I was assigned another Learning For Life project and I was both enormously excited for it and slightly weary but all the while knowing this would be an awesome experience. This was Project Entrepreneur in Haiti. Learning for Life in Haiti is implementing its Project Entrepreneur program, designed to give participants practical knowledge and skills in construction to help rebuild and further develop their local communities after massive damage from the earthquake that killed 230,000 people. Again this was very exciting to go and actually see first hand the enormity of this catastrophe and to try and somehow document it. Then there was another part of me that was a bit afraid to see the reality of it, I suppose its one thing to sit in your comfortable home sipping a nice cold beer or snacking on food and hearing about this massive earthquake and while being constantly exposed to the horrific images we all witnessed. Its quite another feeling to be on a 7:00am flight headed to Port Au Prince in search of pockets of hope in this complete hellish situation. I really didn't know what to expect, would there be bodies still around or people in utter desperation clinging and begging to every car with a white person and charity magnet on the side ? I had no idea about the scene on the ground the only thing I knew that I would see was a city full of crumbled buildings and people trying to make sense of it all.
Our arrival in Port Au Prince was like most other airports except when we got off the airplane nervous with excitement and awaiting our transport to our luggage pick up there was some amazing music being played by 5 Haitians, welcoming everyone that was arriving. The fact of the matter is that everyone arriving was there to help in some sort of way, lets face it there aren't many people going on holiday in Port Au Prince. So there I was standing in a line of do gooders hearing this great music,and being reminded of Etolie De Dakar but without the horns. I suppose this was Haiti's way of thanking everyone for coming to Haiti to lend a hand, a bit of music for the soul, as these souls listening were helping those most affected by this disaster.We all crammed into the the auto bus to take us to customs, after arriving getting doing the usual song and dance at customs after being stamped through there we were waiting for our luggage in a sea of people in a make shift baggage claim that seemed more like a suitcase obsessed uncle's garage. After a bit of congestion and aggressive baggage watch we retrieved all of our bags and headed out to meet our driver. As we exited the airport on to the street I was told by Patrick, the Diageo person in charge of the Haiti projects, not to let anyone grab my bag and to only go with the person he tells me and to keep moving! As I lifted my head up I began to realize why, it reminded me of a market day on Sunday in any third world country people aggressively selling their services trying to grab your bags to help you in hopes of getting a tip. I looked up pushing and pulling my way past a couple of dozen people, cars honking from what seemed like every direction. It was a frantic energetic feeling and I instantly liked it, it kept you on your toes, listening to every word someone is yelling or reading the expressions on the faces of your future temporary employees. In the midst of all of this confusion there was our guide Isnell, a tall skinny lanky spectacle wearing Haitian that instantly made you feel at ease with his calm, confidant knowingly smile and his quick action an intelligent young man with the face of a sophomore constantly on top of his game.
Isnell works for Idejen (http://idejen.edc.org/) a charity program in Haiti that has been working with Diageo through Project Entrepreneur. He was our guide through his country that has literally been torn apart. Also we had a big wig from Diageo with us to take a tour of the devastation and then later speak at a graduation that Diageo and Idejen arranged for its first graduating class. As we sped through the streets of Port Au Prince we began to see the damage, complete buildings just violently collapsed, grocery stores, gas stations,schools, daycares, hair salons,restaurants, apartment buildings and houses completely demolished and all of us realizing all the people that must have been in those places during that frightful time, we all rode in complete silence eyes glued to the evidence. One of our stops was The Presidential Palace completely toppled over and folded with rubble everywhere. Just across the street was a make shift town of tents and temporary structures all a result of displaced people around 1,000,000 homeless people through out Haiti. Well this was our first location to interview our big wig, with the Presidential Palace in ruin as our backdrop, a slight nauseating feeling came over me. Just before we conducted our interview we came across the UN in their tanks, these troopers were French and looking super tuff and somehow fashionable in camo with their machine guns on their Hummer on steroids all the while flexing the muscles of the world military force. After that we walked into the tent city to do an interview with our big wig, as we walked through people were a bit confused as way we where there but flashing me with occasional smiles, I remember one women sitting down as I looked at her with a smurked half grin and she throwing one back at me. I lifted my camera looking on she pulled the blanket ,that was actually the door to her house ,half over her face exuding a shy laugh. This had a great effect on me being where I was at the time and who I was with she could have easily been angry as we intruded but through all of that horror just outside her makeshift walls, she laughed like a child in adolescent embarrassment.
After that we headed to a few more places witnessing the damage we finally arrived to our destination a city park that had sugarcane and rum history. It use to be an old distillery in the 1930's and still had the machinery in the park with giant gear houses for thrashing the sugarcane. This was an absolute oasis in the midst of all the destruction and fallen concrete. This graduation was quite a big deal the first class graduation not only that but the sense of hope and pride it must have instilled I can't even begin to imagine. Everyone was dressed to the gills as they say, there were 150 graduating students and around 300 people in attendance. In this program the graduates learn the essential skills of construction everything to demolition,building foundations, framing,repair and painting. Something Haiti desperately needs and these kids had a fire in their eyes all of them knowing the present state their country is in and the excitement and honor they had in graduating all eager to get started rebuilding their city this was amazing given the context. The ceremony was like a typical graduation ceremony very nice and very formal after a couple of hours we were done shooting all of us looking forward to an ice cold beer which our big wig had awaiting us near the bar, he too had the love for the hops and was impressed by our performance we all sat in amazement and wonder over the past 5 hours sipping our beers we made typical small talk and soon we began packing our gear ready to head to our hotel.
