fields february 2015 #1 (english version)

1

Fields Magazine / February / 2015Fields Magazine / February / 2015FM#001

Haiti 20155 Years On

Fields Magazine / February / 2015

2

FoundersSaran KolySuranga Mallawa

Editor in ChiefSaran Koly

Design & Layoutmrtim.co

Editors EnglishAtiqah F. Saleh, Farid Farid, Louise Scrivens Editors FrenchAlice Azzarelli, Juliette Fayard, Natou Thiam

Special ThanksGiordano Cossu, Joane Matthey, Rachelle Elien and all those who have accepted to answer our questions and showed support.

All Rights Reserved Fields February 2015

Staff & Thanks


3

Bring Our World Back On Its FeetContributors

We Are A NationHaiti, Year Five Of Construction

PerCeptionsCollapsed

ObserversReport Of Misfortune

Digging For Truths: One Womans Mission To Change The Face Of Journalism

VerbatimUp & Down In Haiti

The Blue Towel Ayiti Koman Nou Ye?

Sunday Is The Lord’s Day

culture In The Light Of The Stars: A Tribute To The Haitian Writers

Love In The Time Of Disaster

INTERVIEW Marie Larocque

PROFILE Louino ‘Robi’ Robillard

Contents


4


5

In 2014, the world fell on head over heels. It often does, a little too often though. It

is a crippled and feverish humanity that enters into this new year. It was while walking towards the World’s End* , no cause and effect relationship here, that we came up with the bright idea of Fields: a multimedia experience telling, through multiple voices, the world and the human. The earth and her children.

*The Horton Plains National Park covers the highest plateau of Sri Lanka, with altitudes between 2100 and

2300 meters. Classified as a World Heritage Site by Unesco, the plateau ends at the precipice of World’s End,

vast panorama of the tea plantations.

So it is with our head full of ideas and empty pockets that we will periodically plant seeds of inspiration, ask itchy questions, discuss opinions and find solutions that bring our world back on its feet. This first issue is our tribute to the Pearl of the Antilles.

Bring our world back on its feet

Saran Koly


6

Contributors.


7

Jesse Hardman

Jesse Hardman is a multiplatform journalist residing in New Orleans, USA. He currently covers climate change and runs a community media project called the Listening Post. Hardman is also a journalism professor, Columbia University and the City University of New York, and an international media developer.

Sabina C. Robillard

Sabina Carlson Robillard is an American citizen who has been based out of Port au Prince, Haiti for the past five years. Her work has been in community-driven development across the country, but mainly focused in Cite Soleil, a marginalized neighborhood in the capital. Sabina is currently the Director of Development for Future Generations Haiti, a small NGO based in Port au Prince.

http://www.future.org

http://www.future.org


8

Claude Gilles

Social Communication Graduate at the Faculty of Humanities at the State University of Haiti, Claude Gilles has been working for 14 years at le Nouvelliste, a newspaper with over a century of existence. He was also collaborated with Syfia International, correspondent at Reporters without Borders in Haiti and head of Media Operations Center. Co-author of several books, Claude Gilles is currently completing his masters degree in communications at the University of Québec in Montreal.


9

Sunjata

Sunjata real name Soumaïla Koly is a multi-faceted artist.

His first feature film, Identités (90 min.), was presented in official competition at the Carthage Film Festival in 2004. In 2009, he directed Kotéba, an ambition for Africa (52 min.) part of the diptych Ifriqya, visions of a continent (80 min). The same year, he released his first fiction novel Kalashnikov blues Vent d’ailleurs editions.

Andres Martinez Casares

Andres has travelled and worked as freelance photographer in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. He went to Haiti to cover the earthquake in 2010, and was based there until 2013. Andres has been awarded with the “Picture of the Year” and the “Enrique Meneses Prize” (News first prize) in the National Photojournalism Award 2014 (Spain); Andres also awarded with the 3rd Prize in News Essays POYi Latino América 2011 for his work on the Cholera Outbreak.

http://www.sunjata.fr

http://www.martinezcasares.com

http://www.martinezcasares.com


10

“Every year on January 12th, SoleyLeve makes a big effort to

bring people in Cite Soleil together to commemorate the death and destruction, and to celebrate the unity that was forged to face it. This year was the fifth anniversary, and even though the country was facing a paralysing political crisis, everyone was committed to going ahead. At 8am, around 150 people from all blocks of Cite Soleil – and a few from another marginalised area called Belair – gathered in front of Cite Soleil’s policestation. They had on white and black t-shirts with this message: “kisa n’ap tann pou’n chanje?” What are we waiting for to change?

They were carrying small white crosses in their hands and small black crosses around their necks, made in the workshop of Haiti Communitere by a local professional named Beneche. There was one enormous white cross, and several wreaths of flowers. As the bus loaded up, people all corners of Cite Soleil – Bois Neuf, Projet Droullard, Ti Ayiti, Brooklyn, Whaf, Boston, Cite Lumiere, La Plaine – crammed themselves into a bus, shoulder to shoulder.

As per the tradition, the bus was heading to Titanyen – the site of the mass grave that held tens of thousands of earthquake victims that had been dumped there by the truck-full.”

Full article available at Verite Sou Tanbou

“We are a nation, we have memory”

louino “robi” robillard photoS – MacKenSon iSMael

https://veritesoutanbou.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/january-12-2015/

https://veritesoutanbou.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/january-12-2015/


11


12


13


14

Haiti, year five of

reconstructionClaude Gilles


15


16

January 12 is a new reference point for Haiti. For the past five years,

everything has been measured in terms of that ill-fated date for the crippled, disfigured half-island the country has become. Far from having gotten back on its feet, this island has started turning to the South for help. Without entirely losing hope in the North.

Venezuela’s petrodollar reached the hot ashes of the catastrophe in January 2010. Faster than the virtual donors seated in New York. Just a third of the promised aid has been received, or 4 out of the pledged $12 billion. The recipient of the funds hаs a face and a name. President of Haiti, Michel Martelly, showed his disgust in an interview on French media pointing at NGOs. They are helping survivors and billing them. Not even a building has been constructed, laments Martelly. His predecessor, Preval, has barely seen anything come out of pledged donations.

Five years later in Haiti, emergency camps are empty. Out of the 1.5 million homeless people there are only 40,000 left to relocate. Almost all of the temporary shelters, small plywood houses of 20m2 end up in shantytowns. Dozens of people orphaned by the earthquake draw their resilience from the experience of the first nation of slaves, who arrived to overcome painful memories after three centuries of conquest, genocide, deportation and enslavement. The suicide rate in post-earthquake Haiti has even fallen. The comparative figures of suicide increased from 3.1 in 2000 to 2.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2012, according to a report by World Health Organization published in 2014. The global rate is 11.4 for the same number of inhabitants.

Traces of the terrible disaster remain. Slums, spreading all over the island, add one more layer to this already fragile environment. Due to manmade deforestation, there is only 1.5% forest cover. One more building site for the government whose current President meant to rebuild “the Haitian soul” in the same manner the roads and buildings have sprung up.


17


18


19

Endemic instabilityThe list of failures from the post-earthquake time includes the potable water system. For four years, drinking water had been a lucrative business for NGO officers. The water was brought every morning to the camps instead of having a sustainable system set up. But let us be clear, the problem of access to clean water in Haiti, is not born with the earthquake. It is endemic in the image of land problems which are, among others, an obstacle and often an excuse for the reconstruction of buildings. In the first French-speaking country in the Americas the urgency is notable. It is the result of our stained history of political crises and the fault of poor governance.

Government buildings were in terrible condition because President Preval put them on the margin of reconstruction… As if life had stopped in Belgium when this European state remained without a government for a long year. At this painful litany, Preval stopped pretending one day. The President attended an intervention by Bill Clinton, former President of the United States, and super special envoy for Haiti.

The scene was illustrated in Fatal Assistance, a documentary film by Raoul Peck, which paints a critical portrait of the international aid process that followed the earthquake in Haiti.

Bolivarian Republic and petrodollarsNGO officials were for a long time the only international help to Haiti so the government prioritised cooperation with the neighbours in the South. After Cuba, which continues struggling to keep the Haitian healthcare system afloat, Haiti went to Venezuela for the energy sector after the former President Preval’s time. The Bolivian Republic of Chavez’s era wrote off $395 million of Haiti’s debt. Chavez also loosens the purse strings.

Since 2008, Haiti buys Venezuelan oil on credit through the Petro Caribe program. In exchange for the money that has not been claimed, Haiti will sell food to Venezuela at preferential prices. The only catch is that the former French colony does not produce enough to feed 10 million people. Five years after the deadly disaster, Haiti experienced slight improvements in some areas. However, social structures are not quite influenced by the earthquake. Major social inequalities persist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/movies/fatal-assistance-about-relief-efforts-in-haiti.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/movies/fatal-assistance-about-relief-efforts-in-haiti.html?_r=0


20


21

1PERCEPTIONS


22


23

Struck by the earthquake in 2010, Haiti’s National Palace in Port-au-Prince lied in near total ruin.

Haitian architect Georges H. Baussan designed the palace in 1912, and the building was finished in 1920. In the aftermath of the disaster, Andres Martinez Casares photographer captured the essence of this symbol emptied of its soul.

The National Palace has been entirely demolished in 2012.

CollapsedandreS Martinez caSareS


24


25


26


27


28


29

2OBSERVERS


30


31

Haitian journalist Claude Gilles recounts first hours after the

earthquake.

Haiti, 12 January 2010, early evening. The ground is trembling. Surprised by a wall collapsing a few meters from me on the street, I start trembling, too. The earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, destroyed electricity pylons and knocked down buildings on the opposite hill as if they were made of cards.

I think about the end of the world – the end of my world. Then came the panic in search of survivors.

Between the desperate cries from the rubble, of women mourning the loss of loved ones, an old man lay in a pool of his own blood and thin children lay abandoned near a collapsed building. The stench of death was overwhelming. It was impossible for me to hold on to my notebook and pen as journalist at the century-old daily, Le Nouvelliste.

In the streets of Port-au-Prince, the blood-red capital awash with martyred bodies, injuries and tears, I play the double role of journalist and rescuer, after multiple failed attempts to reach my wife on the phone. The telecommunication network could not withstand earthquakes. I fear the worst with the breakdown of communications.

In terms of numbers, 250 000 were dead – almost all the bodies were buried in mass graves. Those who have not been cremated were buried in the neighbourhoods in to order to eliminate the odours.

I will long remember my neighbour, a police officer who committed suicide with a bullet to the head. After two days calling from help from the rubble of a collapsed police station, without anybody able to respond to them, she ended her life. The pain was unbearable. As unbearable as it felt when I heard the news of the violent death of a dear friend, Wendy Blot, a young architect who, a few days before the disaster, was discussing with me the future of a communication company that we were setting up.

Reporter of my misfortuneclaude GilleS


32

These scenes of desperation were repeated in schools, supermarkets, homes and hospitals. Doctors and nurses in the hospitals were kept busy before the arrival of rescuers and foreign aid workers.

This is the case in the hospital of Sainte-Catherine de Cité Soleil where Dr Eddy Jonas, a young gynaecologist from Zanmi Lasante was trying to save a young man whose face defied every anatomy lesson – his face was half destroyed. Salivaflowed continuously from his mouth. On his hospital bed he tried to scribble a few words with his fingers.

“Ask the doctor to inject anaesthesia to alleviate my suffering,” he wrote, when I hurriedly placed a pencil and a piece of paper on the stretcher, which carried thousands of anonymous casualties lying on the floor for various injuries.

The young man could not cry. His eyes were already torn, leaving only cavities remaining. From the gaping wounds, the doctor had to extract maggots that were devouring his skull. Some went straight into the brain.

In Haiti it was not possible to look at the grave that its capital has become. Real chaos. Under the rubble of an apartment in Delmas 33, I have heard Johnson’s moans calling me. Exhausted after two hours of walking on the streets filled with corpses and the wounded, I rose in the total darkness to try in vain to free him from the debris he was trapped in. “Do not be afraid, save me,” he repeated as a mantra in a race against death. Hard not to have one’s guts flinch.


33

“The young man could not cry. His eyes were

already torn, leaving only

cavities remaining.”


34

It is in this climate that the owner and host of a radio in Port-au Prince rushed home running. He dug through the rubble for more than half an hour before finding his wife barely holding his breath. On the way to the hospital, she passed away in his arms. He was asking those who had gathered around them to take care of her only to realise that he had lost his wife. The story may sound like an urban legend; but the story of all journalists remains too generalised.

Forcefully unemployed, I planned to relocate with my wife to Canada where we have permanent resident status. Three days after the earthquake, Francois Bugingo, president of the Canadian Reporters without Borders station, for which I am correspondent, put his feet in Haiti and proposed an evacuation plan for us, transiting through the neighboring Dominican Republic, where a private plane would be waiting for us.

My mother, my sisters, my aunts who miraculously survived two floods that ravaged Gonaives, my dear city, in less than four years… my beautiful family, where will they go? And what if I had no passports or visas like the majority of the ten million of Haitians? The questions were torturing my mind and had enough sway on my decision to give up on an evacuation. We can be more helpful right now to our friends in Haiti than in Quebec. “It is now or never to return to our country and parents, one part of what they have given to us for decades,” said my wife, a secretary who had to stay at the bedside of the injured at a village hospital. Even the smallest action could potentially save a life!

In a large empty space, in the shade of a mango tree, I make my bed. I learn to live under the starry skies for several days, without electricity or drinking water, with dozens of strangers. Together we live through the drama. Together we follow the therapy provided by prayers, chants and self-mockery.

There are never enough psychologists or psychiatrists able to cure this collective injury. It taps on the resilience of our people who have overcome more than three centuries of the fiercest conquest, genocide, deportation and enslavement.


35

“It is now or never to return to our

country and parents, one part of what

they have given to us for decades”


36

Inspired by the fall of one dictator, investigative journalist Katie Klarreich travelled to Haiti for the first time in 1986 to witness

the end of the Duvalier dictatorship. More than 20 years later she found herself still there, teaching Haitian journalists to dig deep in search of the truth.

In 1986 an uprising overthrew Jean Claude Duvalier as president of Haiti. Duvalier had reigned since 1971 during which time thousands of Haitians were killed or tortured and hundreds forced to leave the country while he lived in the lap of luxury. Klarreich talks openly about the aftermath of his downfall: “It was a remarkable period. Grassroots groups, literacy groups and women’s groups were cropping up everywhere as people began to explore newfound freedoms. Or so they thought.”

Digging for truths :

One woman’s mission to change the face of

journalism Saran Koly


37


38

As an investigative journalist in Haiti, Klarreich spent decades reporting for big hitting media outlets such as the BBC, The New York Times and CNN. She also founded the English section of Haiti’s only press agency. The end of the Duvalier regime saw what Klarreich describes as an “explosion of radio stations…trying to find their footing.” Some journalists were beginning to take more chances. However, for the majority of journalists, a fear of retaliation due to the unstable political situation meant breaking old habits was hard. As a result, what was really happening in Haiti was still going unreported.

Klarreich explains: “A typical day for a radio journalist was to go into the newsroom, get a list of which press conferences were happening and do two or three of those…For the most part there was no strategic planning…no reporters with individual beats, no follow up and very little time to verify information.”

Intent on changing this for the better Klarreich decided to turn her attention to training journalists in Haiti. “Without trained reporters doing the heavy lifting and investigating there is little incentive for those who are exploiting the system to stop,” she said. “In a country like Haiti, where literacy levels are low and poverty levels high, the voices of those who need honest representation most are the most overlooked. Investigative reporters can help change that dynamic. They can ask the hard questions and provide the public with information that can help effect social change.”


39

“Investigative reporting,

however, is an anomaly in a

country where transparency

is anything butexistent”.


40

In theory not in practiceRecalling the 2010 earthquake that affected millions of Haitians, Klarreich explains how billions of dollars were pledged and plans were made yet promises remained undelivered. She said it was not the Haitian journalists but foreign journalists who were exposing the inadequacies: “This speaks, again, to the culture of impunity and the lack of drive for real social change in the country.”

Writing in the Caribbean Journal Klarreich elaborated on the need for Haitian journalists to expose the injustices of their own country: “Haitian journalists…inherently understand what it means when aid money is misappropriated, squandered, or even worse — disappears. “Investigative reporting, however, is an anomaly in a country where transparency is anything but existent”. Access to information, sources, statistics and, at times, seemingly banal information hinders daily reporting. These factors are exponentially more difficult for a reporter asking anything but the basics.”

In 2010 Klarreich started to teach investigative journalism in Haiti as part of her Knight Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists and gained funding for journalists to carry out investigations through the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Haiti. She wanted to address the numerous challenges faced by journalists in Haiti namely a lack of training, funds, support, motivation and demand from the public. Klarreich said at first the media welcomed the project but only in theory and not in practice: “Journalists are not paid well and are already overworked, so taking on extra work for investigations, extra risk (perceived or real) even for extra pay was a challenge.”


41

FailureStories on sanitation conditions for the displaced after the earthquake and a housing scheme which had failed to deliver its promise were just a few of the investigations funded through the scheme which highlighted important issues and saw solutions for those concerned. However her mission was fraught with problems as decades of government control over the media in Haiti left many reporters unable to question the regime through investigative journalism. Those that did have the drive and ability often feared retaliation. Despite having spent more than two years travelling around the country training journalists and drumming up support, the project had to come to a close.

“I was ultimately unsuccessful,” said Klarreich, attributing the project’s failure to a lack of demand from the public and the journalists capable of carrying out such investigations being overworked and not having the time. Klarreich said in spite of support from the sole daily newspaper, the money that was left in the fund had to be returned to the donors because the journalists had not applied. Klarreich admits that she may have been ahead of her time and was trying to accomplish too much too quickly adding that “if a country is not ready for change, introducing the idea of change won’t be well received.”


42

The project ended six months after Klarreich hired an executive director and left the country but she admits there continues to be the odd rogue reporter who is willing to put him or herself out there and tries to dig for truth. However, “self-censorship is generally still the norm” as journalists are “undertrained, hold several jobs…are overworked and underpaid.” From her profound experience in Haiti Klarreich says the biggest lesson she has learnt is “to spend more time on the ground understanding the local system before trying to implement something. I thought I had done that but looking back I was too idealistic.”

Katie Klarreich’s memoir, Madame Dread: A Tale of Love, Vodou and Civil Strife was published in 2005 and captures her decade in Haiti against a backdrop of social, political, cultural and economic turmoil.


43

“if a country is not ready for change, introducing the

idea of won’t be well received.”


44


45

3VERBATIM


46


47

sound of road—3 seConds, fade up and under BrinG up sound of footsteps for 3 seConds.

Up and down down and up these are the two directions in Port au Prince.

It is an unforgiving place, this mountain of a town, one that plays out its history, its politics, and its complexity in this most raw of daily commutes.

The first descent starts before dawn, around 4 am

sound of footsteps on road

It has to, otherwise you won’t make it to market by 6 am, and you won’t get a prime spot to sell your mangoes, grapefruits, cell phone chargers, and t-shirts.

Step by step, hopeful frayed sandals and dusty, dress shoes, used for weddings, baptisms, graduations, and every other occasion make their way down hill,

The shredded concrete of the long past its prime road meets strong local legs. This daily battle ultimately wears down both the path, and the feet.Up and Down

sound of footsteps asCendinG on road

Around 7 am the second commute begins, slowly pressing uphill. The gardeners, security guards, cooks, and nannies are heading up to the mansions that keep Port au Prince’s socio economic structure in place.

Up and down in HaitiJeSSe hardMan


48

100 Gourdes (Haitian monetary unit) for their thoughts. Many would probably take that deal…times are tough in post earthquake Haiti. But they were tough before too.

sound of roosters and doGs

Standing on the top of a cinderblock roof, just off the road, serenaded by roosters and feral dogs, the view is of dominoes disguised as houses, waiting for the next shift in the weather or the ground to start sliding down.

Locals are climbing the same mountain that their parents climbed, and unless something drastic changes, that their children will climb too. Carefully they ascend, one step, two step…

sound of steps, Crossfade with sound of suVs

They shift from the road to a small sliver of dirt or grass, as their employers speed down with ease and abandon, smashing the road into pieces with Land Rovers and Porsche SUVs.

Businessmen, politicians, foreign ambassadors, UN coordinators, and other elite are shielded from the emerging sun and growing heat by tinted windows, air conditioning, and designer sunglasses. They check their Blackberries as they are driven down the hill by their drivers and bodyguards.

sound of suVs

These beastly vehicles blast the economic pilgrims walking up the hill with a cloud of exhaust, a kind of dark, toxic bonjour to bring in the day.

The smell of burning garbage and brush also covers what must have been a crisp morning air before Christopher Columbus kicked off Haiti’s long, enduring middle chapter.

sound of runninG


49

Young schoolboys in pink dress shirts and grey shorts race downhill, followed closely by older sisters in blue blouses and grey skirts. Their book bags slap against their backs as they skip over potholes.

The children slide , down down down, slipping by women heading up…up…up…carefully balancing baskets on their heads full of bread, mangoes, and bananas.

amBienCe of footsteps.

As locals head up Port au Prince’s winding spine, they hit Montagne Noire, the stretch of road known as the black mountain.

A neighbourhood that now hosts one of Haiti’s darkest heirs, the recently returned “Baby Doc” Duvalier.

Instead of prison, “he’s freely allowed to gaze down on the mess he and

his father wrought, during decades of dictatorial mayhem”, human rights abuses, and self-enrichment.

And while impunity may reign on Montagne Noire, the people still move, as they always have, up and down, down and up.

Like blood they flow through the veins of Haiti, keeping this twisted paradise alive, and giving it a chance to keep breathing, and to keep changing, one step at a time.

amBient of footsteps

This is a transcription of a radio piece produced by Jesse Hardman in April 2012

https://soundcloud.com/jhardman-1/up-and-down-in-haiti




50

51


“Off road. It took them about a two-hour drive.They came from a village in the mountain.

Two men and a baby riding a motorbike to the Hospital of Arcahaie, Artibonite, North of Port au Prince.

The man holding the baby was sitting on the ground. A Cuban doctor came. No pulse. His fingers closed the baby’s eyes. He had cholera symptoms, but when they got the Hospital it was too late. He was dead.

I will never forget the way the father held his son in his arms. Sitting. I guess he knew it was too late when he arrived there. Lifeless gaze. Otherwise I can’t understand why he stopped a few meters before the hospital gate.

The blue towelandreS Martinez caSareS

52


53


The man left his son on the floor and covered him with a blue towel. The one he used to hold the child in his arms during the trip.

Two weeks later, the cholera outbreak was officially announced in Haiti. I was working every day covering this issue in hospitals, burials...

But that day something touched me deeply. Maybe if they had reached the hospital a few minutes before...the baby would be a boy today.”


54

Ayiti koman nou ye? How are you Haiti?

interviewS by Saran Koly and SuranGa Mallawa

we’ve aSKed thiS queStion to huManitarianS, artiStS, and

entrepreneurS...


55

Louise PerrichonproJect ManaGer at the centre d’ art in port-au-prince, haiti

But very quickly the very same systems from before were back in place.After five years, the earthquake is a distant memory. Though it’s present for every one of us as a collective, it is clear that the page seems to turn here.What changed? There was an injection of money and funding for emergency rebuilding projects, for foreigners and for ‘reconstruction’ during the first three years after the earthquake. This slightly boosted the labour market and the economy in general, but it also had lasting negative effects.

Nothing has changed in rural areas and there is no serious national plan to deal with this. I don’t want to seem pessimistic because the country has enormous potential, like the life potential of its inhabitants for example. However, with the exception of some local initiatives I don’t think we have addressed the major challenges after the earthquake: accommodation, employment, education, health and infrastructure.

There are a lot of things left to do. Let us begin by promoting good governance and building a strong national vision for the future.

On January 12, at the moment of earthquake, I was sitting at my desk at the headquarters of Microfinance Entrepreneurs du Monde, in market position, Lalue St, near the Champs de Mars.

I was chatting with one of my colleagues who was just back from an agency on-the-spot. He used to drop by for a chat at the end of the day: « nou tap bay blag!»(let’s joke!). After the initial tremors, I grabbed him and jumped out of the office and we found ourselves in the yard. I could not believe it, like most people, I had never considered the risk.

My perspective on life changed, the value that I attribute to events and things today is very different. I was pregnant with my first son. I feel I have been very lucky to enjoy what really matters.

Did the earthquake change Haiti? Just after January 12, 2010 we had a lot of hope, we hoped that it would represent an opportunity to reshuffle the cards, talk about decentralisation, and change the game.


56

I think that, unfortunately, poverty did not really decline. However, despite the political fluctuations caused by elections (where foreign interference were apparent) and despite the politicking and political corruption, I believe that lessons have been learned about the limits of the right-wing and left-wing populism. I believe those with political power, have learned the virtues of becoming moderate the hard way. At least, I hope so. The new prime minister coming to power with the recently signed agreement seems to indicate, it is a breakthrough.

Yanick Lahenswriter, winner of the feMina prize 2014

On January 12 I was at home. My first reaction was to find shelter because I knew at once that it was an earthquake. It reinforced the sense of fragility of things, the extreme vulnerability of Haiti. At the same time it allowed me to measure the power of life.

I don’t find myself competent to speak in the name of Haiti but there is a trauma that will take time to heal. The idea of the vulnerability of the island begins to occupy the spirits as well as the need for adequate buildings and social housing. Of course, these all are just futile attempts. The only idea that showed progress is that we must not only rebuild the walls but also human beings. In the Ministry of Health there was no mental health services. Today such services exist. The earthquake uncovered the fragility of people. We focused on Haitian resilience, especially in the international media but fortunately this did not hide the fact of the deep wounds of thousands of people.


57

Henri-François Morand director of the Mine action Support proGraMMe at the united nationS interiM force in lebanon (unifil) and director of landMine control proGraMMe for lebanon, Syria and iraq.

sinking into political crisis and poverty. All of a sudden, the focus changed and we talked about Haiti, a chronically poor country - poorer than Zimbabwe and just a one and a half hours away from Miami. Haiti is abnormal country with development agencies as effective as Moliere’s Dr. Cupid...I think it has strengthened the resilience and creativity of the Haitian people.

Five years later, a new disaster is emerging with the urban development of Port au Prince. The real problems were not discussed or addressed. I am disgusted. The international community, donors, development agencies, the Haitian political class have missed the boat - it’s a shame that all these opportunities were lost once again. Five years later, a lot needs to be done. I think we have only made some cosmetic changes. There are few people and organisations that have the courage to address the structural problems that plague the country from regional planning, governance to corruption and the fight against poverty.

On January 12, I was in Kabul as Director of the United Nations Development Programme, I was at the end of mission. This is what allowed me to come to Haiti after earthquake. I came as a volunteer as soon as I heard the news. The earthquake had a tremendous professional impact on me; I think it was a humbling experience for me because the scenario of the earthquake unfolding in Port au Prince, with its devastating impact on the country. It was really something that I had never faced before. We often talked about it, we said we must be prepared for the big disaster; we worked on the ground in Kathmandu (Nepal) with OCHA/UNDAC (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs / The United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination). I was working on earthquakes with the Swiss Aid Corps in several disaster zones - Bam in Iran, Algiers in Algeria, Kobe in Japan, but this was different. We were caught by surprise by this one. The earthquake had changed Haiti in many ways, for me this disaster thrust the country out from the oblivion that it was


58

Bastia GuerchangSinGer/MuSician - port-au-prince, haiti

Socially there is a mass migration of people from the provinces to the cities. Psychologically we are going through a collective trauma. We have lost our people and places dear to the population were destroyed.

Five years after the earthquake, some public buildings have been reconstructed but they have also increased costs of living. A concerted institutional effort must be put forward.

On January 12 2012 at 16h53 I was at the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences. I mourned the assassination of the revolutionary militant professor Jean Louis Fair who was killed two hours before the earthquake. My first reaction was to escape from the administration building.

First of all, the disaster made me understand that Haiti is really under a threat. But also I understood the structural incapacity of the country in terms of mounting an adequate emergency response.

The earthquake changed the country economically because Port au Prince city center was completely destroyed while Pétionville thrived.


59

The biggest achievement was being able to lead the set up of some quality programs in the education, child protection, health and nutrition Sectors. These programs reached thousands of people and were managed both by international and national staff as I was installed immediately in the position of a rapid handover on a national scale.

I really had an issue with the rapid turn over of staff and hiring of inexperienced international staff who were not operationally experienced immediately. This was the case of the organisation I worked for and caused several issues, including the loss of institutional memory and rapid dismissals due lack of performance. This was very time consuming.

Sophie Perreard forMer deputy country director of Save the children in haiti and currently lecturer in huManitarian aSSiStance at deaKin univerSity, Melbourne.

I wish we had involved communities and local authorities immediately instead of treating everyone as ‘aid recipients’ who cannot work or collaborate in the first weeks and months. Many of our staff had been affected and were still coming to work despite living in tents. Why couldn’t we do the same with other members of the communities and local authorities?

I also wish we had proper internal systems as well as financial and human resources which could have enabled us to scale up for the response in a more efficient manner.


60

Kit Miyamoto ceo of MiyaMoto international

I feel there is substantial awareness of the seismic risk to this country. We are constantly engaging with Haitian private sector to ensure quality supervision and better engineering. I also see remarkable improvements in how buildings are built in Port au Prince even in impoverished communities. But political instability is a huge distraction. It hinders investment and it is critical for the future of Haiti.

If I had to do something differently, I would have engaged the Haitian diaspora earlier. Their talents and resources cannot be underestimated for Haiti’s progress.

http://www.miyamotointernational.com/


61

I wish we would have put more resources in mainstreaming disaster risk reduction and safe shelter awareness measures through extensive training and solidifying mass communication at all levels.

Xavier Genot Shelter deleGate international federation of the red croSS (ifrc)

I was part of a collective national and international mobilisation effort that worked on a rapid emergency shelter response to support the most vulnerable people despite a really challenging context of pre and post disaster impact. We did this first by delivering quick and massive emergency shelter material provisions and second through innovative approaches that comprised returning those affected to provinces and rental support,

The biggest obstacle was to get a sound grip on the situation. This meant identifying the most efficient ways of getting citizens affected on the path of permanent housing in the long run. It was also difficult to make the outside world understand and recognise that things were moving and that it was possible to do something good and useful in Haiti.


62

Sabina C. Robillarddirector of developMent future GenerationS haiti, port-au-prince

I was fortunate to work with so many dedicated and intelligent people from all parts of the earthquake response: career humanitarians, community activists, journalists, Haitian Diaspora, local entrepreneurs, international volunteers. I believe my greatest achievement was getting as many of them as possible to meet, talk, and work together – to break the stereotypes they all held of each other. It’s incredible how easy it is to become siloed.

I believe the biggest hindrance was the lack of trust and communication between responders and the disaster-affected communities. There were so few windows for local community groups to get involved in the post-earthquake discussion; I remember having to sneak a community leader into United Nations Logistic base in March of 2010 just to share information with a group who could use it. Many Haitians I knew felt shut out of the response, and therefore distrustful of it, and this undermined many programs that otherwise may have done much more good.


63

I wish I had known to slow down. In the initial humanitarian response, time is of the essence when there are lives to be saved. But when dealing with the intractable problems of reconstruction, we’re playing the long game. Local leaders taught me that you can’t move faster than the community is ready to go, or want something more than they want it – otherwise it is more about you and your project than it is about sustained change.


64


65

Sunday is the Lord’s day

Saran Koly


66


67

Napwen lapriyè ki pa gen Amen. There’s no prayer without an ‘Amen’.

March 2010

I hear some electric guitar playing in the distance, or perhaps it’s a ‘maringouin’ (mosquito) tuning its latest chords to my ears. It’s 6am. But I’ve had enough sleep. Sunday: the Lord’s day. A non-practising believer, I write His name. Let’s just say I’m in a contemplative mood. I’ve been unfaithful to religion many times.

But I believe...I do believe. Being alive is already a lot to be thankful for. They must believe something similar: ‘There but for the grace of God’. I’ve searched my little heathen head for another explanation, but I haven’t found anything better. My mother often said, ‘all God does is good’. I don’t agree. But I respect.

My first introduction to Haitian Protestantism: the Church on the Rock in Tabarre, with Reverend Gérard Forge.

The faithful gathered under a large tent. Due to lack of space, some are sitting on a bit of wall, while others in the sun have brought their own chairs. We arrive at the second service. The pastor has been preaching since 6am.

The girls have ribbons in their hair and little white socks. Some have patent leather shoes. There’s not a single crease on the men’s starched shirts. Their trousers are well cut. Some young men wear jackets that are a little too big for them. Although there’s an occasional breeze, it’s hot. I’m not sure a jacket is necessary in these conditions. With or without the jacket, God is always merciful right? I’ve always found religious vocabulary pompous.

Do all the faithful understand the prayers? Or are they just a litany providing access to meditation?

We close our eyes to pray. We cry. We sing. In the space of a second, I get carried away by so many different emotions. And then I come back down to earth, without touching the ground, floating somewhere between what I believe and what I see. But I respect.


68


69

4CULTURE


70


71

Natural catastrophes reveal our vulnerability and weakness. We are

too small when confronted with immense power. That was my fear facing the picture of collapsing Haiti. The horrible image of tipping over, the collapse symbolically accompanied by torrents of peat. The souls immersed in the occult sciences invoke the wrath of spirits, Voodoo speak of the fear of the Orishas; while the scientists are preoccupied with the earth’s crust, seismology and other parameters that can be analysed in terms of the exact science. After the shock of the tragedy, I discovered the hidden treasure of this island of martyrs and the extraordinary vitality of Haitian literature.

Outgrowths of the islandWithout doubt, I knew René Depestre. His appearance on the “Apostrophes’’ with Bernard Pivot reminded me of how curious as a teenager I was. Together with Stephen Alexis and Gerald Bloncourt, Depestre had his prose published in the journal “La Ruche’’ (1945). For me, Haiti was also Dany Laferriere. With his generous pen he was the herald of the long-winded diaspora. “How to make love with a negro without getting tired”. “Heading South”. Outgrowths of the island already met international success.

In the light of the stars

A tribute to the Haitian writers

SunJata


72

As a student, I admired Raoul Peck, a model of what an intellectual would look like for me. In the works of these islanders, I had noticed Haiti’s African resonances, fragments of motherland overseas. Raoul Peck, who spent a part of his youth in Congo, said that he was exposed to politics during the fall of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of Congo, another country-continent in agony.

Critical writingHis feature film “Lumumba’’ paved a way for those without a voice, I feel. A gathering of relevant people to tell the world about injustice. The cast united African, Caribbean, and European actors around our shared history. Makéna Diop, Dieudonné Kabongo, Alex Descas, Pascal Nzonzi, Eric Ebouaney... Raoul Peck would repeat this with “Sometimes in April’’, a movie based on a true story about Rwanda, casting the very talented Idris Elba (sacred by the serie Luther show and feature film “Mandela, a long way to freedom’’.) Raoul Peck knew how to awaken the consciousness of others on the history of Haiti with his films “Tropical Moloch’’ and “Fatal assistance’’.

I knew the first black republic as a generator of exceptions, having produced a mix of strong personalities such as the agronomist Jean Dominique, during the humanist dictatorship of Francois Papa Doc Duvalier. I saw Papa Doc as peaceful-looking, distributing money to onlookers while representing Noirism (Black) and the poisonous doctrine of a president for life.

Yes, here everybody knows the importance of words and writing to unravel the tangle of tragedy. The horrifying natural disaster of 2010 has heightened the world’s awareness of this country. Earthquake aftershocks revealed to the world her true wealth – the heritage of oral lore, gestures and legends told by Mimi Barthelemy and James Noel, lyric poet of Kana Sutra. The ink of the glazier brings us the contours of the various works of Frankétienne where Creole and French are intertwined. This cataclysmic tragedy has indeed brought us to uncover the buried treasure; a legacy of the insurrection of minds. Where else has the consciousness of indubitable power been shown with such strength?


73

Activists’ literary magazines created by “the generation of the slap’’ testify: La Revue de la ligue de la jeunesse haïtienne (1916), La Nouvelle Ronde (1925) and especially La Revue indigène (1927. The writers already rebelled against the US occupation. Muses of combat expressed the melancholy of the common people towards the waltz in politics. The nativist movement initiated by Jean Price-Mars also called on Africa as the motherland. More than ever, writing becomes essential in times of inclement weather.

The remedy to disasterKilled, oppressed and having already suffered from the insanity of men, Haiti was once again violated. The island was subject to torment, this time a fierce and brutal rumbling of an earthquake. What used to be a heaven of unbridled lives, bustling streets forged by history, now collapsed, ruined by the merciless moods of Mother Nature. An earthquake. The cruel tremors sowed death and destruction. The sky disappeared under the thick cloud of rubble and debris.

“The shock beyond words, the weight of the skins, tanned by overwhelming chaos”. The bottomless tragedy of little heroes in the great quest for freedom, the sons and great descendants of Toussaint Louverture. Despite the odds, men and women of the island were amazed to find in them the remedy to disaster – a thin thread of hope in the glow of the stars beyond what was depicted by television and truism of the mass media. What is there to say about the waltz of the predators, insatiable consumers of the great troubles?

Sometimes misfortune is good as motivation to fix the foundations. Who cares! The extraordinary resilience of the Haitian people is not to be doubted, regardless of the diverse cultural backgrounds, brave hearts of the wounded homeland.


74

Writer and journalist Gary Victor is the perfect example of visceral attachment to this land with a thousand stories. I had the honour of meeting him during one of his visits to France. A man with over fifteen published novels, noble and extremely kind. He has forged popular success with the strong connection between intellectual honesty and artistic sincerity. During the Francophonies en Limousin festival , author and actor Guy Regis Junior told me about the success of his radio skits. Each daily episode revealed the endless capacity to observe the greatest chronicler of Haitian society’s complexities. In Charles Najman’s documentary “Haiti, the end of chimeras’’, his words point out the evil that has tainted the country.

Their female counterparts are not left out in the creative development. The conferral of Yanick Lahens with the Femina prize for the novel “Bain de Lune” confirms the existence of a splendid line-up of writers in the likes of Kelly Mars, Emmelie Prophete, Marie-Celie Agnant or Evelyne Trouillot. Forgive me if I have missed out some; there are many.

Literature is an inexhaustible raw material in this land where the web of possibilities develops with life’s encounters, including and especially in times of starvation. Guy Regis Junior puts on stage Frankétienne’s Dezafi, while Raoul Peck and Lionel Trouillot are co-writing the script for the movie “Murder in Pacot’’, released in 2014.

In conclusion, I dedicate these few lines as a tribute to my friend, writer and editor, Rodney Saint Eloi (edition Memoire d’encier):

http://memoiredencrier.com/

http://memoiredencrier.com/


75

‘’O great slumbering, Hear out the real cries of writers and don’t let

their writings be in vain but necessary for better

understanding of the upcoming world, one

that is built by the living breath of beings, by force of little working hands.’’


76


77

Five years after a devastating earthquake ripped through the

Caribbean island of Haiti, former journalist and humanitarian Dimitry Leger released his debut novel set in the aftermath of the disaster. Inspired by months spent assisting in the disaster relief mission in Haiti, Leger started writing God Loves Haiti in Florence, Italy.

It’s a tale of romance, politics and religion. Following the lives of three lovers in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, the story depicts how they adjust to life after the earthquake. Likened to Gabriel García Márquez’s epic tale Love in The Time of Cholera, the book presents the 2010 Haiti earthquake as a backdrop to the romantic comedy with the kind of insight and compassion that could only be relayed by someone who was so close to the actual disaster.

“The glimpses into the lives of Haitian families and the vivid survival stories earthquake survivors compulsively told me could make a good novel,” he said. “The voices of the novel’s frustrated adulterers of varying degrees of faith came to me slowly and then furiously.”

The 2010 earthquake affected an estimated three million people – it killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians and left 1.3 million homeless. With a devastating magnitude of 7.0, its epicentre was Léogâne, 25 kilometres (15.4 miles) west of Port-au-Prince.

Love in the time of disaster

Saran Koly


78


79

Scarred for life

At the time Leger was living with his family in the French Alps working at a Swiss software firm and describes his feelings on hearing the news: “My first reaction…was a stunned sadness for the country and an unforgettable fear for the safety of my family in Haiti, my cousins and their kids, who are roughly the same age as my own.” He was asked by the United Nations to return to Haiti to help manage the situation and he agreed “without hesitation”.

He said: “It wasn’t easy, but it was a good opportunity to teach my own children how special the home they have in Haiti is to me, and, with God Loves Haiti, how special it should be to them.

“My generation will always be scarred, on some level, by the terror generated by that earthquake, in much the same way previous generations remembered being terrorised by a dictator or an invasion by a foreign army. In the process, I learned to write about everything you would want to know about contemporary Haitian society,” he added.

Leger’s homage to Haiti through his first novel comes from a deep love for the place. Despite having spent 30 years living in the US and Europe, he declares some of the best times of his life were spent in Haiti and “wanted to try to share some of that feeling in literature.”

In an opinion piece featured in the New York Observer in May this year, following the death of Jean-Claude Duvalier, the dictator of Haiti, Leger describes the injustices that the people of Haiti have had to endure over the years. He explained, how in 1986, his family felt they had no choice but to leave Haiti given the political situation: “After a year of de facto house-arrest as Duvalier’s government seemed to try to kill every protester across the country, my father pressed the eject button again. In early ’86, I found myself going to school in bitter cold Brooklyn streets.”


80

Even after the earthquake of 2010 in Haiti, its people discovered that UN peacekeepers had accidentally brought a strain of Cholera to their country from Nepal which killed more than 8,000 people. He writes: “the United Nations mission has an annual budget of $500 million for its 5,145 soldiers and 2,377 police officers in Haiti, but it can’t raise $38 million to cure Haitians of a disease it added on top of the awful infrastructural and economic ravages wrought by the earthquake still hobbling the country.”

Despite living through such political instability, a catastrophic natural disaster and disease Leger said the Haitians kept going – “loving and laughing – the resilience people like to herald – have elements unique to being Haitian.”Leger’s father, a single parent, who refused to leave his home country, shaped his positive perspective on home. “We were close,” he said. “He loved Haiti above anywhere else and made that clear his entire life.”

“no novelist, living or dead,

honours the soul of Haiti” like Danticat.


81

It’s through that strong bond he has with his father and home that inspired him to show his country in such a light through his book God Loves Haiti. When readers “see the next Haiti news headline, I hope they take private pleasure in sensing, from the glimpse provided by the world in my novel, that “the people behind the headlines, especially the politicians, are likely more complex and interesting than the headlines suggest,”” he said.

Leger said the desire to write a book only came to him after the birth of his son in 2002 when he returned to the Catholic Church and was inspired by the Catholicism in literature penned by Dante, Graham Greene and Albert Camus, while taking great inspiration from classic novels which depict love in difficult situations such as Hemmingway’s Farewell to Arms and Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.

He adds to his inspirational list the writer Edwidge Danticat since no novelist, living or dead, honours the soul of Haiti like Danticat. Caribbean literature by authors such as Danticat and Junot Diaz has set the bar high for writing universal stories out of Caribbean lives, Leger says. “It’s been great to see new Caribbean writers emerge artfully from their considerable shadows and thrill everyone,” he added.

Leger is currently working on a new novel which promises a few of his favourite things like Haitian-American history, love gone wrong and the beautiful game of soccer.

Dimitry Elias Leger’s God Loves Haiti is available since 6 January 2015, Amistad editions


82

MARIE LAROCQUE


83

World traveler, mother of five children from five different fathers and grandmother of two grandchildren, she went

with two of her daughters, to help two families in Haiti after the earthquake, in Jacmel, where the characters animating daily life became those of a blog, “Mémé attaque Haiti’’, and a book of the same name, is launched on 25 February, 2015 at VLB editions.Friendship, humour, tragedy, Haiti, disaster… Your story, was it inspired by your excellent blog “Mémé attaque Haiti’’?

My blog served as the canvas. Basically, I took several stories from my blog; I kept the brutal and irreverent, and I knitted around the characters and their story. It gives me the colourful portrait of a universe that I found fascinating and wanted to share.

What is your relationship to this island?

Haiti is a story of love and lassitude at the same time. I fell in love with this strange world full of magic, humanity and artists, but ended up getting really fed up with discomfort, fried bananas and mosquitoes. Seven years in Haiti was too much for me; I should have left the island earlier and it would have remained as nicer memory. But whatever I say, I know that I will be missing this happy chaos and that I will be running back to it. But not now, and not for a long time, at least.

“in Haiti, inspiration sweeps you over on every corner”

Saran Koly


84

Where did you find your inspiration?

It is well known that everything is possible in Haiti and it’s so true that, in fact, everything is happening all the time. You don’t necessarily have to look for inspiration; it sweeps you over on every corner, in every conversation. You only have to sort it out. Personally I choose to describe everyday life, which is at the same time interesting and thought-provoking. You can never be bored in this country, that’s clear!

Haiti is bubbling with culture – visual and performing arts, contemporary writing… How do you think your story falls within this context?

Sincerely, I don’t know. My writing doesn’t have anything of Haitian and I do not speak to those I speak of. It’s sad but I have to say that reading is a sport for rich people; I have never seen a poor man reading a novel. There is a big paradox in Haiti: there are plenty of artists in every field, but the population doesn’t seem to consume art, except music. I have never seen a sculpture, a painting or a book in poor people’s houses, and we are talking here of the majority of the population.

In 2010, after the earthquake, you returned to Haiti. Why? What was your plan? What were your first impressions?

Pictures of horror upset me, but I had no courage to go there right away. It was nine months later that I went there with a mission to rebuild two families who were particularly close to my heart at that time. So I went with my two teenage girls trying to make a small difference in their lives.


85

My first impression was that the country has changed, for the better, of course. I am not speaking about the poor condition of the place but about people who seemed happier to me and more active than I remembered.

In terms of literature, is there any difference between Haitians and foreign writers who are well-acquainted with the country?

The perspective and the interest of natives are very different from those of visitors, but it’s international, I suppose.

How would you describe Haiti five years later?

It is a country that moves little and very slowly. Without being pessimistic, I don’t believe in large short-term improvements. I am talking about the water, electricity and the roads. I have to say, that it would be already done, if there was a good will. At the same time I am neither an expert nor an aid worker, I do not know the system or its long-term visions.

Do you have any writing (or any other) projects in the future?

“Mémé attaque Haiti’’, published by VLB editions, will be released in February. Then I will finish another novel which is already in progress. There will be travelling involved, of course. I had a crush for Vietnam last year and this is where I want to spend the next years. No, I am not about to write “Mémé attaque Saigon’’; I just want to eat spring rolls and phò.


86

Louino ‘Robi’

Robillard


87

Louino ‘Robi’ Robillard was born in rural northern Haiti the same year that

Jean-Claude Duvalier was exiled from the country. After the death of his mother at a young age, his father joined the masses of Haitians who were migrating from the countryside to the capital, Port au Prince. The only place they, like tens of thousands of others, could afford to live was Cite Soleil, the largest slum in the country.

Robi was raised in an area called Ti Ayiti, and grew up as Cite Soleil was beginning to spiral into a cycle of gang violence. Cite Soleil would be declared a war zone by the time Robi was in high school, with tanks rolling through the streets and deadly clashes among the United Nations Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (MIinustah), the Haitian police, and the gangs. Robi’s group of friends managed to survive without picking up weapons themselves, although there

were many opportunities – and reasons – to do so. He worked in a factory to gethimself through school, and graduated from high school in 2008. Two years later, he had completed an associate’s degree in municipal administration and was considering going to university for linguistics.

On January 12th, 2010, Robi and his friend Donald were on a tap tap going back to Cite Soleil from downtown. They had just entered Cite Soleil when Robi noticed the streetlights swaying like they were stalks of rice in the wind. The next thing he knew, the world went white. He managed to get himself off of the tap tap before it crashed into a wall, and knelt on the trembling ground. There, on his knees, Robi remembers questioning his existence – he promised himself if he made it out of this alive, that he would make his life mean something.

Building a better futureSabina c. robillard


88

When the ground stopped shaking and the dust settled, Robi found his friend Donald and began to run back to Ti Ayiti, passing people pushing bodies in wheelbarrows to the hospital. He gathered his family and brought them to Place Fierte, the large public square in the middle of Cite Soleil, far from anything that could fall on them. Everyone was bringing their families to Place Fierte, and people from neighbourhoods that were normally rivals were sharing what little they had with each other. Every time the earth trembled from the aftershocks, people screamed.

But they had something far more serious to worry about than the aftershocks: Haiti’s National Prison had been damaged in the earthquake, releasing hundreds of prisoners. Among those prisoners were gangsters that Robi and other community members had helped to put in jail a few years before, and they wanted revenge. So while many Haitians were organising search and rescue committees, burying their dead, and finding food and clean water, Robi and his friends formed patrols to keep their neighbourhoods safe. They couldn’t find the police or Minustah, both of which had suffered during the earthquake; they were on their own, but they found the strength to survive.


89

Robi was profoundly changed by the experience of the earthquake: not only had he survived, but he had seen what his community could achieve when they were on their own and had to work together. Cite Soleil had been divided by turf wars and territories for as long as he could remember, but for a few weeks, people seem to have forgotten which neighbourhood they came from and were sharing, consoling, and protecting each other. That unity dissolved around the time the international relief came; but Robi never forgot it.

Robi was itching to do more. He was the youth representative of the Community Forum of Cite Soleil and volunteered in a community-based post-disaster needs assessment they were carrying out in Cite Soleil. He then participated in a training by OpenStreetMap on mapping, and he dedicated himself to identifying camps of displaced persons because he felt that this was his way of making sure his community was seen. That work got him hired by the International Organization on Migration (IOM), where he worked on mapping points of humanitarian interest, including clinics during the cholera outbreak and potential shelters when hurricane season started.


90

A year and a half after the earthquake, Robi became a founding member of a social movement in Cite Soleil called Konbit Soley Leve that brought community leaders from different blocks together to work for the common good. They based their structure not on organisations, which they felt had always failed, but on the traditional Haitian practice of konbit from the countryside. The system is based on reciprocity: in Cite Soleil, that looked like one neighbourhood inviting the others to help them clean a canal, or repaint a street, or deal with a conflict. The movement built relationships between people from neighbourhoods that had historically fought. It was working to build peace very slowly, from the ground up.

Robi left IOM after 16 months to commit himself more fully to his work in Cite Soleil. He earned his Master’s degree in Applied Community Change and Peace-building with the Future Generations Graduate School, an alternative program that allowed him to stay based in his community. Through the school, he traveled to places like India, Kenya, and Detroit to learn from people struggling to reduce violence all over the world. He helped to found a Haiti country program for Future Generations, which now works on community empowerment and social change issues in Cite Soleil and the countryside. Robi has traveled the country searching for communities that are innovating, developing themselves, and willing to share what they’ve learned. Inspired by the communities he met, Robi bought land in the town of his birth and is planting a memorial forest with his wife, Sabina.


91

Robi now serves on the board of three non-profits and advises countless other organisations working in marginalised communities across Haiti, addressing issues ranging from dialogue to deforestation. He is training young leaders, knowing that this is the generation that was shaken by the earthquake and that many of them now have the same sense of urgency that he does. He is building towards something he thinks of as a national conscience, and worries that “if Haitians didn’t ‘wake up’ on the 12th of January 2010 and start working together, then they never will.”

Robi’s dream is that Haitians will rebuild the National Palace - which was destroyed in the earthquake - with their own resources as a symbol that they have the strength to build their own future. He has spent the past five years trying to recreate that sense of solidarity when the earth was shaking and the aid hadn’t yet arrived.

* Sabina is Louino Robillard’s wife, she has been living in Port-au-Prince since 2010.


92

Fields Magazine / February / 2015Fields Magazine / February / 2015

fields february 2015 #1 (english version)

Documents

years onfields magazine

staff thanksfields magazine

feetsaran kolyfields

state university of

rights reserved fields

bright idea of fields

world heritage site

new year