When shooting in Haiti, there is simply no formula to follow as there often is in a place like the United States, where you’re familiar with the culture and most people have an understanding of the media and how it works. Here, you have to trust that God will show you the way, step by step, as you stumble along in the dark. It’s always an adjustment that takes me a few days to make, this trip included.
My guide and I rode motorcycles into downtown Port-a-Paix (neighboring city) today to visit the market. I was searching for street vendors with “dirt cookies,” a sort of plastic-hard bread made from oil, a bit of flour and a certain type of dirt that’s believed to have nutritional value. That claim is dubious, but there have been a lot of reports of Haitians eating these in greater quantities because of recent food shortages.
After the market, we headed to a large orphanage in the city that’s run by Northwest Haiti Christian Mission. A group of visiting Americans took the kids for a swim at the beach. Most Haitian’s don’t like swimming in the ocean, but these kids have an unusual fondness for it. It was a joy to watch them walk along a shallow reef near the shore and dive into the deep blue water just off the reef’s edge.
Tomorrow I’ll make the overland treck to the Far West, a desert-like region of Haiti where the mission is expanding its services. The area is quite rural and very poor. I’ll trade my comfortable room at the main campus for sleeping on a concrete roof. There won’t be Internet access there, but I will update about the journey when I return.
Above: “Mud cookies” are sold in the market for pennies each, and have increasingly become a staple of some Haitian diets as food shortages continue.
Below: Orphans swimming at the beach in Port-a-Paix.
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