Marie Ange François, 56, clings to a photograph. It is one of the few she managed to save from a flood and now keeps carefully in the place where she has taken refuge. Like hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Marie Ange was driven from her home in Pernier by Vitelhomme’s gang.

In the slightly yellowed photograph, preserved like a treasure, one can see a radiant smile—that of a young woman, slender and petite, proudly wearing her graduation gown, cap, medal, and holding her diploma from the Faculty of Applied Linguistics at the State University of Haiti. “That’s Slanda,” Marie Ange François says before slipping into her memories. “It’s not her only diploma. She also graduated from the Haiti Hotel School,” confides Marie Ange François, who is once again walking through the corridors of hell.