Port-au-Prince — Last week in Port-au-Prince, several walks were organized by different groups of people for a variety of reasons. Here is a story about two of them.

On the 28th of April, REVISE-12 (Reseaux des Victimes du Seisme-12 Janvier), an association made of young people from different blocks, walked from Delmas 33 to Champs-de-Mars for different social issues. Their goal was to catch the attention of the government and the international community.

They have been living in tents and are protesting being taken from their current tent city just to be dropped into another one. The group also would like to know what have been done with all the millions that Haiti has received since the earthquake. Where are the jobs that were promised? It doesn’t make sense that even university-educated young people can only find work picking up rubble, amongst other things. This sign says “Occupation Means Misery”:

And this one is a criticism of the United Nations:

As I were following the walk at Nazon I met Mr. Dérolus Jean Claude, who had just joined in. He said everybody should join that walk, and that he felt sorry he had not of known of this earlier; otherwise, he would have joined in earlier.At Nazon, a picture of the ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was passed around the crowd. The picture was entitled “TITID”, and the lower centered sentence means “We’re waiting for you”.

At Lalue things were a bit disorderly. Some young men took their spray paint out and started to graffiti “aba Preval” on anything they could find, from walls, private vehicles, buses and even on an international army truck.

The soldiers caught one of them with their hands in his bag, hopefully they only warned him not to do it again.

Finally the marchers arrived at Champs-de-Mars exactly at noon;they had to stop since they had started at 9:30am.

On the 29th of April, the next day, there were another walk organized by the artists and the Ministry of Culture. This group started walking from Cabane Choucoune at Petion-Ville to Canape-Vert and then to Champs-de-Mars. The artists were at the back of a truck under Voila umbrellas, while the rest of the followers were walked on foot under the hot sun.

The DJ kept on playing a Masters song entitled “on ti chans pou Ayiti” song which was recorded almost 14 years ago.

Once arriving at Champs-de-Mars they went directly to the Ministry of Culture’s location. Right after the artist got in; however, it seems like the security guards wanted to close the gates. The walkers pushed the gate causing a little situation and a struggle went on for several minutes.

A few minutes later everything settled down and was cool.

Then the artists gathered on the stage and Zagalo, the MC, took his place and started by greeting the public and introduced the Minister of Culture, Madame Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassègue, followed by the artists. When Ritchie had the microphone, he asked everybody to join hands and to lift up a sign of unity, similar to Richie’s t-shirt saying: “ L’union fait la force”.

Several good speeches continued until Zagalo announced that the artists were finished speaking and “it is time for the little ones”. Dead Krazy, a hip hop artist, spoke next, after the special introduction, and made a few jokes for the crowd.

Next it was the turn of Don Carmelo, a “Master’s member”, and while he was speaking the DJ dropped the music on.

Don Carmelo said, if we had paid attention to the Master’s hit track, “on ti chans pou Ayiti” back in the days, we wouldn’t be in such mess nowadays. While I was taking his picture on the stage, I didn’t notice that he had lost his hands. As I interviewed him back stage he told me that he has lost both of his hands trying to get a kid out the rubble after the disaster. His injured hands had only been tended to eleven or twelve days after the quake due to the mass amount of people that needed to be healed.

Finally, it was three o’clock and everything was done; so I wanted to ask few questions to the Minister. One of her security guys told me it is not possible and my only option was to request a meeting. However, the secretary had already left even though the Minister herself was still there, right before my eyes!

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi is blogs weekly for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, connect with him on Facebook or through his business, Haiti Fixers.

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement (FAD), profiled by Nicolas Jolliet last month.

Cap Haitien, Haiti – Yesterday morning we left town for Cap Haitien. After three weeks, it really was time for me to see the real Haiti, the Haiti of before the 12th, the Haiti of the countryside, the Haiti of the past. I wanted to try to get a feel of what this country’s original vibe was, even if that’s impossible to do in a day. A good way to do this would be to go visit the northern regions of Cape Haitien where the history and origins of Voodoo took place.

We took the main road to the north, a road paved for maybe half of its distance.

Even on the paved sections, the car has to slalom between the vicious pot holes densely spread throughout.

For the first hours, we were crossing bare, dry, valleys. There truly is a deforestation problem in Haiti. The joke in the car was “look over there, there is a tree we forgot to cut down”.

To see some green and farming you have to reach the rice fields mid-way to the north. Suddenly things start to look very pretty, the landscapes of rice fields, coco trees and baked soil huts reminded me of southern India.

In the small towns outside of P-A-P the poverty is worse; the difference is that the buildings are standing and there is no food distributions. Donkeys and horses are still a prevalent mode of transport for the farmers.

This is what the rest of the Caribbean must have looked like 40 years ago.

Crossing the mountains was quite a challenge, as our tired car would continuously have its gas filter plugged by the dirty gasoline. Every hour Cyrilien would stop and try to inject fresh gasoline in the filter to unplug it. The worry was getting stuck out there at night, on the bandit-infested roads.

We made it to Bwa Kayiman just before nightfall. This is the most sacred and historical site of the Voodoo faith, where the voodoo ceremony that gave Haiti it’s independence was held on the 14th of August 1791 – the first “official” voodoo ceremony.

The prayer pronounced on that day went like this (translated from Creole)

God who like the sun lights us from above
Who raises the sea, makes the thunders growl
The god of the others is hidden in the clouds, he looks at us
He sees what the white man is doing.
He asks them to commit crimes,
Our god only wants the good.
Please good god of ours, let us avenge ourselves
guide our arms, give us strength
let us get rid of the white god
Let us listen to the freedom growing in our hearts

After Zaza, the high priest of Bwa Kayiman (Bois-Caiman) greeted us warmly, he led us to the historical cave were Brise, the main angel (loi) of the Voodoo faith resides. Brise is the most powerful “loi” after the god almighty (Zaza doesn’t talk about the God of the Bible here). Brise is the loi that gave the Haitiens the power to gain their freedom. Up to this day, government officials come to this cave for advice and guidance.

I’m told that normally a non-initiated foreigner wouldn’t be allowed near or in the cave. But they are so happy to see a foreigner show up, that Zaza makes an exception. With the economy collapsing, the people in the countryside are suffering more than usual. Haitians are used to dealing with aid agencies, and hope that containers of food and help will follow every foreigner they see. Zaza is eager to have the Bwa Kayiman site known: they need all the help they can get to build their community, have roads, power, schools, activities for the youth, and so on.

Zaza explains to me that Brise couldn’t protect Haiti from the earthquake, as this catastrophe came from the god above. Brise only takes care of the mystique of the Haitian people and Haiti itself, not of the stuff that comes from above and outside. If god above wants to judge Haiti, Brise can’t do anything about it. The “lois” are only angels sent by god.

I asked Zaza if he agreed with the idea that god himself made the earth tremble to punish the people. Zaza doesn’t know, but he knows that the “lois” have nothing to do with it; the “lois” are the Haitian’s culture and heritage, and should be respected. He notes that the people affected by the earthquake were Protestants, up to me to make my own conclusions.

I didn’t feel the need to publicize my views on religions, as a world without gods wouldn’t be a sane concept here. They already think I’m half crazy for coming all the way here.

When coming back from the cave to the temple, a big lizard followed us. Zaza told me it was a “loi” checking on what was happening here with this stranger and his camera.

It was time to start the music and dancing. This would last most of the night, until we had to hit the road again.

My lens and recorder had their best time ever, we got to meet the hardcore Haitians. Get a feel for the past and birth of this strong people.

Being exposed to the heart of Haitian mystique even for such a short time was definitely worth the exhausting drive.

The return was safe and smooth. The car worked perfectly and if we had to stop, it was only for me having to run in the bush with dangling toilet paper under the laughter of my friends.

Camp Guatemala – Anywhere you go you will find young people with dreams. You will find musicians and artists. Haiti is no exception. Many future plans have been shattered on the 12th, but as the destroyed city is slowly waking up from this nightmare, so is the youth.

Just after sun set, the sweet soothing voices of the trio Negrillon (Darline Beauzile, Ralph Masson and Rodney Silveta) are flooding camp Guatemala. The campers are slowly getting ready to sleep while the evening band practice brings some rest to the worried minds.

Even though they didn’t have the heart to sing in the first few days, they now find comfort in it. They like to play for their fellow campers, but Ralph points out; “it doesn’t replace the need for food, water and shelter”.

They were in the process of recording a first album when everything went down. The studio they used to record in collapsed, but luckily they didn’t lose all of their recordings. They still have the passion for music and the will to write new songs.

As long as there is youth playing music, there is hope. There is a chance to heal, to rebuild. Culture is at the core of a peoples society, culture is quality of life. Culture didn’t get crushed in the rubble. Spending 2 hours in this oasis of youth, beauty and warmth is proof to me. I forgot how music has the power to stop time, to recharge the inner soul.

Enough talking, let them sing about love, change, equality, tolerance and hope….

Ha come on, one more song, this feels so good. (this one is in French)

P.S: If a big producer out there feels like helping out young musicians, contact me for Ralph’s email adress.

Photo by S. Wojtkowiak; from Flickr

Instead there was something else, there was crying, or chanting, or crying as a chorus or praying, it’s hard to describe, it was buried just below the crickets. It must have been the people down the hill mourning or something. I was so tired that I was dreaming awake before finally sinking in this world of voices and pain.

- Blog, January 16th

Port-au-Prince - The other day I asked Emmanuel about the singing. He told me that in the camps they do sing every night; I hadn’t been dreaming.

I want to go there and record this. This would really help us to know and understand the camps better. It is at night that people cry and gather; during the day they are busy surviving.

Emmanuel is staying at a camp that hasn’t had ANY help yet. It’s at Carefour des Brosses, out of town. Emmanuel tells me they sing every night, and that I could come. He would talk to the head of the organization they created (U.D.Ha.C, Belange Ignare) to see if it would be all right. There are 3,500 people in this camp.

The problem is security.  A white guy with a nice camera out at night is a tad risky here.

But I feel the singing would be so beautiful, and would help the donations and bring some attention to these camps. Since this is about music, I remembered my old friend Sarasvati who always protected me and my guitars/sitars while on tour; with the satellite modem pointing at the stars, it was easy to “skype” her to ask for protection.

I had been careful to talk and joke with the guys at the door of the Canadian Embassy so they would get to know me. Today, I asked them to let me out at night and TO LET ME BACK IN when I came back. “Pa ni problem,” they said.

Emmanuel and Johnny picked me up with a driver. We started to cross the city. Things are very busy here at night, there are a lot off people sleeping on the sidewalks.

At one point we had to go back to take another way because a street was full of people sleeping on the ground. There are candles everywhere, and these smoky, busy, streets seem from another world. We also came across a local police road block; teenagers with AK47’s always make me a little nervous.

There were no lights in the camps, but I took out my super duper low light camera and  fast lens. We also bought candles to give to people, so I would have light to film a little.

We walked through the camp, bent under the makeshift “tents” and up to a bigger tent holding about 50 people. The wounded and the sick lie down, while the others stand up. The group had started singing already, so we distribute the candles, and I somehow found my way to the center without walking on anybody.

I didn’t want to shoot a music video, move around, put my lens in peoples faces; I wanted to be as invisible as possible.  The group started to sing, and the magic began:

They sing their souls out, asking that the earth not to tremble again.  They clap their hands so they can heal, shout out their prayers that help will reach them soon. They regain hope from the harmony of their voices melting together as one powerful call. People of Haiti, you are so strong and so beautiful.

Related: Gospel singing in Camp Petionville

As we got in, I saw these women singing gospel, it’s beautiful after a day like this. You can say that the songs were heartfelt – check out the video.

The calm didn’t last long as an aid organization came to try and distribute some food.