Part Seven
Desperation
By the second day of our trip our group was really beginning to bond together. Most of us had not known each other prior to our first meeting weeks earlier and even in the meetings we had little time to socialize and get to know each other. However, it took only a matter of a day’s travel for us to get comfortable and make new friendships. We shared many common bonds. Especially being that the majority of the group shared medical interests, and all of us shared a sense of compassion for the poor and dying, a deep desire to help those in need, and an even deeper desire to make a difference, which we all knew could only happen if we worked together as a team. We reached Port Au Prince in the early evening just after sunset. The town of Petionville where we would actually be staying overnight sits just outside of P au P on a hillside overlooking the city which could be likened to a sort of suburb blending in with the capital city and the rest of its neighboring towns.
Port Au Prince is the capital and largest city in Haiti. Close to 3 million people live there, or one third of the nations entire population. And most of it's inhabitants live in very cramped conditions fitting snugly into an area no larger than perhaps the inner realms of Lower Manhattan. The city is extremely cramped in comparison to how we live in North America. Many of the single houses are wood framed shacks reminiscent of the ghettos of New Orleans. Port Au Prince is a harbor and the major trading port on the shore. If you were to stand on it's shores looking west you would be facing the Island and nation of Cuba, though far enough away and not at all visible from Haiti. The capital city is the major trading post for both what little imports and exports that are exchanged within the nation’s infrastructure.
In the initial days and hours after the January 12th earthquake we all saw the horrible images on CNN and other news networks, and even more graphic if a person had internet access were the You Tube videos both shot from cell phones and cam-corders willing to hold nothing back. Pictures really do tell the story, yet, not even CNN with all it’s continual live coverage could truly captivate the magnitude of what was truly going on. In some ways, the media was getting the dire need for humanitarian help out to the rest of the world which in all honesty needed to be done quickly and could not have even come close to being sensationalized compared to the reality of what had just happened. But on the other hand, there were isolated situations that were indeed blown out of proportion in the sense that they were, again, as I said, “isolated” yet through the media made to appear as if rampant throughout the country.
There were reports of widespread violence and looting, and yes, make no mistake about it, these reports were real. There was no phoniness to what you might have seen on the news regarding the chaos that pursued this horrible and devastating earthquake. But at the same time, at least to the extent of what our group witnessed only weeks after, while the violence had certainly settled down and at least in terms of civil disorder things were much calmer, the reality was that these incidents had been isolated and over exaggerated. There are always bad apples no matter where you go in the world. And in the thick of sudden chaos like P Au P was enduring they certainly come out of the woodwork. But no, once you’ve actually been there, you quickly learn the true story is not exactly what we saw portrayed on the news. It was somewhere in between outright violence and justified desperation.
CNN in particular though not the only news network, had been reporting in the initial days about widespread looting and violence particularly in the city of Port Au Prince. The truth is, yes, there were certainly people rummaging through the debris and in rare instances willing to turn to violence believing it was their only means to survive. But in most cases Haitians are peaceful and not at all violent. They were looking for loved ones. They were looking for lost possessions. And yes, they were looking to survive. And when you’ve not eaten in three or four days and there’s a market left wide open and no one around, well, you need to eat. Your children need to eat. The authorities? Or At least what was left of the nations police state and their capacity to reign in the chaos went straight by the books when it came to theft during those crucial hours.
And so if you were caught stealing a bag of cookies or a loaf of moldy bread you happened to be able to salvage from the collapsed market, you were handcuffed and taken away to a temporary jail. There was no leniency… no compassion or understanding one might expect due to the rare and crucial circumstances. But these were truly isolated incidents. From speaking to a few locals while staying in Petionville this became clear. We were not talking thousands of looters. We were not talking about thousands of violent thugs. We were talking about the odd or rare situation. Our group drove right through P Au P literally at a crawl only weeks after the earthquake and saw absolutely no looting and no violence. Just a whole lot of desperate people begging and pleading for help walking the streets aimlessly.
However, having said that, what can not be overlooked is that when the earthquake occurred, the main prison in Port Au Prince, made up mostly of murderers and rapists during hard time, which held about 3000 inmates had collapsed. Many of the guards and prisoners alike were killed.. But of the guards who survived? They fled to check on and be with their families if in fact their families were still alive. As for the remaining prisoners? Naturally, they took the opportunity to escape. .. But not before setting fire to the prison offices burning all paper work and records that could otherwise help authorities later on catch up to them and round them up. To date, nearly 2000 still remain on the loose. So, while isolated incidents of looting and violence may have been somewhat sensationalized on the news and made to seem as if rampant throughout the city, other realities were just that.. Realities!
It was a reality that people were in shock. It was a reality that people were distraught. That they longed for loved ones, their parents, their children, their siblings but could not find them. It was a reality that many injured faced death if they did not allow someone to sever a limb, perhaps a foot, a leg or an arm in order that they might survive. It was a reality that they were given no anesthesia in the process but had to grin and bear what must have been an unfathomable excruciating pain to have a limb severed using a saw while being wide awake. It was a reality that people in the streets of P Au P were literally starving to death even though humanitarian aid had already arrived, including food, medical and other vital essentials yet sat untouched and unmoved on the run way at Toussaint International Airport under the watchful eye of U.N. Personnel..
These people were desperate. Within 45 seconds they had lost what little possessions they had to begin with… But the truly heartbreaking losses were the loss of life. That meant loved ones, friends, co-workers and neighbors. Earth shattering catastrophes like this make no distinction between man, woman and child, newborn infant, nursing or pregnant mothers. Buildings collapsed… And lot’s of them! In some cases whole families perished. And in others it was portions of one’s family. Those who survived had to accept that some of their loved ones or friends were now simply gone and not coming back.
It didn’t matter if you were a good person or a wicked person, young or old, healthy or frail, rich or poor… If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time you stood no chance of survival. If you were blessed enough to perhaps be on the top floor of a building you might have stood a chance because of a cocoon like air pocket that might have formed over you as the debris came crashing down. The main Cathedral went down. The presidential palace collapsed. The airport suffered major damage as did so many other institutions. The police stations, fire stations, hospitals, schools and even the main University in Port Au Prince were destroyed or severely damaged.
As we sat in the back of a tap tap and drove slowly past a toppled building now reduced to three thick slabs of cement one atop the other one day while in Jacmal a tear came to Gabby's eye. "What's wrong Gabby?" Someone asked. Gabby quietly mumbled something we couldn't make out. Asked again, he repeated it this time more audible, "There's 300 children in that building." How do you cope? How do you reconcile that literally within an instant everything that held the very fabric of your society, your nation, your daily life, your family, all just collapsed beyond recognition? Everything gone! loved ones gone! How do you cope?
Donal & Kellie standing outside our Guest House
Donal, the young Haitian man who helped us the night we stayed in Petionville was in a classroom at the University when the earthquake struck. His home destroyed and his family were killed. As well, he was the only classmate to survive. Almost all his friends and family perished within the blink of an eye. Again, how do you cope? How do you deal with it? How do you grasp it all? How do you possibly fathom moving on when literally everything was just taken from you? Yet, Haitians are extremely resilient people. Far from ever being "okay" they are slowly learning to cope. They are picking up the broken pieces of their shattered lives and are beginning to rebuild their homes, their cities, their nation.
When we arrived at the bus terminal in Port Au Prince it was sheer chaos. I mean in the sense that there were people everywhere! The streets were filled with people, many walking aimlessly as if no where to go. And swarms of people gathered around the bus as it attempted to park in the tiny stone walled compound. I had the impression life in Port Au Prince was normally chaotic to begin with despite the earthquake because of it’s population density. Yet, now with literally thousands left homeless and countless others choosing to live on the streets out of fear should there be another major tremor, this added greatly to the numbers. The streets were busy from early morning to late evening.
Our bus, a sort of Haitian equivalent to a Greyhound pulled to the front gate of the depot and proceeded to back into the narrow lot that gave barely enough room for one bus. There were hoards of people everywhere surrounding and moving in on the bus. As the bus came to a stop the driver jumped out and began opening all the side compartment doors exposing our luggage to the rather large crowd that was now enveloping the bus and all of us as everyone fought their way through the people to find their own. By the time everyone had scrambled to secure their belongings and we grouped together near the left rear of the bus to await smaller buses that would take us to our guest house Jo-dee had lost some of her luggage which in terms of clothing left her with only what she was wearing.
The guest house we stayed at in Petionville had a gravel floor in the bar room which also served as a smoking room. And in the corners of the room were holes where rats had burrowed in and out of the building. We stayed on the second floor but were not exempt from seeing a rat run across the floor in the main lounge there as well. We coped. After having traveled the last two days by plane and by bus, and knowing we still had another 4 hour trek to Jacmal through the mountains across the southern portion of Haiti before we would reach our final destination sometime during the day Wednesday it was now time to kick our feet back and relax so that we would be well rested and up to making the rest of the journey.
Lounge area in the Guest House in Petionville
As we got settled into our rooms, took showers, settled in and began to rest, our guide Joe took off to get us dinner. He returned about an hour or so later with a quaint smorgasbord of chicken, veal or goat with salad and plantain. I wasn’t brave enough to try the goat but a few in the group seemed to like it. I kept to the familiar flavor of chicken. Joe took great care of us. Without his help our group would have been at great risk to a number of things; theft, scams, parasites, and getting lost just to name a few. And though at least Kelly was fluent in French and I could fake my way through light French conversation none of us knew Creole so without Joe we would have had a tremendous struggle in terms of communication.
Steve and I were bunking in the same room and during the evening he went to take a shower. I had attempted one earlier but quickly opted to skip it when I saw water dripping from a live light fixture right overhead our shower stall. There was a leak from the room above. And water was literally pouring into our washroom through the opening for the light. I let Steve know about it but he felt it was safe enough to jump in anyways. As much as I needed a shower too I wasn’t so confident. Everyone would just have to put up with stinky ole me at least another day.. However, I did wash by hand at the sink. The water fed through a pipe jaunting out of the wall with no shower head or nozzle of any kind was ice cold, as was the tap water in the sink. Those of us new to Haiti learned rather quickly that there just isn’t any warm or hot water in the entire country.
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note* The two pictures of the Cathedral & of the Presidential Palace are from Google images and were not taken by anyone in our group. All other photo's are courtesy of various members of our group..
