Adieu Haiti

Super Mateo

January 29, 2010

Jordi and I say goodbye this morning to Mateo, the unbelievably adorable son of Clarens, whose house we stayed at for our time in Haiti. “Super Mateo” would show us his Spider Man and Super Man life—sized (for Mateo) action figures. I think they were pillows and a sleeping bag. Also his Transformer, helicopter and Spider Man toothbrush. He enjoyed playing with our flashlights and cell phones/Blackberries.
Our flight is not until the afternoon, so I set off with reporter Ruth, Patrice and Angelo to the Russian hospital. Turns out they are leaving today, taking down tents and all patients are gone. On the way back to the office we stop at a demolition site, meet a Haitian man from Brooklyn who came Dec. 11 for vacation and stayed to help clean up. Angelo has a flat tire, but changes it in a matter of minutes, like a Nascar pit stop.
The president of Ecuador is scheduled to arrive at the airport this afternoon, so Jordi, Warwick and I leave early in case of traffic. We’re booked on a small charter plane through a company charging way too much, but it will be much easier and better than driving to Santo Domingo. We are wisked through the entrance, which is guarded by a US soldier who just checks passports. A bored looking security agent at the only x-ray machine sends our bags through and in about 30 seconds we are standing outside the terminal facing a row of giant cargo planes. We are told to wait there for the charter plane, which the company said will be waiting on the grass, whatever that means. After about 40 minutes we see the plane just sitting on the grass between the cargo planes and runway. So we walk out under the wing of a Canadian Forces jet, cross a taxi way and out onto the grass. Very odd, just wandering around the air strip like that. The pilot, a young fellow, asks who weighs the most and Jordi gets in the front seat, Warwick and I in the middle 2 seats and a woman in the rear of the 6 seat Cessna. On to the runway we go, the pilot not talking to anyone in the control tower and off we go to Santo Domingo. The flight is uneventful as they say and we are now in the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel & Casino. I believe Warwick will have his first shower for 8 days, having been at a Port-au-Prince hotel with no water.
My time in Haiti is over and the AFP team will continue there. The main worry is for the hundreds of thousands in the makeshift tents and what will happen when the rains come. Words like horrible and awful seem to loose meaning in this situation, life was rough before the earthquake and the Haitians are made to suffer even more now. Though everywhere I went Haitians were very resilient, trying to get on with their lives. So Haiti will survive somehow.

Hope is just a word in the dictionary

January 28, 2010

I talk to Patrice about Haiti, he is very pessimistic about the future, very cynical about the politicians who he said have stolen most of the aid money in the past to make themselves millionaires. “Hope is just a word in the dictionary”, he said, “there is no hope for Haiti”, as we stand in a tiny bit of shade directly in front of the crumbling Presidential Palace . “Change is just a word in the dictionary, there won’t be any change in Haiti.” He thinks talk of elections are preposterous, the government is paralyzed now and is not helping its own people, yet they talk of being re-elected. Patrice has vowed not to vote again.
On the personal side, Patrice keeps meeting former students of his in the various tent cities we report on. I asked him how he felt about that, he said he feels so bad about those people because there is nothing he can do for them.
Expecting a big food distribution today near the Champs de Mars/Presidential Palace so I head in the morning to the nearby National Stadium with Patrice and Angelo. On the former soccer field, an array of tents are set up, people wash dishes on the concrete stands. One end of the field has been kept clear and boys play soccer. Many people are constructing crude structures of salvaged wood. Patrice meets 2 more students, one displaced, the other working for a local agency. Outside the stadium a man ponders buying a suit, a wide selection of pants and jackets hung from the iron fence, the proprietor dusting off each piece.
In the afternoon, we try to find a camp in the Delmars area of Port-au-Prince. We find a huge one on the site of a secondary school. In the distance we see large white tents, turns out it’s the Medicins Sans Frontieres compound, really a mini hospital. Very serene, it’s quiet, large trees provide some shade, it’s back from the main road so not much of the city noise. Very badly injured people lie on mattresses on the tent floors or some on simple beds. Tents are quite roomy and a breeze blows through. Patrice sees a teaching colleague in one of the beds and talks to him for a while. With the sun setting, Angelo drives us back to the bureau.
Earlier in the day Jordi begins to make arrangements to leave Port-au-Prince to Santo Domingo via a small charter company that brings in aid and will transport paying passengers. Thinking if there are more AFP people we might get a discount, I join him and Warwick on the flight tomorrow afternoon. So I’ll be leaving a day early, then return to New York on Saturday. I was just getting to know Haiti and especially the people I worked with, but it’s probably a good time to leave.

Croix des Bouquets and the golf course

Moon (the tiny dot) over golf course camp

Woman cooks outside her tent

Man raises arms in prayer

Mobile uploads- in Croix des Bouquets with satellite phone on roof of car, sending photos

January 27, 2010

Slow morning, everyone seems to be at a lower pace today. I head out with reporter Alex and videographer Warwick to Croix des Bouquets where the Haitian government said they will set up 400,000 tents and move displaced people out of Port-au-Prince. After searching about and many queries by Patrice, we find what looks like the entrance to a gated community. A lone 45 year-old man with 2 shot guns seems to be guarding the place. He lets us in, there are about 20 or so houses in various stages of completion, or uncompletion. A few look almost done, Spanish-ranch-style 1 story houses facing a giant empty field. No sign of tents, or government. Two workers seem to be at 1 house. Obviously private homes, may be finished in a year or so. We head back into town and find a group of Cuban doctors who have set up a small clinic. Cubans are identified by "Che" t-shirts. Lots of people lined up, most are coming for routine medical needs, not earthquake related. Down the road we see the town of Tabarre and a crowd at city hall. The US Army 82nd airborne is there having delivered a truckload of food, which the town mayor wants delivered at local neighborhood points, instead of right there where people are waiting. Frustrated soldiers are reduced to guarding against a rush of people. Very hot today, we head back to Port-au-Prince.
Everyday there is something that seems more overwhelming than the day before, if that’s possible. In the afternoon, I go with Patrice and driver Angelo (got his name wrong yesterday) to the Petion-ville golf course which is now a gigantic refugee camp. I thought the Champs de Mars is huge, but tents on the golf course seem to go on forever. It’s very hilly, which is similar to the terrain of Port-au-Prince. The makeshift tents seem even more crowded together than other camps I’ve seen. They’ve blocked off a big area for games for children. Patrice and I walk through the narrow passageways. An English teacher by profession, he sees a former student of his and talks to her for a while. The moon is high over the landscape at twilight, making for a nice scenic photo, from afar you can’t really see the misery.

More bodies

5 year-old Gaetha Gadjina Bristol cries as she gets her wound treated

People brought to the General Hospital by varous vehicles are place in a triage area.

Residents of this neighborhood are in the streets, some without tents.

Interpreter Patrice and I at the Digicel building.

January 26, 2010

This morning I inherited Patrice, an interpreter and Alfred, a driver, from Jewel Samad who returned to Washingtron this morning. Patrice asked my nationality which he explained to everyone we met, since people say, are you Chinese, Japanese, one guy asked if I was Korean. He was fairly disgusted with the recent Haitian governments and described how they stole from aid and money from other countries. He thinks the UN is not much better but likes the US military, says when they are in Haiti they bring aid.
Found a Finnish Red Cross tent set up in a small park that was filled with tents and people's belongings. A girl with what looked like a burn was being treated. The Swedish medic was removing the dried skin, which they said didn't hurt but she cried loudly anyway. Very heartbreaking. The interpreter said she was scared that it might hurt. People in this neighborhood were also sleeping in the streets, some without tents.
Earlier toured the Champs de Mars again looking for daily life pictures.
Got a message to go to the General Hospital, Scientologists were there. They were easily identifiable by the bright yellow t shirts with “Scientology” written on them. Apparently John Travolta flew his plane into Port-au-Prince last night, unloaded supplies and people and left. Editors back home screaming for photos of John.
Back out in the afternoon, first stopped at the Digicel building, 11 story glass Haitian headquarters of the Caribbean cellphone company, which survived the earthquake with little damage. Then we cruise around the downtown area west of the Presidential Palace. It’s definitely the most devastated area. We see a big crowd of people and a gaggle of photographers. I get out and see a friend, Chris Hondros from Getty. Seems people are digging through rubble to see what they find in a store, if it’s food big fights break out, good for ‘looting’ pictures. Patrice asks and finds out it was a perfume and shoe store. Down the street, US Army humvees and another gaggle of media. I see a couple more photo friends plus AFP photog Fred Dufour and decide too much media here. We drive around more and come across a fire, which is usually trash burning. I take a few telephoto shots and move in closer and see a large bone and skull. It’s a body being burned. People find them in the rubble and there is no service to take them away properly, so the bodies are burned right in the street. As I photograph the flames, the wind shifts and ash flies right into my face and covers me. We decide to leave. A few blocks later we see 2 charred bodies in an intersection. The flames are out but the stiff remains are there, horrifying for some passersbys, a curiosity for others. A man on a motorcycle pauses to take a cell phone picture. We return to the bureau as it gets dark.

Bodies

Makeshift tents in front of the presidential palace

A girl prepares food for cooking

Men digging by hand, they are standing on what used to be a roof

A family buries a man

January 25, 2010

Saw bodies in a 7th Day Adventist Church, 8 were still in the upper floors of the building. A parishioner who spoke very good English took me inside and directed me up. 2 bodies were in shallow boxes on the floor, covered with sheets. The 3rd floor of building had mostly collapsed, was probably really dangerous to be walking around it. Under a slab there was a woman who was probably killed instantly. As I walked down the steps, 2 men were carrying a body bag down. I followed them and they stopped at the ground floor. They opened the bag and took out the body and placed it with a 2nd one in a box, covered them back up with a sheet. Very respectful. Back outside, men from the church had taken a break from demolishing the building literally by hand. When I arrived, they had shovels and were also removing debris with their hands. On a nearby corner, the same scene, many men, some on a big slab which was formerly the roof of an office building, some standing in holes dug out by picks- using hammers and throwing out debris. A man pounds with a sledge hammer, the slab vibrates heavily. The lawyer who worked there thought there was 6 bodies still inside. People walked by covering their noses with cloth or masks against the smell. All in the area the same activity was going on.
In the central downtown Port-au-Prince, the destruction is really complete. Streets can be quite narrow so rubble often piles up on one side or another. But people are on the piles, digging with hands, trying to unearth the bodies. Boys hang around the scene hoping to grab scrap metal.
I’m back with “Big” the motorcyclist who seems about 5 feet tall. Less harrowing today, maybe I’m getting used to it. We checked out the makeshift camp on Champ de Mars in the early morning, right near the toppled Presidential palace. A sea of tents, people trying their best. A woman has made a giant caldron of pretty good looking stew for sale, her niece tells me its traditional New Years stew.
Dust is thick everywhere, my cameras and clothes are covered.
In the afternoon we head to the Port-au-Prince cemetery. The caretaker gives me a tour, mainly to show caskets that had been exposed from crypts that collapsed like the buildings, plus a horrific sight of several bodies pushed out of the earth and now open in a giant ditch. Later, a Jeep pulls up with a casket in the back, a family has come to bury a man killed in the earthquake.

Champs des Mars

Church service on Champs des Mars

A boy gets bathed on a sidewalk in Champs des Mars

January 24, 2010

Sunday open air church service, Champs de Mars. Probably the biggest plaza in Port-au-Prince is now the biggest tent city. They have left an amphetheater and plaza open where people gathered for church. I heard the singing first and told the motorcycle driver to stop (more on that later). There was singing and praying and quite a good group of musicians onstage. For a few hours people probably felt a bit normal, being able to participate in a Sunday routine. The voices and Haitian flags waving was very uplifting. I run into 2 photographers I know who have been here since a day after the earthquake.
The day started out very interesting. Clarens had hired a motorcycle and driver to ferry me around, its easier with the traffic on 2 wheels. There is an extended seat on the motorcycles here for that purpose and a bar behind you to hold on to. With 2 cameras and pouched on my waist, I grabbed onto the bar with 1 hand, holding my cameras steady with the other hand. I looked down at one point to see how fast we were going, the speedometer was stuck at 120 kilometers per hour. Well, we definitely weren't going that fast. We made it safely to Champs de Mars and I toured the tent city after the service. Pretty horrible conditions to live under, people bathed on the sidewalk or near a dried up fountain. They cook on small coal stoves and do laundry at their 'tent'. Most people have simply strung up blankets or plastic tarp. Some have red and gray Coleman camping tents, probably handed out by an aid group. Thin trees with branches cut off are used a lot. Some people have set up small 'stores' where they sell drinks and snacks, not sure where they got them. Giant water bladders are filled by tanker trucks, people can get water at small facets. Doesn't look like much of an end to this existance.
I send the cyclist off at 9am with camera cards for photo editor Ben to make early Europe deadlines. About 1130 Ben starts sending urgent requests to get to the French embassy. AFP has a 3 spots for a tour of the Siroco, a French transport and hospital ship. The alleged early departure for the ship turns out to be 3:00pm, so Daphne, Warwick the video guy and I wait first at the embassy, then at the main port. The only amusing moment was finding boxes of French MREs, or meal ready-to-eat. I studied the menu no. 12, which had as the plat : blanquette de veau and for the hor d'oeuvre : terrine de lapin. Also chocolat a croquer. Not bad.

“In USA We Trust”

A boy reaches up to grab a food packet from Sri Lankan UN soldiers

Sri Lankan UN soldier hands a packet of food to people

A woman and child watch the pile of humanitarian aid and water and the US Marines, these

were eventually delivered to an orphanage and neighborhood.

Children from the destroyed orphanage carry water past their building

January 23, 2010

(Forgot to mention you can see more photos at www.gettyimages.com , just search under my name)
4:25pm, back at the bureau and AFP text reporter Dave Clark emails, “He’s out!”. A man has been found alive after 11 days in rubble, apparently trapped in a grocery store so had food and water. Since we are French, here’s the French angle from reporter on scene:
“Didier le Bret, french ambassador;"Ce que c'est passe c'est extraordinaire ... Il a resiste pendant 11 jours ce qui est particulierement incroyable." Told reporters at scene”
Then again M. le Bret may not have seen this:
“Round of applause for french firemen and smaller US and Greek teams from media, but even as street cleared youths spraypainted "We Don't Need The France help only The USA" on nearby wall.” "In USA We Trust".
I guess its bad if you’re the original imperialist aggressor.
Spent the day with Daphne in Leogane, my second time there. We were searching for the US Marines, and found them where I last saw them, in a field near the town center that they used for a helicopter landing pad, temporary storage for humanitarian aid and camping spot. A big stack of boxes with food and hundreds of gallons of water sit in an orderly pile, marines sitting in the hot sun. They were and had been waiting for a UN truck to arrive to pick up the aid and take it to a distribution point. For some reason the marines couldn’t distribute the aid right there, so a small crowd formed on the road to stare at the supplies and the marines. A few of the marines I talked to were frustrated with this situation, but their orders were to wait. A Navy helicopter lands to unload more supplies. I sit in the shade of a marine jeep to transmit photos when the UN truck shows up. A Sri Lankan unit will distribute the aid, somewhere. So when I though I had enough photos to send, the Sri Lankans announce a plane will be landing on the road near the field. And out of the sky a small Cessna plane decends and lands. It’s bringing supplies from Santo Domingo and returning with a volunteer medical group from Massachusetts. This draws the crowd previously watching the marines.
I set up the Bgan satellite phone on the roof of our van, manage to send 1 picture when Daphne says the Sri Lankan UN troops are going to distribute aid now at an orphanage. So off we go to the Christian Orphanage of Bonne Nouvelle, whose buildings were completely destroyed but no children killed, where the Sri Lankans deliver water and food boxes. It was located off the main road and no one would have found it if a Christian aid group hadn’t seen it.
The Sri Lankan commander decided to also distribute some of the food and water in the local neighborhood, to prevent looting of the orphanage. The truck draws a moderate crowd in a few minutes as the soldiers struggle to keep people in an orderly line. The soldiers in the truck motion to me and help me up to get an angle from high up. When the food packets are handed out people press forward and it becomes a bit tense with small children squeezed up front, but no injuries. When it’s all done, I find Daphne sitting in the shade writing her story on a computer surrounded by about 10 people staring at her working. The driver takes us to shade where we can send our stories.

Comfort

Four patients are unloaded from a helicopter aboard the Comfort

A girl is treated by doctors in the inital receiving area.

A woman speaks to a translator.

January 22, 2010

Started the morning with a mild aftershock. I’m standing on the 2nd story balcony, several staffers race past me down the stairs. It was brief, scaring people in the streets for a moment.
Accommodations are pretty tricky as you can imagine. I think the main luxury hotel was destroyed as well as many of the moderate ones. Though a few still are open, the AFP staff is split up among hotels, the bureau- which has 3 rooms, and a house. A few of us are staying at the house of Clarens, the Haitan AFP reporter. It’s quite large, I think he’s sacrificing by sleeping in the dinning room with son and wife while Jordi and I share a room. It has water and a generator, so until about 10pm we have electricity.
Someone from the bureau goes out in the morning and finds baguettes and bananas for breakfast, usually there is cheese and omlets.Yesterday there was an array of fruit and juices and what looked like cold cuts in the afternoon. Dinner is brought here around 6:30pm and we all eat in the courtyard. The past 2 days was chicken, rice & beans and I think fried plantains.
Today I traveled with Daphnie Benoit, a French reporter based in Washington who covers the Pentagon. So she’s been doing the US military angle, there was a briefing at the airport, where ‘central command’ is located, in the morning. Our main mission was to get onto the hospital ship Comfort, anchored in the Port-au-Prince harbor. After being told by the Navy, Army, Coast Guard: yes, maybe, no, wait a bit to see what happens, definitely not, then 2 minutes later,“yes a boat is coming for you” we are whisked out to the harbor.
The ship is huge, a capacity of 1,000 beds. Helicopters land on a continuous basis, we see 4 Haitans on stretchers being unloaded from one. Scores of patients are treated simultaneously, was able to see and operation and speak with some of the doctors, etc. There is a large group of translators, almost 1 per patient. About an hour and 15 minutes later were are headed back to the port.
We give a lift to a Belgium reporter and see a heavily devastated part of town. You see a concrete slab rising from the sidewalk and realize it’s the roof of a several story tall building. Other structures are literally toppled over, cars are crushed , tall signs slice through walls. I think the main problem now seems to be there are probably tens of thousands of people homeless. You see giant fields and parks are now tent cities.
May head back to Leogand to find US Marines tomorrow.

Good Luck Haiti….

A girl is helped by a Canadian medical group

People setting up tent on a street median

People find newly delivered aid won't be distributed until Thursday

Tent city outside the prime minister's office.

January 21, 2010
First full day in Haiti, its amazing the devastation and how the Hatians are coping. Jordi and I set out for Leogand, a city about 30 miles west of Port-au-Prince. Fabien is our driver and like most Hatians seems to drive unbelievably fast but does get us there in his sturdy Mitsubishi suv.
Most of Leogand seems to be destroyed though not much aid is seen reaching people. A Canadian group has set up a medical camp and I see a small girl crying in pain with a broken leg as they try to carry her across the field. US Marine helicopters descend onto a field to pick up units deployed for security. Large groups of people gather to watch and be sandblasted as the machines land and take off.
Since AFP has a big European client base, we need to send photos by about 11am Eastern time to make 5pm Europe deadlines. So I work on my computer, much to the amazement of a gathering crowd of young boys. I set up the satellite phone on the hood of the car and in less than 30 minutes I send 11 pictures. Amazing technology.
We go back into town, see Argentineans treating injured people, Canadian soldiers, the first sign of clean up- huge construction equipment scooping up debris, men attacking a wood building (probably for scrap wood). Back in Port-au-Prince we stop on a wide street where people have set up crude tents on the median and in one lane of traffic. A horrible dusty place to exist. I manage to step ankle deep into a storm drain/sewer? not wanting to know what was in it.
Back at the bureau, I quickly give photo editor Ben my camera disks to edit and head to the bathroom to wash my feet, right shoe and sock, though not thoroughly disinfecting them. Jordi and I go back out to check out a mini-tent city in the park in front of the prime minister’s office. Darkness falls and we head back to the bureau.
Jenye, a friend from Scotland, sends a long email about her experience in Haiti many years ago and end it with, “Good luck Haiti… “

Arrival in Haiti

Port-au-Prince

Jimani Hosptial, on border with Haiti

Crossing into Haiti

January 20, 2010

It’s one year to the day I was in Washington in the freezing cold to see Barack Obama sworn in as president. I writing from the balcony of the AFP ‘bureau’ set up on the top floor of a 2 story house on Rue de la Marre in Port-au-Prince and sitting across from me is photographer Jewel Samad, who was also freezing with us a year ago at the inauguration.
I traveled with AFP Paris photo editor Benjamin Friend and Washington reporter Jordi Zamora from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince. Ben arranged a van and a driver and we set off just before 8am.
In the border town of Jimani, Dominica, we stop at a hospital that has treated 1,300 Haitians since last Wednesday. People are on mattresses lining the hallways and in every corner of the hospital. Most seem to have broken limbs and a few have had amputations. The staff is very friendly and don’t mind our intrusion. One doctor speaks English and asks about my camera, saying Nikon is the best brand.
We cross the border about 3pm Atlantic time, it takes us another 2 hours to get to Port-au-Prince. We see more damage as we get closer to the bureau, but miss the main disaster zone in the center city. I’ll see that tomorrow.
Dave, the chief reporter here, is off to find accommodations for us three new arrivals. We all brought sleeping bags since we may end up on various floors.