It's the only life they know. Perform backbreaking work in the heat of the Glades. When the harvest is done, travel hundreds of miles to Georgia to do the same thing. And when that's done, take a short break and then head to the Northeast and do it all again.
And always traveling, often in old buses without air conditioning, with only the most meager of comforts.
That hard life just got even tougher.
Pastor Frantz Gaudard's sermon Sunday at First Haitian Community Church was about his congregants who were among those killed or injured Saturday about 30 miles south of Tallahassee in North Florida's Wakulla County.
About 5 a.m. Saturday, the Florida Highway Patrol said, a converted 1979 Blue Bird school bus was southbound atWoodville Highway and U.S. 98 when driver Elie Dupiche ran a flashing light and crashed into a 2005 Freightliner semi.
The vehicles crashed into a power line and knocked it down, starting a fire that disintegrated the truck, leaving only its engine block.
Of the 34 passengers on the bus, including women and children, three people were killed. One was a child, the Red Cross said.
Also killed: the truck's driver, Gordon A. Sheets of Copiague, N.Y., the Highway Patrol said. The American Red Cross said Sunday that a person who was in the truck's sleeper was unhurt.
Authorities said the bus was returning to Belle Glade from Bainbridge, Ga., 40 miles northwest of Tallahassee.
On Sunday, 11 survivors were at the Tallahassee offices of the Capital Area chapter of the American Red Cross, eating meals provided by a local Haitian restaurant, and were about to board a bus provided by the local Salvation Army, Red Cross executive director Sharon Tyler said around midafternoon.
She said the bus was set to leave around 4 p.m. and get to Belle Glade around midnight.
Tyler said that, at last count, six people remained at Tallahassee's Capital Regional Medical Center, and 12 people were at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Another woman already had been transported back to Belle Glade in a medical van, she said.
Pastor Gaudard said Dupiche is one of his 200 congregants and often volunteers to drive a church bus. He said he talked by phone but he wasn't able to speak clearly because of the injuries.
"Very nice guy. Always willing to assist," Gaudard said.
He said the migrant workers had been in Georgia for about two months, picking corn, and after a break of one or two weeks, were set to head to New Jersey or Maine to harvest crops there.
Gaudard said the workers do talk about the risk of all that travel, but more so about the sheer drudgery.
"There's nothing you can do," Gaudard said.
He said the workers are held back by language barriers and lack of adequate education.
"These people are hard working people. After the (local) season is over, they have to find a way to support their family," he said.
Gaudard also said the crash and fire destroyed many of the workers' belongings and, more importantly, their documents.
The pastor said one of his hardest jobs is dealing with people whose faith has been shaken, and he was doing that Sunday.
"Some people may be asking, 'Where was God in all this?' That's where we have to come and talk to them," Gaudard said. "It's a hard thing to swallow. You're trying to make a living and this happens."
Gaudard said his church is working with agencies both in Palm Beach County and North Florida to try to help the families both here and there but hasn't yet organized efforts to financially help the families.
And on Sunday, he was having to perform one of his toughest jobs: arranging funerals.
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