Haiti's earthquake tests resilience of capital's hair stylists, now working in streets
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Before Haiti's devastating January 2010 earthquake, dozens of independent hair stylists braided and colored hair in the capital's Iron Market, a soaring steel-framed structure that was the commercial hub of downtown Port-au-Prince.

But the earthquake damaged the landmark Iron Market and the hairstylists moved their activities to the streets, where they resumed their businesses not long after the disaster struck. The Iron Market has now reopened, but apparently there's no room for the stylists, who remain on the capital's dusty streets.

One woman cuts hair in a salon constructed of cardboard and discarded wood, her customer's arm resting inches from a wooden pallet. Nearby, another woman gets hair extensions while sitting on a stool on a debris-strewn lot, alongside houses and shops still in ruins 2 ½ years after the quake. Creaky wooden stalls offer a wide selection of wigs that can cost up to $75, a huge amount in an impoverished country where most people survive on $2 a day.


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