After Jameson Davilma’s mother died from an illness when he was 13, the boy often counted on neighbors near his Cité Soleil home to survive. Sometimes, usually late at night, a neighbor might send him on en errand to buy food. Only then would Davilma have a bite from what the neighbor shared.
“Sometimes, I cried when I got hungry,” Davilma, now 30, recalls. “I’d wake up and couldn’t find even a piece of bread or a little coffee. I’d spent the whole morning with no food — couldn’t even buy a small marinad. Then by noon, my stomach was filled with gas.”
At the time, in 2005, a group of thugs who called themselves the “chimè” often hung out outside of their homes in Citè Soleil. Known as vociferous supporters of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the thugs also helped residents of the slum.
In fact, these chimè fed the hungry.