Cite L’Eternal, on the side of Port-au-Prince closest to the earthquake’s epicenter.
Some people might become angry at the fact that, with all those aid drives and “Text GIVE to 50555” things, very little – if anything – has been done in most places. The orphanage is now a tarp covered barn next to the old crumbling school where the children who don’t have families anymore sleep on the school benches. The buildings that are remaining standing are usually marked with yellow or red spray paint – condemning them to be demolished… whenever that might be.
But, with all of that, you might be surprised to know… this:
…is no different even from before the earthquake. This is business as usual.
This is the way of the fishermen who go out in the morning and come back midday with their daily catch.
Usually young girls come down to the waterfront to gather from the one-man floating market.
I so appreciate the fact that I was able to see and be accepted wherever we went. So, to show you what I intended to show you – celebrating the beauty of Haiti through its fishermen – I would not be being fair unless I showed you this stuff, too. I’m not going to whitewash anything. But I’m not going to fill my posts with images like these for the shock value, either.
Remember all those tent cities?
Big as ever.
We visited quite a few families Philip had met days after the earthquake. He was with the first shipment that came in and established this tent city on the flood plain near the airport. The cities have now established themselves with governments and councils of elders who you must go before and present your reason for visiting and they will or will not allow you access.
Philip and I took a little ride up to the Kenscoff mountains above Pation-ville, south of P-au-P.
Contrast, it is. Anyone who has been following this blog for anytime knows I just got back from Ethiopia and such studying the anthropology of coffee and doing a little documentary work.
Well, this place is just incredible. Coffee trees in the back yard garden.
My creative juices got flowing and it gave me a few ideas for the beginning of the coffee book, how to frame it all. Stay tuned for that!
But, we snuck into an old crumbling fort and explored the area a bit, but on the way out we met a few of the Kenscoff ladies.
Down in a field, pulling potatoes and putting them in huge sacks. They wake up early and walk down, get two tap-taps (public transportation in the back of pickup trucks that you “tap-tap” to get off), and walk farther down the hill into upper Pation-ville to sell their potatoes.
We talked to them for a long time. But in the end they gave us handfuls of potatoes. Their livelihood and the labor of their hands in the fields, their generosity humbles me.
I love contrast. I love things to be pleasingly inconsistent. This blog is “daily” meaning there’s a post for each day, but its not “daily” in the traditional sense. Life is too unpredictable for that.
But I love the contrast of a land like this. Same day, just miles away from each other, the top photos to these last couple are as different as can be even imagined.
Tomorrow, I must leave Haiti behind for a while. I’ll be back.
Stay tuned,
-Noah D.
