Cap-Haitien, Haiti: Part I

I have returned from an extended weekend in Haiti with several of my fellow Fellows, wonderful folks each one. Their names are David, Madeleine, Nate, and Maira. There is much to tell. I suppose I will start from the beginning.

Last Wednesday I came home from work here in San Pedro, showered, packed my things, and hopped on a bus to Santo Domingo. The plan was to wake up early Thursday morning and catch the charter bus going from SD to Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city. I got into Santo Domingo and met my friends at an apartment where several of Esperanza's long-term interns and American staff live. We ordered pizza, drank some Presidentes, and had a fun time just hanging out together. Later, the five of us going to Haiti convened to discuss our plans for getting to the bus station and buying our tickets. We eventually decided to walk to the bus station that night to see if they were still open so we could buy our tickets early. Maira, one of the interns going to Haiti, mentioned something about needing our passports to get the tickets.

Passport. Hmmm... passport.

S***.

Mine, of course, was still next to my bed in San Pedro. Remarkably, it had not once occurred to me that I might need my passport to go to Haiti. Half an hour later, I'm on a bus going back to San Pedro, where I will retrieve my passport and hop on an early bus back to Santo Domingo in the morning.

All of this, luckily, goes more or less according to plan. I get my passport and am back in SD before 8am on Thursday morning. There is one near-disaster: when I get off the bus in Santo Domingo, I walk a few steps before realizing that the front pocket of my backpack is wide open, and my wallet is missing. I almost go into cardiac arrest, but luckily the cobrador from the bus (a guy who collects fares and gets people on the bus) had chased after me, my wallet in hand. I thank him profusely and check to make sure everything's there. It is. Phew. Crisis averted.

I walk to meet my friends at the Caribe Tours bus station. Buying a ticket to Haiti takes forever. In protest, an intern who shall remain nameless decides to steal the inflated Air France plane hanging from the ceiling. He/She unhooks it from the ceiling, deflates it, and shoves it in his/her backpack. The people at the desk don't seem to notice.

And on the bus we go! We stop briefly in Santiago to change buses. Crossing the border takes a long, long time. All of us stay on the bus as the attendant handles getting passports stamped. We arrive in Cap-Haitien after roughly nine hours of sitting in buses. Driving through Cap-Haitien is a surreal experience. We see an endless line of tin shacks lining the sides of a muddy river. We see rows and rows of pick-up trucks converted into public cars, packed with people. We pass a UN armored vehicle next to a UN base garrisoned with Chilean peacekeepers. The place is dirty, chaotic, and unsightly in a way that I haven't seen in the DR. It makes Santo Domingo and San Pedro looked like the developed world.


Getting off the bus, we are immediately greeted by Obed, Esperanza's only intern stationed in Haiti. Obed spent several years of his childhood in Haiti, and as such speaks fluent Creole. He informs us that something had gone wrong with the reservation he had originally made at a hotel in town, and that we had been referred to a "partner" hotel because the hotel we thought we had a reservation at was full.

No problem, we'll just go to the other hotel. When we get there, we find that the place is still under construction. It isn't a hotel so much as a three -story building with partially furnished rooms. The beds are terrible, the shower has no faucet, instead spewing water out of a pipe. Service is non-existent. There is no railing on the balcony outside so someone could quite easily fall off and impale themselves on the rebar sticking out of the unfinished retaining wall below.

Understand, none of this by itself is a problem. We volunteers are fine with staying in cheap hotels. The problem arose in the fact that this place was not cheap. We were informed by the "manager", some guy who met us there and gave us our keys, that it cost $120/night. When we first got there, we were not fully aware of the situation and thought whatever, we'll deal with it later. Mistake #1. The manager leaves, we go out with Obed for food, and return later that night, tired and wanting to go to bed. The manager is there briefly, but we have no way to communicate with him because Obed is not staying with us.

More on that later. On Friday morning Obed picked us up at the hotel with a couple of his local friends who he hired to drive us around for the weekend. Eight of us pack into a small, beat-up suv that has consistent trouble starting and head to Esperanza's office in Trou-du-Nord.

We hang out in the office for awhile while Obed takes care of some business. Later we are taken to the office director's house for a Haitian lunch. The director is out of town, but his wife had made an amazing meal for us. See for yourself:
After eating, Maira and I took the opportunity to go out and meet a couple of the associates with Obed, in my opinion one of the highlights of the trip. We first visited a woman with a small colmado-like store in a road-side shack, stocked with drinks, snacks, and common convenience goods. She wass rather shy, and Maira and I stood around while Obed interviewed her for a story. We got the chance to ask her a couple questions through Obed, and then left, Obed buying a soda from her as thanks.

We then went to meet another small-business owner nearby, who also had something of a general store. This man was remarkable. After Obed talked with him for awhile, Maira and I again had the opportunity to ask questions and take a few pictures. Maira told him that she was planning on going to business school soon, and asked what advice he could give her on running a business. Obed translated, and the man paused thoughtfully before diving into a detailed answer. The gist of what he said is as follows: "Business is about principles," he said. "I form good relationships with my customers because I value them and want them to come back. They come back here because they know I have good prices and because they like me and know I appreciate their business."

I'm paraphrasing Obed's translation, but that's about what he said. What was so remarkable was what I could learn about this man without knowing what he was saying. Despite having a small business in a poor neighborhood, he dressed nicely, wearing slacks, a collared shirt, and dress shoes. He stood up straight and spoke clearly and deliberately, with a evenly measured rhythm. I could tell simply from how he spoke that this was an honest, stand-up guy; a man who knows his business, knows his clientele, and acts professionally despite his humble circumstances. It was truly a privilege to see his business and have the chance to talk with him.
(Obed, right, with the business-owner we talked to)

Whew, I'm thinking there may be too much for just one post. Stay tuned for Part II of our Haitian aventura.