Last week, I was in Haiti for 5 days to work as videographer on a report about the official launch of the telecom company that Dan works for - a follow up to the piece in Trinidad.  Before I left, everyone was telling me that it was going to be a "great" experience for me.  It was definitely an experience that I won't forget but I don't know that I can use the word "great" to describe it.  I think it opened my eyes, I learned a lot about myself and about Haiti and having to work under such stressful conditions was a learning experience that will definitely help me going forward... but after seeing the horrible conditions that people are living in there, even in a "calm" period of time like now, I'd have to say that my experience was anything but "great".

I flew over in a 19-seat prop plane with Dan and a bunch of his coworkers.  When we landed and saw all the fully-armed, UN soldiers and got in to our convoy of armoured cars, I wanted to head straight back home.  Then, when we got into the cars with our armed bodyguards and proceeded to barge our way through the city towards the office, I wanted to go home even more.  We had about 5 vehicles in all, one was an unarmoured car - or "soft vehicle" for the luggage.  The convoy had to stick together because the airport is a very dangerous area, so the way to do this is to have all drivers put on their hazard lights and drive extremely fast through dodgy roads and crazy traffic, assuming that all other vehicles would get out of our way.  Apparently this is a common way to maneuver around Haiti because everyone got out of our way and we arrived to our hotel without incident.  It felt a bit intrusive but apparently it's necessary since the area near the airport - Cite Soleil - is one of the most dangerous areas in Haiti.  For the rest of the trip, we were in regular cars or busses.

Visually, Haiti is run down, deforested, overpopulated... I don't think I need to keep going with this list.  The things I saw literally took my breath away and I know I didn't even come close to seeing the worst of it.  The disparity is so extreme, it feels unreal and cinematic.

As soon as I'd been there for a few hours there for a while, I started to relax.  People were just going about their business and I didn't feel threatened or intimidated at all.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Everyone I encountered was so nice... and by nice, I mean nice to the point of being almost timid.  People seemed to really go out of their way to help or just to be friendly.  Obviously that's a huge generalization and I'm also an outsider dealing mostly with people in the service industry, but still... I've never been anywhere that almost everyone I met was so kind. Whenever you hear or read about Haiti, it's always in a really negative sense and it was a really  powerful experience to be there and get a chance to see people going about their business, like people do anywhere.  When all you hear about a place is a soundbyte here and an image there, it's easy not to think about the fact that there are so many people there just living their lives from day to day, but under extremely difficult circomstances, of course.  I think that I was expecting the scary and upsetting parts - although I was definitely more scared and more upset that I thought I'd be in certain instances.   In a way, the normal, everyday experiences were more emotional and lasting to me because I could relate to the people I met in a familiar way, which made the experience very personal.

I know that I'm just stating the obvious but it's very different to be there first hand.  It's really humbling to see people who've been through so much - even just catching a glimpse from the outside or a short encounter.  I think this experience has really changed the way I will react to news stories about Haiti in the future, or anywhere else for that matter.

The footage we got for our story was pretty great, although I wish I'd had time to
stop and take some more photos.  Only 400,000 out of 10 million people in Haiti had access to phones (landlines and mobiles) before the launch, so it was quite an important event for many Hatians because the company is offering much cheaper service than the current carriers.  We'll have to see what happens over time - in Kingston the cell phone culture has become quite excessive and too commercial, in my opinion - but I'm hopeful that the company will follow through with their goal of providing affordable access to communication services to people who could really benefit from that opportunity.  We didn't have a ton of freedom in terms of our shooting because of security issues and other issues that I can't write about but I think the piece is going to turn out really well.  We got a chance to get out to some of the stores, with our armed bodyguard in tow.  Also, I got to drive around with Dan right out to the Dom Rep border while he was testing the network, which was really interesting.  I got out of the car and filmed a little bit... it was scary at first and then I realized that no one looked in the slightest bit threatning and I relaxed right away.  The mountains are amazing and there is this huge lake out near the DR border that is absolutely stunning.  The city is really run down, though.  It's quite shocking to see first hand.  There are so many people living in such dire need, I don't think you can fully appreciate the scope unless you see it with your own eyes.

Not everything went smoothly though.  There were a few moments that I almost lost it because things got so hectic and there were machine guns and crowds and everything... and then a car backfired and all the security guys thought it was a gunshot.  I was like, "Yeah this is supposedly a 'great experience' but what the fuck am I doing here?  This is crazy... "  We had armed bodyguards with us at all times and they're all ex-secret service so I felt really safe - these guys are tough and they know what they're doing.  Also, things never got really out of control.  The guys were all really, really cool and interesting and the bodyguard touring us around all the stores downtown made us feel so comfortable.  It was interesting to interact with these really tough guys because I'd never normally get a chance to speak to anyone in that line of work.  I chatted a lot with a couple of them and they told me about negotiating kidnapping ransoms and a whole other bunch of things that blew my mind.

On a much lighter and trivial note, the food was absolutely fantastic!  At lunch the stuff we ate was really similar to Jamaican food but for dinner, it was mostly French restaurants.  The best part of it was that there wasn't a dish on the menu over $18US... and that was the lobster!  The rum is amazing (I had no idea but apparently it's pretty famous - Barbancourt) and so is the coffee - both of which we brought back in large quantities :-)  There was even a place called Cafe Albert that had a restaurant dog!  After having lived in Jamaica for a while, I'm used to seeing cats wandering around in restaurants occasionally but having a strange dog sit at your feet and beg for food while you're at one of the nicest restaurants in the city was an odd experience.

I think I'd like to go back one day, if I get the chance.  Haiti is a really interesting place with interesting people and my curiousity has been piqued.  Although my experiences were definitely quite sheltered - well, as sheltered as you can get in Haiti - and shaped by the interests of the corporate launch I was covering, it was still a very moving experience and  I won't soon forget my time there.