Port-au-Prince

On January 12 at about 4.50 in the afternoon “the” earthquake hit Port-au-Prince in the south of Haiti.

Officialdom records over 300,000 people having been killed, and the figure is more likely to be in the region of 500,000. The majority being buried in mass graves just outside the city. As in any disaster there are the, perhaps, expected stories of heroism and humanity, but also the rather shabbier accounts of self-interest and human exploitation.

Jean-Claude, Robyn and I flew to Port-au-Prince on a Saturday morning, as ostensibly this was the reason for our being in Haiti in the first place. The domestic and international terminal at Cap Haitien Airport is about 30 minutes from the centre of the city, and to get there involves negotiating the usual traffic obstacles – potholes, other drivers, pedestrians, lorries, tap-taps and a mass of motorcycles. We cross over the river, and the bridge is slowly returning to being a major trading area, as the memory of the earthquake slowly fades and with it the fear of a local recurrence.

At the airport our hand-luggage is x-rayed in common with anywhere else in the world, but the loud “beep” generated as we walked through the scanner seemed to generate scant interest.

Waiting in the “departure” area were several nuns – although Roman their precise orders were not obvious; an Episcopal Bishop and assorted other travellers. Flights were going to Port-au-Prince, The Turks and Caicos, and the Dominican Republic. Our plane could seat about 25, and was piloted by 2 pilots from the Dominican Republic. The flight took about 30 minutes, and we had clear views over the Haitian country, and it appears very green, and largely unpopulated.

Port-au-Prince from the air is at once much bigger than Cap Haitien, and it takes a while for the evidence of the earthquake to become apparent.

We are met by Spentz, who with his family have lived in Port for the last 8 years. He is a business man, and is clearly doing very well. He drove us around the city, and included areas of all degrees of prosperity, as nowhere was exempted from the damage. As he drove it was the almost casual comments that were the most disturbing:

“this was a school – 1300 children were killed here”

“just here a girl was saved after having her legs amputated, but the remaining 12 members of the family all died.”

“this was a bank – all the employees got out of the earthquake, but were killed by a gas explosion”

“on the day after the earthquake you couldn’t walk or drive down this street because of the masses of bodies lying on the road.”

All over the city there are piles and piles of rubble, a very little bit of salvage is being attempted – in the whole of the city we saw only one bull-dozer. There are a lot of tents, and rows and rows of “porta-loos” many of which are just outside the presidential palace. In the more prosperous areas there are more concerted attempts at salvage, but still people are living in tents in the garden.

Spentz was in his car when the earthquake struck – and tried to get out of it, but was not able. His children were at home with his sister, and all of them were unharmed. During the first night there were stories of extreme courage and acts of selflessness – whole communities working together to get people out, and when it was too dark and too late, there breaking out spontaneous services of prayer and hymn singing. But there are darker aspects too – the daughter of one of Robyn’s friends was trapped with a friend. The friend was freed, but because there wasn’t enough money to pay the extracting team her friend was left. Thousands of Haitian dollars exchanged hands in the immediate aftermath of the event.

Spentz was able to voice some of his concerns – and although he is a long way from being a politician it is people like him who are needed for the country – people who can stand back, and look away from self-interest, people who can recognise the faults and lessons to be learned from other countries, and who have a passion for the nation. Interestingly he is increasingly convinced for the need for very firm government – even the possibility of a dictatorship – to start the country back onto the long road of economic and social reform.

If we looked beyond the obvious signs of building destruction, it was very odd to see signs of “normal” life going on as before. On every street there were markets and stalls, as people try to eke out a living. Stalls as varied as sweets, second hand clothes, new suits, and car parts literally in front of piles of rubble the height of a single story building.

It became mind-numbing after a couple of hours, and the return flight became increasingly attractive. I think visiting the area was very important, if somewhat unpleasant, and even verging on the voyeuristic. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the visit was watching the reaction of Haitians back in Cap Haitien as they looked at the photographs we had taken: despite having lived with the reality of the events for the last 6 months, seeing them in silent tears was just too much.