Impressions from Port au Prince, Haiti

First glimpses

The morning after a late arrival in darkness and a fantastic thunderstorm presented a view that was astonishing for its blue sky. The morning sun bathed a dense pack of houses clustered on the mountainside like a flow of lava.

Sunrise Petion Ville (all images Philipsen)

The scale of the hillside or its homes is hard to comprehend at first. The hotel is the only structure with 9 floors, the mountainside is so densely packed and so steep that no streets seem to be possible there. Only commercial buildings in the foreground provide a sense that the hillside buildings a bit further back are not villas, but rather tiny boxes the size of a shipping container.

The giant billboard advertising an Audi Q5 in French for "seulement" $45,900 coming into view in the foreground seems quite incongruous, as does another in English showing a BMW and the words "taller, bigger, stronger". Are these advertisements for the hotel guests? But who comes here to sleep and then buy a car?

Compared to the total view from the circling plane before landing at the Toussaint L'Ouverture Airport, this particular hotel window view reveals only a very small sliver of Port au Prince, capital of Haiti, a city of some 3 million residents. The capital of "the poorest nation in the western hemisphere", a descriptor that Haiti can't shake. It appears to contrast with the beauty of this mountainside or the apparent demand for luxury vehicles.

In some parts of Port au Prince's urbanity, if measured in density of people, vendors or goods, can beat that of an urban festival in a US city. It is easy to be fascinated by the quirky vitality of this type of streetlife because it is often so frustratingly absent in US cities. It is easy aestheticise ruins, decay and the sometimes opulent vegetation in a hundred photogenic settings bathed in Caribbean light in a place where the luxury cars cost more than a hundred times of what an average resident of this town would earn in an entire year.

Foreign goods at exorbitant prices on billboard and
occasionally also on the street

This giant dense carpet of habitation is impossible to penetrate in a few days of visit, and allows only the most superficial impressions that come from being driven around in an automobile, looking out a hotel window, surveying the city from the roof of a highrise, eating at restaurants or visiting late night dance clubs frequented by the elite. All those experiences happen in the bubble of a second economy hovering over the baseline conditions of a country where work for pay is much less frequent than making a living on an extensive black market and the average annual income is barely above $400. Real life happens in the back of a tap-tap, on a moped, in the shacks of Cite de Soleil, in the countless orphanages or many places the visitor will never see or know about.

The strong thunderstorm of the previous evening didn't manage to knock electricity entirely out as proven by the many lighted dots on the hillside and the brightly lit gas stations. There are many inverters, batteries and generators installed, since power isn't steady. The gas stations stick out as beacons in the night and appear to be activity hubs day and night even during the rain. Crisscrossing the city by car conjures up memories of Naples, Athens and Izmir in the 1970s, except that the degree of vitality and chaos seems to be stronger here.

The new restaurant JoJo has a sizable gated parking lot which is rather unusual for the crowded Port au Prince and its Pietonville district, which thanks to its market, the US embassy, a well kept park and a slew of fancy restaurants such as the Quartier Latin, acts as downtown. Most restaurants such as Italian Portofino require parking in the street which is managed by a bunch of guys in yellow vests that direct cars to the spots on corners or sidewalks that would be illegal. They say they will keep an eye on le machine and, unlike in Baltimore, where similar services may be offered, here they actually mean it, take this as a real job and earn a living from the tips of vehicle owners. Such is the alternative economy that this system works even at 2am at night in a tight residential neighborhood where curbside parking is at a premium and throngs crowd into a local club that emits a techno beat noise level that would exceed the decibel levels in effect at an airport jetway.

But at the JoJo self parking is possible and the view of a three story brick loft building conjures up Baltimore's Westside garment district or the new pseudo lofts in Denvers LoDo district. The inside decor follows that same flavor, the life music, of course is local and the music vaguely Caribbean. The prices are just like in downtown Denver and the locals order a boatload of Sushi, certainly something that tops the tourist's "do not eat in Haiti" list. The Haitian Prestige beer is priced like a Natty Bob in Fells Point, $3 a bottle, apparently the universal price in the dollar economy. The other economy operates on the Gourde and is subject to steep inflation.

Gas stations are frequent put petrol is far more expensive than in the US, even though driving is inevitable in both economies. The really poor who can't even afford a moped use the ubiquitous tap tap micro "buses" which operate on the honor system unless they actually have a money collector. Hopping on and off occurs as part of an invisible system that includes obscurely designated stops and routes that only insiders know and understand. Women can frequently be seen walking with impressive loads on their heads along the streets on sidewalks where parked or broken down vehicles force pedestrians into the street. Broken down vehicles in the middle of the street can be marked with branches broken off some nearby vegetation. Passing slow vehicles is a must, even or especially uphill and in spite of incoming traffic.

Going out on the sidewalk as a white guy garners immediate attention. "Are you American, need a ride, need a tour", questions pelting the neophyte from all sides. An approaching older man speaks English quite well. He says something about military service. American troops have been in Haiti often enough, his service quite possible. Responding to my poor French he thinks I am Canadian, because it is quite unusual for Americans to speak French, he observes. He gives me his phone number, his name and his e-mail. I am reminded of Greece and Turkey in the 70s where a blond tourist was also always bombarded with friendly banter that was never threatening. I feel tempted to go on a longer walk but I have an appointment with the first blan (ayisian for pale face) I have talked to in two days, a meeting to get the NGO perspective.

Organizing before the city tour in this SUV

The digital Haiti conference

Henry Beaucejour, a Haitian born and New York based eeconomist is the main conference organizer of Haiti Numerique 2030 and also the reason for me being here.

His face changed from joy to stress in seconds, joy when he met friends and students that his organization supports in the digital revolution, anguish when he felt that he lost control over the schedule, the equipment he had ordered, the program or the many small accessories that help make an event a success. It is hard to maintain control in Haiti, he, a native, observed. He wants to bring ex-pats like himself back to their country, he says, first just for the conference and eventually for a more continuous engagement.

As oart of the last minute preparations he hops into a car to get a first-hand impression of the band and singer Stevy Mahy whom he has engaged to perform at a formal banquet and presentation in the ballroom of the Marriott. Practizing on the eve of the event she sings "Haitie Cherie" in the covered outdoor performance space of a restaurant and does it beautifully. "Tres bien", Henry is satisfied.

The banquet will have to be good. Two Haitian parliamentarian Deputies and the president of the National Assembly, Youri Latorture will attend, plus the Haitian born Senator Daphne Campbell of the State of Florida and a Delegate from the State of New York. They will speak to the importance of technology for Haiti. La Senatrice Floridian will do so in Creole, the others stuck with the formal French.

I was the outlier, white and without prior ties to the country, invited to speak about Smart Cities. Another presenter, a doctor and native ex-pat, talked about telemedicine. A local telecompany rep and sponsor spoke about his company's efforts to support schools and teachers with online portals. The topic of digitization is well understood in the second year of the conference. The politicians at the banquet sound supportive and admit the many challenges the country faces. The large double ballroom of the Marriott is almost full. Beaucejour gave it a festive look with a battery of tri-colored lights placed along the perimeter, bathing the walls in the colors of Haiti, which are also the colors of France. On the stage a Jumbotron screen represents hi-tech and flashes the logo of the conference, "tous unis pour la revolution numerique en Haiti". After a long line-up of patriotic and technology friendly speeches, awards are handed to the foot-soldiers of the digital revolution. Some teach the use of the computer, the internet and some programming in the countryside of northern Haiti. Then taking group pictures and selfies transitioned to a reception on the outdoor terrace of the Marriott hotel from where the warm Caribbean night revealed very little about the poverty to be found immediately beyond the fenced compound. In its grandeur this hotel would easily fit into Washington DC or New York, except for the guard who has to manually push aside the huge steel gate at the entry from the street.

A bit of sightseeing

Between the scheduled events there is a lot of improvisation: A trip to the architecture department of the university had been discussed the night before, but was then superceded by various actions of the Floridian Senator who had her own ideas about where to go with the help of the police security escort which she had already set into action on her way from the airport. First there was talk about going to the Turkish Embassy, then to a hospital for which a US organization has donated some 70 electrical beds which the US politician wanted to announce, finally to a trip to the parliament to see the same politicians who would speak at the banquet. Beaucejour was frantically making calls on his mobile until he ran for an escape to check on the banquet accommodations at the Marriott, waving for me to come along. Once that was achieved he suggested a bit of sightseeing at the Marsfield Park where the presidential palace once stood.

Museum MUPANAH at the Champs des Mars

The trip turned scary when our chauffeur driven vehicle got caught in a road block and pulled over by the militarized police for having tinted windows, which apparently is forbidden except for officials. Since the driver often chauffeurs a Haitian Congressman around, that should have been it, but the suspicious thing was apparently that instead of security riding shotgun as with the congressman, I was sitting in front what they could see through the un-tinted front window. So the driver had to leave the SUV and pull out paper after paper while ever new "officers" conferred about the matter, all in army fatigue some with machine guns. The chief of the group had a colorful police uniform and seemed to enjoy the deliberations. Only after the driver finally called his own security detail (also some type of police) to come to the rescue (which would have taken forever given the clogged streets) did the checkpoint posse give him his papers back and let us go. Of course, I had only the faintest idea what was going on until all this was translated from Creole into French and English for my benefit.

The Gold crown encrusted with diamonds and ruby
that Faustin Soulouque, Haiti's Emperor from 1847 to 1858
used as part of his garments. Soulouque was a former slave

Beaucejour directed us into The National Museum of Haiti, known by the letters of its French initials MUPANAH, a flashback to Henry's youth when he came here to learn about the past and some of the art of Haiti. The guard could not be convinced to allow parking right at the entry, but a drop off there was negotiated. The museum is underground and pleasantly cool. An attendant at the door wants $20 but the money is returned upon departure and obviously serves only the purpose to avoid use of bathrooms and coolness by the poor who are hawking simple paintings outside.

The exhibits celebrate art and culture which is a mixture of Africa, Spain, and France, with almost no trace of the original natives of this island that was Christopher Columbus' first point of arrival in the New World. The Champs de Mars park is part of the government district where the Presidential Palace was severely damaged in the 2010 earthquake. The palace had been built by U.S. naval engineers during the American occupation 1915-1934. It was designed by Georges Baussan, a Haitian who had participated in a national design competition for the palace. Reduced by an entire floor which had pancaked into the level below, it was demolished two years after the quake by a nonprofit group started by Hollywood actor Sean Penn.

A new palace is taking shape as a reconstruction that currently looks just like a concrete box with proportions of the old palace. It may turn out like the already completed and reconstructed ministry of Economic Affairs: historic without being literal. "The old building was beautiful" my momentary tour guide Henry Beaucejour tells me. The same can't be said about a really ghastly concrete observation tower which apparently survived the earthquake unscathed, a poor counter-piece to the palace devised by former president Aristide.

Observation tower, Champs de Mars

The tortured history of Haiti

Hope is up once again that the country could find its own way after elections this year, the last in a slew of appointments and elections since the popular President Aristide was ousted for a second time in 2004.

By listening to Noam Chomsky explaining the history of Haiti, one gets the liberal left view that everything would have been just fine if not for the ongoing and almost permanent interference by the colonial powers, some of that still playing out in recent years. Aristide is a case in point.

Initially elected in 1990, Aristide was first deposed through a putsch in 1991 before returning to Haiti for that short second run in 2004 that ended with the US ambassador knocking on his door at night.

Haiti was the first country where slaves achieved independence against all colonial powers. This occurred as early as 1803 as a result of a rebellions led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, the country's national hero.

At the time Haiti was a place of riches, cherished by the French for the resources they could extract from there. Of course, they didn't want Santo Domingo (the then name of the colony encompassing the entire island) to be independent. Through military threat they forced Haiti to either "reimburse" France for all they couldn't any longer extract from Haiti or to be reoccupied. The forced payments which lasted until after WW II were "equivalent to making them pay with money that which they had already paid with their blood" (V. Schoelcher). Faced with trade embargoes and military might, the independent Haiti, heavily depending on the export of coffee, cotton and sugar, soon cracked. The French tricked and abducted Toussaint who died shortly thereafter in exile. His last words became part of Haitian's DNA:

"In overthrowing me, you have cut down in San Domingo only the trunk of the tree of black liberty. It will spring up again by the roots for they are numerous and deep." (Toussaint l'Overture)

It was the US who reoccupied Haiti in the beginning of the 20th century (1915-34) and left behind a destabilizing institution, the Haitian army they had created and it was the US which messed with Aristide both times.

Reconstructed ministry Champs de Mars

The glory of the story of the first successful republic rising from a slave state isn't entirely straight forward. It took ten years of fighting during which the French abolished slavery in 1793, i.e. before the Haitian revolution. There was a lot of intrigue between Spain, France and England which involved what is today the Dominican Republic. Haiti itself was not monolithic either, it had not only whites and blacks but also Mulattos and split into a kingdom in the north (King Henry) and a republic in the south (Petion) as soon as it was independent.

Rubbel, makeshift shelter and abandoned reconstruction

It also disturbs a strictly binary view of the complicated web of Haitian history that the monarchy in the north was economically much more successful than the more socially oriented center and south. From 1915 to 1932 any semblance of independence was relinquished when America occupied Haiti and ran the government. (For more history on Haiti see here).

It would probably take years to master Haitian history, since it is full of external interventions, conspiracy, feuds oppression and mayhem and divergent cultural perspectives. Any attempt of streamlining it into a neat narrative of imperialism versus freedom leaves out the infighting between various ethnic groups both inside the country and also between Haiti and neighboring Santo Domingo and between the imperial powers of Spain and France. Those two countries employed two different economic colonial models to their respective parts of the divided Caribbean island originally named Hispaniola. Spain changed its dominion to a cattle ranch economy while France continued to rely on the original plantation economy of sugar and coffee. Those different economies are said to have influenced the status of slaves in the two respective societies with the plantation system much more dependent on slavery.

By the time of the French Revolution Haiti was producing more than half of all the coffee produced in the world and Haiti was producing 40 percent of the sugar for France and Britain and accounted for 40 percent of France's foreign trade at a time when France was the dominant economy of Europe. (Saint Jose University)

Scarce thanks to massive deforestation: wood. Any scarp is used
to make charcoal

When President Aristide began demanding that France pay back the Haitian "reimbursements" and had calculated the amount to be in the billions of today's dollars, it didn't sound good to France or the United States. Nor did ongoing internal strife and economic decline. The US media served its citizens a constant diet of Aristide's failings until his removal seemed like a humanitarian act. To the left it was simply imperialism, but those who lived in Haiti at the time have more nuanced view.

Maybe Aristide counts as a hero in the same manner as Venezuela's Hugo Chaves. Both were taking on the entire economic establishment, a strategy that runs a country usually into the ground pretty fast, given that the establishment won't give up easily. It isn't possible to untangle the Haitian layers and narratives in a short visit, no matter how many documentaries one watches about what supposedly happened. In Haiti or in Venezuela, the only thing that is pretty obvious, is that the masses suffer in both places and that the US take a keen "interest" in what happens.

The hillsides of Port au Prince know few roads

Within an hour of arriving in Haiti history touched when I was introduced to a man who was described to me as the driver of all Haitian presidents in recent time. I kind of recognized him from one of the documentaries and he confirmed the dialogue between Aristide and the US ambassador after the ambassador had knocked at Aristide's front door at the very early morning hours of February 28th, 2004, only 6 months into Aritide's second period in office. "I am sorry, I know I am the one who welcomed you back after your return but I now have to ask you to leave" is what the documentary shows the driver repeat the ambassador's words. There was no further comment to get from the witness of probably many historic moments, except his diplomatic statement that one has to keep an emotional distance from the ones one drives.

The tap-tap transit vehicle

Foreign aid and the dubious role of NGOs

There are some 240 NGO's in Haiti which are registered with the government and another 305 or so unregistered that are known to the government. There is probably a large number of additional ones not included in either count. The director of programming of the office of Catholic Relief services in Port au Prince, one of the large NGOs that has been in the country for decades, rattled those numbers off in a conversation with me. Good intentions can be worse than bad ones, and it isn't entirely clear which of the two are responsible for the almost eradication of the native Haitian black pig in favor of a US breed sponsored by US agriculture, or the wiping out of local rice production because of massive rice imports marked as food aid, to name just two of the more recent calamities resulting from misguided outside "assistance". The Haitian pig has since been crossbred and brought back and Bill Clinton who had much to do with the rise imports sees them now as a big mistake.

Since 1981, the United States has followed a policy, until the last year or so when we started rethinking it, that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food, so, thank goodness, they can leap directly into the industrial era. It has not worked. It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake.

So we genuinely thought we were helping Haiti when we restored President Aristide, made a commitment to help rebuild the infrastructure through the Army Corps of Engineers there, and do a lot of other things. And we made this devil’s bargain on rice. And it wasn’t the right thing to do. We should have continued to work to help them be self-sufficient in agriculture. And we — that’s a lot of what we’re doing now. We’re thinking about how can we get the coffee production up, how can we get other kinds of — the mango production up — we had an announcement on that yesterday —- the avocados, lots of other things. (Bill Clinton in 2010)

CRS in Haiti

CRS has fielded large scale relief operations after two hurricanes hitting the south, and after the earthquake of 2010 which hit Port au Prince and caused the death of 250,000 people. CRS initially provided tents and then 16'x16' plywood shelters. It helped import manually operated crushers that could transform broken concrete masonry rubble into gravel and sand for cement. CRS helped incubate companies that provided first reconstruction and then construction services. To boost the weak local economy is a goal that the NGO's have but it is undercut simply by their sheer number which absorbs a large part of the resources flowing into Haiti. Much of the local economy happens on the black market without regulation, oversight or taxes, leaving the feeble government without resources.

“The Haitian people have lost control over their destiny. If the international community and their NGOs have succeeded in one thing in Haiti, it is making Haiti anything but a real country with a respectable state." Daly Valet, editor of Le Matin newspaper in Port-au-Prince.

One can't avoid looking at those endless streetside operations, the private tap-tap "transit", the many vehicles with flashing lights and sirens that pretend to be "official" in nature and the makeshift houses that once again dot the steep hillsides and wonder if this what the "free from government interference" mantra of US anti-government activists has in mind. But there certainly is government, the militarized police is one manifestation, the immigration and custom cards dispensed in the airplane, or the speakers at the Haiti Numerique event are others.

The damaged presidential palace before it was demolished

The foreign influence is everywhere, no surprise in a country that was hardly ever the master of its own fate and where the current budget is funded up to 75% by foreign sources. The hotel in which the Haiti Numerique conference took place was financed by the Clinton-Bush post-earthquake humanitarian fund. Presumably as a place where NGOs and foreign investors can send their emissaries.

picking through trash for usable items

Are there conclusions?

Imagine a huge city without traffic lights and pretty much devoid of road signs. Blowing the horn becomes part of driving. It looks lawless but follows effortless a set of rules that move a large amount of cars, vans, trucks and mopeds through the narrow streets without the oversight and control otherwise typical in large cities. One-way streets are obeyed, even though they begin and end abruptly, without detectable signs. Maybe the lack of a yellow line reveals the transition. In the more affluent neighborhoods there are pedestrian crosswalks and even some embedded pavement reflectors. The occasional guardrails on the steep slopes of the capital are mangled, and just like the dented vehicles, testimony of a not always friction-free ballet of traffic which some would describe as an endless game of chicken. Along with the horn, nosing-in is part of getting across intersections. The matter is not without its own elegance. The slow driver and not the pushy one attracts the most horn blowing.

It is tempting to see the manner in which the traffic of a metropolis organizes itself as a metaphor for how Haiti works as a country. Not much government, not much regulation, a poor infrastructure and yet, somehow life goes on in a way that richer countries have long forgotten. That line of thought is in danger of glorifying misery or the human ability of adjusting to bad conditions or worse, the idea that defiance and courage must come from suffering. Yet, it is obvious that convenience and abundance don't necessarily lead to a vivid spirit. That must be one of the reasons why Haiti has fascinated so many people including those who weren't born there.

Technology can certainly help. Cell and smartphones are in many hands even in poor populations. As in the example of tele-medicine, smart technology can partly bypass missing amenities such as large, well equipped hospitals. I am able to communicate via WhatsApp with some of my new friends in Haiti. It is conceivable that access to knowledge, information and communication can create a level of equity that has been elusive so far. And it is likely that there will be another Haiti Numerique event next year provided the country is saved from another disruptive catastrophe or intervention.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
updated 8/12/17

all images by author except Haiti Numerique logo