So I went to Haiti a couple of weeks ago. Before I went, I read up on the news coming from Haiti, saw the State Department's travel warning (which in hindsight, is the funniest thing ever!) and caught up on the history/demographics on websites like wikipedia and through the CIA's world fact book website. After taking in information from all of those sources, all signs were pointing to a very unsafe, negative and poverty stricken environment.
The flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince was pretty short, 1 ½ hours. We flew American Airlines and my only complaint is that a ceiling panel was about to fall out and the crew kept walking pass and tried to bang it back into place. Not a pleasant sight for me since I was already on edge since I did not know what to expect. As soon as the plane landed, I told myself that I will go ahead and take in this experience with an open mind because sometimes, you just have to find out for yourself just what the situation is. So, with that, I stepped off the plane.
Let me tell you. It was damn hot! I mean 95 degrees hot! I know it was hot because we got off the plane like they use to in the old days. They drove staircases to the exits of the plane and people just stepped off onto the tarmac. Awesome! Engine still running and all! As I stepped off the plane, I looked around and I saw mountains. I mean, they were everywhere. So, my first thoughts of the country were that it's hot and has lots of mountains. Not bad.
It has taken me a while to be able to express how I felt there. Maybe because, it was shocking just how a lot of what I read about Haiti was wrong. We traveled along the Caribbean coast, stopping in towns such as Jacmel and Port-Salute and Tiburon, I never felt unsafe. The countryside was beautiful, with mountains on one side and the coast on the other, all underneath a hot sun that occasionally hid behind a puffy white cloud, it was like something was wrong with my vision because I felt that all the colors were just too vibrant to be real. Take a look at the pictures of the first day of Carnival and you'll understand.
The people were friendly. Well, they weren't unfriendly but they looked at us with a curiosity that lasted as long as at it took for us to drive past. We stopped in a town and parked next to what was a college. There were students all around and they looked at us for a moment and two to wonder who we were and went about their lives. Nobody came to try to kidnap us and few people approached to beg for money.
I have to get going and I know I did a bad job of describing my experience there. I will write another blog to complete my story but in the meantime, if you want to know how it felt to be there for me, try to find and listen to Richard Pryor's stand-up bit about when he went to Africa for the first time. That is my experience.
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