it would stop raining I would dig into the floor of the house to find dry dirt. Once I found that them I could make a bed on the ground with old rice sacks to sleep on. It was always a miserable time for me. Some people saw this and build my 2 room home many years ago. I will never forget that. I pray that they live a long life and God will continue to bless them. Perhaps if I had a child I would not be living how I am but it was not the will of God.