At the moment, the ways into Port-au-Prince are by air (with the help of private charters) or by road (driving from the Dominican Republic). I am hard-pressed to imagine how a civilian (non-military) would get into P-a-P by boat or with the military; though, considering the unpredictability of each and every circumstance involving Haiti, anything is possible.
Do not pay attention to anyone saying that getting out of Haiti is easier than getting in to Haiti. Getting out involves either gambling by going to the US-Military-controlled international airport and waiting for a military escort that may or may not be leaving at any given moment, accomodating an untold number of civilians, and travelling to an undisclosed location in the US (we heard destinations ranging from Orlando to Dallas to Puerto Rico). Otherwise, civilians can try forming connections or paying-ways onto private charters--this requires intense networking that is only obstructed by reduced communication and restricted on-the-ground transportation abilities. Lastly, a pricey charter or drive to the DR is always available. The latter route was our departure of choice.
The irony of the "expedite" labels on the medical supplies boxes is not lost on me. From Portland to P-a-P took me 5-6 days. Without delving into too many details that are mostly vague (because I still lack certain connections between dots about why we, as an International Medical Relief team, were delayed), I will recount certain obstructions:
-Unpredictable weather
-Heavy air traffic into P-a-P
-U.N. not lending its own airstrip to private relief flights
-U.S. Military beuracracy in running the P-a-P airport
-T.S.A. screening procedures (disorganized at best)
-Clearing oodles of medical supplies (e.g. syringes, antibiotics, sedatives for anesthesia, etc)
-Clearing extra, overweight baggage
Our team waited in JFK Airport in New York for over six hours before we discovered we were doomed to miss our flight. Two squads of EMT's from Bedford-Stuyvesant made our flight, but only in bits and pieces: one squad's leader did not make the flight, and the other squad's gear did not make the flight. A bunch of Scientology ministers made the flight. The two men sponsoring our private charter just barely made the flight. To make the slated landing time in P-a-P, the flight went wheels-up at noon. We were not on it; one of the charter sponsers called us mid-flight to let us know seventy seats on-board were unfilled.
After an overnight delay in NYC and some debates over the best way to arrive in P-a-P as soon as possible, our team decided to prioritize our unity as a group (as a safety and productivity precaution). We caught a flight to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Instead of braving the mountainous passes, risking unknown road conditions across the Haitian border, and trying to find our destination in P-a-P despite a lack of directions or maps and in the face of a city plagued with minimal electricity, we decided to stay the night in Santo Domingo.
I appreciated the locals playing dominos in their barrios and the carriage driver waving--especially since he did not hassle us to provide him business like so many carriage drivers would. I was not fooled, though: The carriage was not a novelty as it would be if it were not in the "developing world," and the horse's emaciated look (its ribs exposed through its malnourished abdomen) indicate a struggle for livelihood.
Then again, Presidente cervezas are in wide distribution. And lazy strolls on the boardwalk seem to be endemic to Santo Domingo.
These sights are dissetlling in light of what awaits on the other side of Hispaniola.
We leave Santo Domingo at 4 am--we drive to P-a-P in four vans packed to the brim with luggage, doctors, nurses, drivers, and non-medicals.
This man is the first vision of a broken Haiti. The tropics of the DR abruptly end at the border; the mountains nearly have a natural line where the lush rainforests end and the barren, soil-rotted, dust begins. Haiti has suffered from mass deforestation. The country now struggles with planting crops because the soil has not been able to retain the necessary moisture and nurishment for viable agribuisness--or sustainable farming.
This lack of moisture retention leads to dusty and dry air, diminished economic opportunities, and increased flooding during the rainy season. The rainy season. Six weeks off. The Haitians living in tent cities and sleeping on the rubble remains of their homes fear the coming rivers that will rush through P-a-P.
After we cross the border, traffic becomes insufferable. The tropical sun radiates through car windows that are sealed tight out of paranoia against those wandering the streets and looking for a next meal or their first drop of water for hours, a day, two days. No regard for traffic signals. Reduced road access due to rubble blocking streets. An overabundance of cars with poorly planned transportation infrastructure. Cars drive on the wrong side of the road until an oncoming truck forces evasive maneuvers--barely in time and leaving maybe a foot of space between narrow safety and ugly "accident."
Buses painted vibrantly clog P-a-P streets. Religious phrases accompany Sean Paul, Bob Marley, Shakira, Che, Ronaldinho, and many other celebrities and political figures. One bus has a painting of MLK, Jr. in a military uniform. Impressive designs coat the vehicles through-and-through; butts in equally impressively detailed fabric poke out of windows. Each bus should seat eight at most, but of course each bus actually seats at least fifteen.
Horns are in wide use. In Haiti, they do not mean what they would in the US. A honk could be warning: "I'm merging, accept that fundamental truth!" A salute: "Hey! You're my brother's neighbor!" A summoning: "You there! Come here and bring that bag of water!"* And so on.
*Water is mass-distributed in little quart-size bags. This water is not safe for us foreigners with delicate digestive systems, but Haitians battle crowds in an attempt to battle their thirst. We hear reports of people holding machetes at others' throats for a bag of water. Inevitably, these bags become used refuse. Needless to say, there is no city-funded garbage pick-up in P-a-P. I am not sure if the people of P-a-P can even conceptualize recycling.
I think it was Jonathan Kozol's "Savage Inequalities" that addressed how certain communities in East St. Louis feature children playing in yards seeped in sewage. Well, the children of P-a-P face far more dehumanizing sanitation issues.
Garbage is piled throughout the city--sometimes in heaps as large as those of the rubble from collapsed cement buildings. The street gutters overflow with black fluid and floating refuse. Enormous canals separate city blocks once every few miles. These canals are essentially open-air sewers: They are reiterations of the street gutters only wider (as wide as a two lane street) and sometimes stretching as far as the eye can see--which is not too far since the afternoon wind has kicked up a dusty haze--and up into the hills covered with slums housing. On one side of the road, a man urinates in the canal that funnels under the street. On the other side of the street, a woman washes clothes in the canal.
The Haitians clear their garbage with flames and not with compactors or landfills. The air is constantly filled with either dust, noxious and toxin-filled trash burn-off, or a suffocating mixture of both.
Ironically, one of Mother Nature's filthier emblems is a beacon of public cleansing in P-a-P. Pigs freely roam, feeding on gutter and canal fodder.
Destruction and devestation is ubiquitous. One cannot move ten feet in P-a-P without seeing a remnant of what was or a memorial for who has passed. Graffiti on what few structures remain (half broken walls, more often than not) bid "Adieu" to friends and family. Vehicles die in the middle of the street and are often abandoned--for a country that can barely get water, oil for driving is a long-shot.
Drivers point out where their family once lived, how their kids barely escaped, how they now know what is of greatest value in life.
Everywhere, people dig with bare hands or with whatever tools they can find. There are no bulldozers or government funded aid workers. Just people digging or swinging a pickaxe at a fifty square foot slab of concrete. Are they cleaning or are they trying to find someone buried underneath? In some areas, the thick scent of rotting answers that question.
Three story buildings collapsed to the ground; a second story caved into the first floor; a concret house entirely collapsed except for a single pillar reaching to the sky.
Over time, we inherit information about the devestation: The entirity of government buildings have collapsed--except for the palace and the National Archives. We drive past a Texaco station where the roof of the fueling area has collapsed onto an oil tanker.
No one cries in the streets.
Everyone seems to be trying to move forward with recovery and rebuilding. In a city now characterized by the weakness of physical foundations, the people demonstrate a strong tenacity and ardent conviction. The earthquake, however, is clearly only one of many disasters and one of many tragedies to hit Port-au-Prince.
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