Eye-Openers
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2011
1
2
10
Trip End
Jul 04, 2011
Les Cayes, Sud, Haiti
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Anne and I touched down in Haiti after a long delay in Miami and were immediately enveloped in a thick blanket of heat and humidity. This was not relieved by going into a cool terminal either, as the real terminal lay ruined from the 2010 earthquake. This building was only the first of many. So we cleared customs and Immigration in an old warehouse and found our bags. We promptly lost them again as 4 aggressive "porters" grabbed our bags from us, saying they would take us to the MTI car- it was overwhelming and rather scary as this onslaught of people crowded around us and we could not see our bags and ended up missing our real driver, who apparently had been waiting with a sign for us. Of course these porters wanted "payment" for their services! What a welcome to Haiti! Finally we extricated ourselves from them and found Charlie our real driver who decided to lock us in the truck for our safety- while he went to look for Danielle the third member of our team, who was arriving soon. Anne and I collapsed in the blessed air-conditioning and prayed some prayers for our safety and that of Danielle so she did not have to have such a fighting welcome. Soon we saw a rather lost looking young girl who fitted Danielle's description-she was also being hassled by a porter so Anne marched over to her and brought her to the safety of our truck. Charlie returned and we were on our way out of town to Les Cayes. We were told to expect a journey up to 6 hours but Charlie wanted to get there in 4 so we could be in by dark. Apparently most of the towns have no street lighting and indeed very little electricity. So we hurtled out of Port of Prince,hanging onto the straps as bounced over ruts and stones and just dirt.
Along the sides of the road were still piles of rubble and trash. In amongst this destruction were people camping out under tarps or plastic sheeting just trying to live and make a living. Children were bathing in tin pots, others playing in the street with a plastic bottle as a soccer ball.Stray dogs, pigs and goats rummaged around in the all pervasive trash. The air was thick with burning trash and charcoal fires which was to be a constant almost all our way to Les Cayes. Over 70% of Haitians are unemployed and most of them young men who lined the road in small groups watching our truck pass or coming close to it when we had to come to halt to run over a rut or small hump in the road, trying to sell us water, or barbecue chicken on a stick, or wash our windows. Some families had little enterprises selling a few bottles of this and a few cans of that at makeshift stalls- which make up most of the Haitian economy now. We passed the big white deserted Government building leaning precariously on one side- which seemed to represent Haiti 's last government.
As we left Port Au Prince the scenery changed a little with more lush and tropical vegetation.It was more green where as PAP seemed a dusty haze of brown and greys. Still there were people walking along the sides of roads, children in uniforms returning from school or carrying water jugs bigger than themselves or leading little goats or donkeys to graze on the green verges. Many women carried piles of branches on their heads or sat by fruit stands selling mangoes. Many times the driver was forced to drive on the opposite side of the road into oncoming traffic because of rocks or broken pavement or slow motor bikes,sounding his horn constantly to warn pedestrians as did everyone. Actually I wasn't really sure which was the correct side of the road for a long time. Sometimes we had to make detours due to broken bridges and we went down cart tracks into the river and up and over to the other side. Other times the paved road was not too bad.
About the middle of the journey we did have another eye- opening experience. The road came to an abrupt end with a pile of rubble at the entrance to a bridge it seemed like it had washed away. A little boy ran up to the truck-he couldn't have been more than 8 - he told the driver he knew how to take us round the detour! Then he took off his shoes and ran down the track urging us to follow him, through this pebbly river to the beach,through some palm trees and around what seemed to be trees growing in a garden. We reached this stone arch and there a man asked us for money to pass through to the main road- as we were traveling on private property! It probably was a scam but the kid was awfully cute so I gave him on US dollar. The driver gave the man a few Haitian dollars. we were back on the road.
The road through the mountains and along the south coast was actually good and there were beautiful views . The island definitely has a tropical beauty- it is so sad that these lovely parts of the island cannot stimulate tourism to help move the people out of poverty. There were also some sad sights-particularly children carrying heavy burdens and thin little cows and mules staked to the grass at the side of the road and half built roofless houses deserted as the owners could not afford to continue building.
Finally we entered through a large arch announcing Bienvenue aux Cayes. We had arrived in the city where we were going to live and work for 2 weeks for MTI. This city of 300000 was bustling but still with very few paved roads and no electricity. We arrived in the dark at the gate of the MTI guest house, which was lit because of my noisy generator. My stomach churned -I was not sure if it was because of the hair raising ride, the anti malarial pill which had been giving me trouble, or the nervous anticipation of how I was going to deal with all the challenges of Haiti.The adventure continues and so do the prayers....
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