There is a film of discomfort here that one doesn’t find in the south, partially explainable by the myriad of myopic Minustah, frantically looking at their watches while music pulsates in the background, reminding everyone that they have a 1am curfew, a badge of honor somehow. But they are an easy target—in truth, most of the people I meet working in development here are dissatisfied with their jobs, to varying degrees, ranging from apathy to antipathy to downright derision. Are their jobs really that uninspiring, truly that worthy of contempt? I don’t think so. The city itself is partly to blame, whether they recognize this or not. And not the city. Their perception of it. Port au Prince is like so many other big cities walled in from the outside country, protected from its’ countrymen, built on their bones, modern day St. Petersburg’s scattered throughout the “south”.
I sit in a square, a park, one of several dotting Pettionville, watching kids play with a soccer ball, while other kids ride their bikes in circles around the field, racing one another, occasionally getting pegged by the flying ball, causing a moment of stillness, the boy not sure whether to cry or laugh, his friends breaking the spell by pointing their fingers and laughing and collecting the ball so the game can continue. What’s strange to me is that this is Pettionville, the rich area, the white area, but there are no white people here, no foreigners. This public space has been adopted by local Haitians, and they put the land to good use—it is public space being used for playing and congregating and flirting amongst the children of Pettionville, interspersed by the occasional man selling ices or water or digicel phone cards. The children aren’t that poor, more middle class, at least from my perspective, perhaps a “southern” perspective, where we judge poverty by whether children have shoes on at all, or if their stomachs bulge out from malnutrition. The children here seem downright middle class. They have bikes! One of the people I’ve met here, who lives here, disagrees. “Did you see that boy’s shoes! They’re full of holes! And I spent a few days in Cayes, the kids there have bikes too.” “Well, the rich kids do.” “I thought they all did…” her voice trails off.
Why do the foreigners stay away from this place? It’s a park, built in their “neighborhood”. Wouldn’t this be an ideal place to idle away a Saturday afternoon, sitting and chatting amongst locals, perhaps even befriending one or two? It makes sense to me to talk to those you purport to help, to better understand their point of view, and, at the most basic level, to make friends. The truth is that foreigners stay away from this park because they are afraid. Of what, specifically, they cannot, or will not, say. They can’t quite articulate their fear, because from the moment they’ve arrived they been told that it’s not safe, that one is not welcome in places such as here. It is no wonder they stay away. If you’re told from an early age (metaphorically speaking) that these places are not good and not safe and that you are not welcome there, it is hardly your fault if you stay away. And sure there’s crime, but there’s crime everywhere. There’s hardly more crime here in Pettionville than in any other developing city—yet why is the fear so much more tangible? I can understand the old-timers reluctance at embracing this city—they have seen it at its worst. But the people I meet have been here three months, maybe four. They have not seen food riots. They haven’t even seen the aftermath of a hurricane! They have been indoctrinated by their employers, a weapon to minimize liability. Smart. How much easier is it to have frightened employees, rather than bold ones? The side effects of such a tactic, however, is a population of aid workers under-educated about the people they intend to help.
How can you help people if you are frightened of them? Frightened of their city?
