Haiti Trip Report from 2009

Sad memories, but I'm putting my 2009 trip report to Haiti here. 

Trip Report 1651: Haiti, a Troubled Beauty

By Andrew from MO, Winter 2009

Trip Description

February 2009: a family trip to Haiti.

Page 1: Flight and arrival in Port-au-Prince

 

Port-au-Prince, Hotel Oloffson

In February 2009 my parents and I went to Haiti to visit my sibling Flo, who since the previous fall was directing FOSAJ, a cultural center to nurture artists in Jacmel. We planned the trip with many worries about the reputation of Haiti, but also knowing of Flo’s enthusiasm for the place. Still, the worries were enough to put me on some medications.

There was not a lot of advance planning for what we would do there, because we could count on Flo to make most arrangements, and there isn’t a lot of travel information out there. I devoted the planning efforts where I have a lot of interest to the details of our flights. We arranged to converge, my parents from Boston and me from Kansas City, to get on the same flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince. The only option to make this trip on the same day was on American Airlines, and the fare was high for the distance. In my detailed planning I kept a spreadsheet of the gates that all the flights used for the previous month, and major delays. In this winter season, there were days that one or the other would have missed the connection to the last flight of the day, so we hoped for the best.

So I take note of flight details, but on these not-so-long segments, I’ll forgo listing all the door-closing and takeoff times for flights that were more or less on time. I spent the night at a nearby motel before my 6am departure from KCI. I found that the check-in counter opened at 4:30, and hoped it was o.k. to take the motel’s shuttle that left at that time, not worrying too much about extra time for an international trip. American still doesn’t have online check-in for international flights; I checked in at the kiosk, which read my passport and had the boarding passes promptly, asking me to go to the counter to get a “docs OK” stamp. I was carrying on my main bag with clothes, but checked (free on the international trip) a bag where I was bringing a few donated items for FOSAJ; I also put my topcoat into that bag. So that check-in was done promptly at that hour, as was clearing security; I saw that, as boarding time got closer, there was a long line at security, and the flight was completely full, as I wouldn’t have expected on a 6am mainline flight on a Tuesday in February. I’d last flown American when I took an award trip to Italy in 2006 (now I was banking their trips in Qantas’s program, but I eventually learned that the fare codes for most of these flights weren’t eligible for credit with them) and I took note of some new practices of theirs, in particular having a screen showing the first part of the names of people on the list for upgrades and standby.

I had a first connection to make at Dallas/Fort Worth airport (DFW). There had been extensive remodeling since I was last there, and I’d seen for the previous month that the connections could be all over the four terminals that American uses. I had chosen Au Bon Pain as a place to have breakfast, having noted their several locations including one close to my arrival gate. I had a cheese and egg sandwich, and I’m not sure that it was better than an Egg McMuffin. There are many connections at DFW that one may as well walk, but mine from Terminal A to D was one where it was best to take the Skylink train, which runs overhead offering a good view of the grounds and is inside security. Terminal D is the most extensively remodeled terminal and very nice-looking. There I took the flight to Miami.

I arrived there, which is about the last major U.S. hub airport for me to visit. On the previous day, the airline web site had posted our two arrival flights and the departure (on our day) as using three different concourses, but they wound up being close together in Concourse D, so not much trouble in that airport, which gets bad reviews. I got to the gate for Port-au-Prince and found my parents, who had just arrived. They’d spent the previous night with friends in Boston, and had their story about MapQuest directions there not working, so they asked a police officer for help, and he had them follow his car. I proposed that we pick up Cuban sandwiches at the nearby stand for La Carreta, which also has reportedly the best restaurant at the airport but it’s outside security. We had sandwiches at the gate and I was surprised, since I didn’t know they’d be joining us, at the arrival of my mother’s friend Tricia from St. Louis, with her friend Steve.

One thing mentioned in blogs of people going to Haiti was to take note of how many white people were on the flight; I noted a few. It got to be past the boarding time with no boarding call, and I got a cell phone alert of a 20-minute delay. There was a boisterous mood when the flight finally boarded. This was an A-300 plane, the oldest-generation Airbus wide-body, which AA will soon retire. There were empty seats, and people were still getting up as it was pushing back. On the safety video, I noted the subtitles in Kreyol. In flight, there was a cheese-cracker snack, and a landing card to fill out. The flight made up most of the delay, arriving at Port-au-Prince about five minutes late, at 4:15pm, so the time in the air was 1.5 hours.

On arrival, there was no jet-way; there were stairs down at both the front and rear. We exited from the rear; I was ahead of my parents, and on entering the terminal I was surprised to see Flo, who had asked to get to the baggage claim area to help us and was in fact taken through the diplomatic hallway to greet us before passport control. Flo thought he’d have to go back the same way, not carrying a passport, but he accompanied us through passport control explaining himself and showing his U.S. driver’s license. At passport control they tore off a section of the landing card for us to keep with our passports until we left the country. Then there was baggage claim, where we got our bags including my parents’ big bags of supplies to be given to FOSAJ, as many Haitians were bringing big bags. A month before, according to Flo, it was $1 to get a porter with a cart; now, with new carts, it had become $2.

Flo had hired a van and driver and had come with several people from FOSAJ. On exiting the terminal, we walked there as people approached us for rides; from what I’d read, the barrier from general people meeting flights had recently been moved to allow more walking space. Flo says that anyone going to Haiti really needs to have someone who knows the ropes who can meet them. We were to spend that first night at the Hotel Oloffson, where Flo designed the web site and could get us complimentary rooms.

As we were in the van and took off, I noted the crowds of people in the streets everywhere. One boulevard was on the edge of Cité Soleil, as if to put the shantytown up for view. We then went by the Champ de Mars, the central park by the presidential palace, slightly uphill and on to the Oloffson.

There was some indication of surprise at the check-in desk, and we were invited to sit on the terrace, taking in the warm weather as the sun was setting. Before too long, we got word that they’d misunderstood the reservation. Flo had said “arriving the 10th, leaving the 11th,” and they took it down as a reservation for the 11th. The one room they had with a double and single bed was not enough for all of us. Some people in the group wondered if that was the true story; there was a large group of French people there, and maybe our one comped night would get in the way of the large group staying several nights.

Anyway, we stayed on the terrace to have dinner while the people familiar with the scene figured out what to do. I ordered what would be a favorite, lambi, or conch, on a filling platter with rice. The lights went out briefly and came back; we could see lights around the city generally on. While we were enjoying the meal, Flo and the others were working out the options. The first thought was to go to Jacmel that night, but there are some warnings about being on the road at night, and the driver (who had been partially paid and was giving the round trip at a price low in the one-way range) wanted more money to do that. The group finally reported that one of them had located two nice apartments for us. This illustrated that when Haitians become your friends, they go to extraordinary lengths to help you, even as people in service occupations come across as surly.

While we were eating, our bags had been brought back and forth between the hotel and the taxis. There were various cab rides, some exclusively for the luggage, each at the $20 fare of any ride within a city. We had our ride to one of the nicer areas of town, with the apartment building where many people were waiting but there was no light. There were flashlights to get around. We were led up to the apartments, which had beds but were otherwise stripped bare. We each had a packet of purified water: with no receptacle into which to pour it, it would need to be consumed as soon as it was opened. As we’d get used to, there was a shower that was barely a trickle.

Page 2: Jacmel, part 1

 

Jacmel, street with FOSAJ

Having had a full enough day, we slept pretty well. We spent the morning peacefully; around midday, we loaded the newly hired van that had come from Jacmel. We went to Champ de Mars and visited the Musée d’Art Haitien, with a small painting collection and a restaurant in the courtyard where we had a light lunch. We stopped at a well-stocked grocery store, which in my advance research I’d learned was the best place to change money. ATMs are nearly non-existent, and travelers’ cheques are of no use; it’s best to bring greenbacks, well-secured, and change them to gourdes, which is promptly done at the service counter at the grocery store. Then we waited in the van. In brief, the reason for this stay in central P-au-P. was that someone in the group was giving information to the police about a crime against a friend of his. While we were waiting in the van, Flo also went to the police station to help, and eventually came back saying that the person who went to help had been arrested, and Flo was lucky not to have been arrested too. We took off as there was talk about the corruption of the justice system; this gave a bitter taste to the start of the trip, and was one of many crises that Flo would handle.

The van made its slow way out of town; a stretch of the main street out of town was bumpy and unpaved. We were parallel to the coast, which could be seen in the distance; then there was the turn south to the other side of the southern peninsula of Haiti. This was a two-lane mountain road like many that we could remember from Europe, scary from the curves but well-paved. The vehicles of United Nations peacekeepers were in evidence: we saw one wrecked SUV of theirs, and got a warning to hold back as a big rig of theirs was barreling down, needing both lanes in the curvy stretch. The ride to Jacmel was about 2.5 hours, a good part of it in getting out of P-au-P. The van delivered us to FOSAJ, where there were people to greet us but the lights were out and daylight was ending. We got a first look at the place before getting a ride to our lodging; at first it looked like I would need to ride in the bed of a pickup truck, but we found someone else who could give a ride, so there were two vehicles. There were many people out in the darkness with no lights; power came on a little later.

For the first part of the stay, we were in the B&B rooms attached to Piano Piano, an Italian restaurant out of town. We had a nice pasta dinner at the outside table. The rooms were cabins, with Tricia and Steve in one, and my parents and I in another, in adjacent rooms, with walls not reaching the ceiling, including being open to outside air, cold never being a problem. There were mosquito nets over the beds. The toilets and shower were across the grounds; the shower had two nozzles just making a trickle; one of them had slightly tepid water. There was a nice breakfast spread of fresh fruit, and eggs were available.

Piano Piano’s pickup took us into town; the men sat on upholstered sofa seats in the pickup bed. Flo negotiated their charge from $20 per ride to $40 for all rides during the stay, but we didn’t need many more rides. So, for our week in Jacmel, much of this discussion will be thematic rather than a day-by-day report.

FOSAJ is a cultural center devoted to developing local artists, and spreading the benefits of art in the community, including attracting visitors and helping the local economy. It occupies two floors in an old coffee warehouse, facing the beach, with a walled sculpture garden. The founder made some bad personal and financial choices and had to leave, leaving Flo as director, trying to keep the place going with minimal income, making appeals to philanthropic organizations, who have trouble giving as their endowments have gone south in the current economy. In the rest of the family, we have great concern about Flo’s choice to be in Haiti, and to be known by male pronouns, but look with hope for him to succeed in keeping FOSAJ going and help the community.

Jacmel was damaged by hurricane Gustav last summer; it was hard to tell what conditions could be directly attributed to it or general deferred maintenance. There was rubble in some streets; where there used to be electricity all the time, it was now on a schedule of: on in the morning, off in the afternoon, on in the evening, off at midnight. Buildings had signs of deterioration and electric wiring not up to code.

Flo spoke the local language of Kreyol (the spelling I prefer over Creole) well. The official language of French is not spoken much. In Kreyol, I could recognize the key words as similar to French, but the syntax was entirely different.

For money matters, the official currency is the gourde; there are 40 to the U.S. dollar. The confusing thing is that prices are often quoted in Haitian dollars, representing five gourdes, from the time when that was the fixed exchange rate to the U.S. dollar. Higher prices are often quoted in U.S. dollars. We had Haitians helping us who often spoke in Haitian dollars, so we had to multiply by five to see what banknote we should give, and divide by eight to see what that was in USD.

As I said, I brought greenbacks to change either at grocery stores or in a booth facing the street that Flo used in Jacmel. My father needed more, and that meant going to the bank, where people are screened with a security wand. The ATM card for his main account didn’t have a Visa or MasterCard logo and couldn’t be used for a withdrawal from a teller. He used a card with a logo, which meant first stopping at a desk and having paperwork done, then going to a teller. Before the end of the trip, he made a regular credit card cash advance, going several times before the bank wasn’t too crowded.

Rue Ste-Anne, where FOSAJ is, is quiet although it’s the last street parallel to the beach. That stretch of beach is dirty, but there was a nice enough restaurant there. Although we didn’t do that much wandering the streets, when we did there was a minimum of harassment.

We spent the bulk of our days at FOSAJ: my father brought artwork to work on, my mother completed a translation, and I could spend time reading as people expect me to do a lot as a librarian, but I often don’t do that much.

Even with the poverty, prices of many goods weren’t much lower than in the U.S., and prices for travelers, in a land with very few tourists, were high for what you got. Some high prices could be attributed to the presence of U.N. peacekeepers. It was especially expensive to be transported by means other than what the locals use, which are motorcycle taxis and in particular tap taps, covered pickup trucks with people on benches and hanging off the back.

An important development was that the four-door pickup of FOSAJ’s founder had been out of commission, but Steve brought a belt for it and got it running again, so we were able to get around more, most often driven by Jimmy, who had become Americanized but returned to Haiti; he was a tremendous help to us. Among the weaknesses in the infrastructure, a driver needed to be alert to the drainage ditches that were sheer drops along the side of the roads; one needed to be careful about pulling over too far on narrow roads.

Francesco, the Italian emigré owner of Piano Piano, hadn’t been there the first night. We met him the second night and had another pasta dinner. On Friday morning, he talked about there being potential problems for the weekend, because other guests were booked. Maybe someone could sleep on the porch, which had a ledge with a mattress and mosquito netting, or there could be some special setup for me, or I could be charged for double occupancy (the normal rate being 1000 gourdes or $25 U.S. per person regardless of occupancy). Since this was Carnaval weekend, the peak time for visits to Jacmel, it would be a problem to find another place to stay. Still, when we were in town, Tricia and Steve found another place to stay. We didn’t really understand that it helped Francesco out, but they said it did. They effectively checked out of their Piano Piano room at 9pm, and Francesco made some noises about it not being proper, but finally didn’t charge them for that night. On Friday and Saturday nights, films were projected there and there was a crowd, with some people sleeping on the porch.

On Saturday afternoon, Jimmy took Tricia, Steve, and me to the public beach at Cyvadier, where there were many people, and charges to park and enter the beach. We sat at a table and ordered food, and had to change our plastic chairs to the ones that went with the grill that took the order. Some musicians surrounded us and played, after we made them wait for other background music to be done, and Jimmy advised on what the proper tip was. We spent the afternoon as the time can best be passed, with Prestige beer and Barbancourt Five-Star rum.

On Saturday night was one of the crises that Flo handled. A catered fund-raising dinner for a group of tourists was scheduled for FOSAJ on Monday night, which seemed odd because they were checking out of the nearby hotel, making room for us, on Sunday. Well, there they turned up for the dinner on Saturday while a show opening was going on. Flo arranged for the restaurant next door to feed them.

Page 3: Jacmel, part 2 with Carnaval

 

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Sunday was the day of the national Carnival, Carnaval, or Kannaval, the big event bringing people from all over Haiti. It was also the day that room was opening for us to stay at the Hotel Florita, across the street from FOSAJ. Jimmy and Flo turned up early at Piano Piano to move us, as streets were being closed for the parade. We made the move, with Jimmy luckily knowing how to go down back streets. We checked into the Florita, where we had a two-bedroom suite, to be entered either from the balcony or through the bathroom. It was a nice flowery place, with flowers in evidence on the balcony but also with signs of deterioration in the 19th-century building, and intermittent power and water. The dining area, where we’d already had a few meals, was a flowery courtyard, mostly covered by a roof although there was an opening. They took credit cards for stays but not for meals; the one restaurant known to take plastic was the Hotel de la Place.

Some of us went to view the Carnaval parade. There was one option to view it from a balcony over the central street, but Jimmy advised that it was better to see it from a ground-level patio off one of the feeding streets. Wherever you go, there’s a charge for the seats. We sat and saw an afternoon of processions; so many people had devoted themselves to the show, with elaborate dressing, body painting, and papier-maché outfits and floats. They evoked the history of Haiti, Blacks in the New World, and the current problems of the country. There were also commercial floats, with people dressed as pasta packages or energy drink bottles. The straightforward American Airlines plane float put together at FOSAJ was not sponsored by the airline. There were long gaps between each display, we passed the time going through a few bottles of rum (with a great wood scent), and as dusk came people were going down the street in huge volume, with constant rhythmic music. The whole scene is better described in Edwidge Danticat’s short book After the Dance. We eventually returned to the hotel without too much trouble with the crowds.

Tricia and Steve were leaving on Monday. Before the trip, I’d seen references to air service between Jacmel and PAP, but Flo said it had ended when the plane crashed. While we were there, there was talk of the service resuming, but Tricia and Steve were able to charter a plane for $300 total to connect to their afternoon flight.

On Monday, I joined Flo in going to the Iron Market, where many goods are sold under a structure and in surrounding streets. We gathered fish and other things to cook over a wood fire; power had been on all day for the parade day Sunday, and was off for most of Monday.

We spent the final afternoon in Jacmel (Tuesday) along the private beach with the house belonging to the FOSAJ founder, where we’d had the chance to stay but his family members decided to stay and got priority. We had a picnic there until dusk; then it started to rain (the only rain of the trip) and we returned in a downpour with many people in the pickup truck bed. There had been FOSAJ events most nights; for the final night, my father did a slide talk (now on PowerPoint) on his artwork.

Page 4: Port-au-Prince and Return

 

My family at the Oloffson

For the return to Port-au-Prince, my mother was willing to take a public bus, either a tap tap or an old American school bus with at least three people on each seat designed for two children; this may have been a sign of things not being quite right with her, I didn’t think that I’d be the one arguing against taking public transportation, but the thought prevailed to hire a van for $120-150 rather than take the bus for $3 (the FOSAJ pickup was not advisable for this trip, with most of its dashboard warning lights on). The driver wanted to leave at 7am because of another commitment, but we left later, giving my father a chance to stop at the bank for a cash advance before we left. We had a reverse of the drive to Jacmel, over the mountains going through a busy market in the middle, then along the coast to the dilapidated streets of P-au-P.

We got to the Oloffson, where the reservation was done right this time, checked into our suite, and had lunch on the terrace. We had the chance to look at the gingerbread house structure, reportedly Charles Addams’ inspiration for the Addams Family house, and the setting of Graham Greene’s The Comedians. It was on large grounds, and had rooms named after celebrity guests. The suite had some class, but one could see structural problems, and the water pressure was weak. We wandered the grounds but weren’t much in the mood to get out. For the afternoon, I mostly sat on the balcony. There were many sounds from outside, including a lot of chanting from a religious rally. Flo and I finally went out as dusk was approaching; we did a short walk around with many people out and weren’t bothered. We were back for dinner at the hotel.

The next day we had our flights back. I was going via Fort Lauderdale, leaving at 11.40am, and my parents were going via New York JFK after 3pm. I had seen on American’s Web site that PAP is one of the airports where they advise 3-hour advance check-in. They don’t put Rome, where I think it is advisable, on that list, so I wanted to aim for that; Flo said it wasn’t needed, but he tends to cut things close. I also didn’t want my parents to go six hours early. Flo arranged for a taxi driver attached to the hotel to give us two rides to the airport for $20 each instead of his normal $25 fare. The rest of us went to the terrace for breakfast before Flo was ready, and we didn’t understand that continental breakfast from a buffet would be included; we ordered à la carte for a charge; I had an interesting herring omelet. Finishing that took me past the 8am taxi time, but there was no irritation from the driver, and I said my good-byes to the family when I was ready.

The taxi got me to the airport around the 3-hour mark; having kept the small bag that I was thinking of leaving there, I had two bags to check and a shoulder bag to carry on. A big group of porters in red converged around the arriving cab, and three each took one bag. They entered the terminal through one door, while I went through the adjacent door, needing to show my passport to enter. Flo had said it was standard to give a porter $2 as he provided a cart; this group surrounded me saying $20, and I gave them $5 each. There was one stop for a manual inspection of the checked bags, then check-in; I was early and there was no wait. There was security and exit passport control, where I returned the section of the landing card that had stayed in my passport on arrival. There was an upstairs area with a lounge and duty-free shops, where I made a purchase of Five Star rum. Back downstairs, there was one side for American Airlines departures, another for all others. There was another security check to enter the AA gate, and my one chance to see Haitian television, with talk of Carnaval merriment. I had in fact been earlier than I needed, with this being AA’s first flight of the day and on a narrow-body; it may be more hectic with the later wide-body flights. Still, it was nice that I got through formalities quickly, and the gate area filled up shortly before boarding, a time also marked by a brief power outage. On exiting the terminal to the tarmac, I picked up my rum purchase; I was rare in having gotten one bottle; most had gotten a box of four. As the plane taxied away, I noticed jet-ways on the upper terminal level, perhaps ready to be implemented; there had been signs of construction in the gate area. Delta is planning to start service from JFK in June. The flight took off, and good-bye Haiti.

We arrived at Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) early, around 1:30. I’ve heard that international arrivals at Miami airport are best avoided; at an airport like FLL, without many international arrivals, the problem is that they don’t provide much space to arrival formalities. Having sat towards the back, I was at the back of the line. We were in a passageway before the immigration hall, and officers said which side was for visitors, which for residents. The residents, many with Haitian passports, had the longer line, but that line moved faster when we were in the main hall. I eventually got processed at the crew booth, with questions about the purpose of my trip and my agreeing that Haiti was interesting but troubled. My bags were delivered and off the belt when I got to the customs hall, brief questions there, then the drop of bags for the continuation was marked with someone holding a sign as a car service driver would; I made sure to put the rum bottle into a suitcase.

International arrivals are at Terminal 4, and AA’s departures are at T3; the crew had said that it was a short walk between terminals; better to do that than the bus ride the long way around. When I booked the trip, the fare was available with two options with the same late arrival in Kansas City, changing at both FLL or DFW, but a choice of where to have the longer layover. I’ve learned generally to select the first flight after an international arrival (contrary to what I’d do before an international flight), but because of the reputation of long delays in flights out of PAP, I went with the long layover at FLL. I was out of customs at 2:20, and my departure was at 6:10; my immediate thought was that it would be more interesting to have the longer layover at DFW, with more concessions; maybe they’d even let me get to KC earlier. I went to the AA check-in counter, devoid of customers, and tried my luck at the kiosk. I got error messages, and the agent, who’d been playing with a child, said that because I’d checked bags there was no way of changing my flights. I wonder if it would have been different if there had been a kiosk or an agent with a computer by the bag drop.

There was a place to leave carry-ons, I’d been to the area recently, and it crossed my mind to try to get to someplace interesting, but I finally sat and read, at seats outside the security checkpoint, where there were signs saying to enter only for flights within two hours. It got to that time; the airport web site, which I’d researched, said that the concessions in that concourse closed at 5:15, but I found that they were open until 7. I had barbecue at Corky’s, which I’d known to be good at Memphis airport, but it wasn’t so good here. I had the flight to DFW, with some empty seats; the connecting flight was at a different gate then my cell phone alert had said; it was a crossing from Terminal C to A done by moving sidewalk. I was crowded in on the flight to KC, where I bought a bottle of wine whose label evoked an Italian train ticket, some kind of signal to me. The flight arrived at 11.30pm and I got home.

It’s difficult to put together my final thoughts on this trip. I went with worry for my parents and myself, but also knowing of Flo’s enthusiasm for the place. Although nothing bad happened to us, I didn’t really get over the worries. One hears a few stories of terrible things happening due to crime or infrastructure problems, just as sometimes happens in places with the safest reputation. One can look at Haiti’s problems and hear the reports that much of the blame comes from the way other countries have treated it. Also it’s an interesting economic situation when people who get money from relatives in the U.S. aren’t motivated to go for the meager-paying jobs in Haiti, and then U.S. economic problems have their effect. People widely have cell phones, and that makes some aspects of life easier. There are stories that Haiti’s current stability could come undone. I will try to think the most about the warm time in February, the great scenery, and wonderful people living through hardship.