RemittancesGateway.org

In Miami's Little Haiti, they're known as ti machann, a community of Haitian women who earn a modest living as street vendors, peddling from their parked vans used sneakers, chayote, sweet potatoes, coconuts, industrial-sized rolls of toilet paper and homemade remedies for all sorts of ailments.

Before the earthquake flattened their homeland's capital, the women regarded each other as competition. But now they're bound by tragedy and share similar stories of lost relatives -- and the powerlessness to help survivors.

``My sister died with two of her grandchildren, and two of my grandchildren also are dead,'' says Bernadette Dubreide, as she cracks jumbo peanut shells while sitting on a worn white stool overseeing her produce enterprise.

Stalks of sugar cane lean on a chain-link fence behind her, a hot dog cart turned display table holds avocados, homemade peanut brittle and mangos. Recycled Gerber baby food containers hold lwil maskreti, Haitian castor oil, regarded as a miracle remedy for hair loss, headaches, fevers, ``whatever that can go wrong with you,'' Dubreide says.

The containers sell for $5 each, no haggling.

Even before the earthquake, the poorest of Miami's Haitians struggled to send money to relatives in their poverty-stricken nation. Then, the halting South Florida economy meant fewer people pulling over in their cars to peruse the displays.

These days, they toil in quiet mourning, wondering what, if anything, they can do to help.

``I'm struggling to pay $600 rent,'' Dubreide says.

For Haitians who navigate the vague economy of street corner commerce and pay-by-day jobs as laborers and housekeepers, trying to keep up with requests from family members in Haiti -- many of whom were left homeless after the quake -- and fending for themselves stateside . . . it all means added pressure on already strained purse strings.

While documenting the overall number of Haitians living illegally in the United States remains a point of difficulty for experts, conservative estimates put the numbers between 100,000 and 200,000.

``If you have a really dodgy immigration status, you're not going to be very receptive to people showing up with their clipboards and asking questions. We simply don't know,'' says Bryan Page, who chairs the University of Miami's Anthropology Department.

Jean Robert Blanchard, a day laborer who plans to send money to family in Haiti says, ``Haiti is always on my mind, that's why I'm out here everyday looking for work. There's nothing. I can leave my house at 8 a.m. and when I come back at night I don't have a dollar.''

Some days, he catches a break at a car wash where he can earn up to $40 after a day of scrubbing Miami's grime off of late modeled cars he can't afford to drive.

Phone calls coming in from Haiti are always the same, he says.

``They want to know what can I send. It hurts, sometimes I have to say `nothing.' ''

Back when the economy fared better, Bert, a 52 year-old woman who doesn't want to use her full name, made a living cleaning house for well-to-do Haitian families from Kendall to Aventura. For the past six months, she has been unemployed.

She lost her last cleaning job to another Haitian woman willing to clean a sprawling Aventura condo for $40 -- $20 less than what Bert was charging.

``The rich people want to pay very very little for work. I'll take anything right now,'' she says.