Hey Mad of Opinion listeners, it's Carlos Lozada.

We're working on our next episode for you, but while you wait, I wanted to share something else.

A piece from fellow Mad of Opinion co-host, Lydia Polgreen.

Liddy has been following the crisis unfolding in Haiti,

and she shared her thoughts about it in an audio essay.

It's really smart, and it's even a hopeful take on a very difficult situation.

So here it is. My name is Lydia Polgrain and I'm an opinion columnist for the New York Times.

I think you have a lot of people in Haiti who are ready at this moment to help build this new future.

And really what they need is financial support, security support,

and also like the time and space to build their own ideas

of what a future Haiti could look like.

And just because there is this long history of failure

doesn't mean that success is not possible.

I've been traveling to Haiti as a journalist since 2003.

It was actually the first big international assignment that I was ever asked to do. And it began, I think, a decades long engagement with the story of Haiti

and its struggle for self-determination, for security, for dignity,

and just a deep interest in the lives and culture of the Haitian people.

You know, whatever you're talking about Haiti, it's hard to know where to begin the story,

because obviously the country was born in this extraordinary act of liberation,

you know, way back in the 19th century.

But this most recent crisis, I think, is worth just sort of taking on its own terms.

And it really began with the assassination of Haiti's president, a man called juvenile

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