Haiti blew my mind! I’ve been to some of the poorest countries in the world – Malawi, Mozambique, Sierra Leone – but wasn’t prepared for Haiti. Had I gone to Haiti in sub-Saharan Africa, I would have taken it in stride. No problem. A sad commentary for the African continent, but true. Haiti in the Caribbean, on the other hand, was just too much.
It is so different from the rest of the region. Different because it is so much poorer and the poverty is of the very visible, in your face, no hiding from it variety. I am not saying there is no poverty elsewhwere in the Caribbean. Living as I do in Jamaica, I would have to be blind, deaf, dumb and in a permanetly altered state of conciousness to say otherwise, but nowhere else in the region is the poverty so widespread and visible. It hits you. It really does. And the presence of UN Peace Keepers. That is just not a ‘Caribbean thing.’ Fine for me to see Blue Helmets in Freetown, Sierra Leone, but right next door in Port au Prince? No, surely not! The screen must need adjusting. But more on the Blue Helmets in a moment.
I wasn’t prepared for all these stereotypes I had heard about Haiti to hit me in technicolour either. The denuded hillsides that scream at you as you fly over the island – yep. The garbage and the filth in Port au Prince – check (not all over mind you, but where you find it, boy do you find it). The arrogance of the light-skinned Haitian upper class – that too. Incredible artistic expression – uh huh. The houngan – still in business and will be for some time to come.
And natural beauty. I had heard that it was a beautiful island and it is. I didn’t get to see all that much outside of Port of Prince, but a jaunt to Jacmel (the coast) and La Vallee de Jacmel (up in the hills) took me through and to gorgeous, stunning scenery.
When I was in Haiti (April 2006), Port au Prince was in darkness. The government had no money to pay its oil bill and whichever donor country had been paying as an interim measure, had stopped. So electricity was in short supply, unless you could generate your own, and even then, it seemed supplies were limited. But the Haitian people are nothing if not resilient, so they adapt and finds ways of coping – technological solutions and otherwise.
The UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti was very much in evidence while I was there, making it difficult to find a reasonably priced hotel room in Port au Prince for one thing. But between the Blue Helmets and the local army and police force, security was high. Very high. Check point after check point, and armed men on what seemed like street corner – men from the armed forces as well as private security guards hired by shopkeepers and homeowners to guard their property. There had been a spate of kidnappings just before I got there, so I didn’t underestimate the need for a security presence. And even if I had been unaware of the kidnappings, having my driver tell me every so often that the area we were in had been impassable up to a month before due to ‘bandits’ would have helped me to understand that place was not too secure. That said, I really felt quite safe there. In part because of the high security presence and in part because of my Haitian hosts.
My curiosity about Haiti has been piqued. I want to go back. I want to know and understand this place that is so close to mine, but yet so far away. On leaving Haiti, I though about a song by the Trinidadian calypsonian David Rudder in a new way and felt that as a Caribbean person, I really have a responsibility to do something for my next door neighbours.
“Haiti” David Rudder, 1988
When there’s anguish in Port-Au-Prince
It’s still Africa crying
We’re outing fires in faraway places
When our neighbours are just burning.
They say the Middle Passage is gone
So how come overcrowded boats still haunt our lives?
I refuse to believe that we good people
Would forever turn our hearts and eyes
Away.
Haiti I’m sorry
We misunderstood you,
But one day we’ll turn around
And look inside you.
Haiti I’m sorry
Haiti I’m so sorry…
But one day we’ll turn our heads,
Restore your glory.
