Street

I’ve been wondering if there are homeless Haitians. Of course there are many many people without a home. And a lot more without a reasonable one. But – unlike western homeless people, Haitians living in a tent / shack / by the road ARE the society and not outcasts.


The streets of Haiti remind me a bit of a coral reef. It’s a living organism composed of a huge number of individuals all doing their own thing. The side of the street is dedicated to an unofficial market. It’s paved by people selling any product from a few sugar canes, to phone cards, cords, rope or whatever else the people passing by may or may not need. A lot of folks (and kids) go between the traffic to sell water bags or some food to the people stuck in traffic. Except for merchants, there is always a large number of people simply trying to get from one place to the other. And immediately beyond the merchants there are “houses” or tents that people live in. So it looks like the street doesn’t really end, but goes on deeper and deeper into the sides. The feeling is that everyone lives on the streets (and it’s probably true because the houses are small and dark and there’s not much to do there). We’ve been trying to get a picture that accurately shows what it’s like all week. Nothing yet comes close.

After dark the streets just keep on going. In the city, people depend on lights of passing cars. Outside the city they simply go about their business in complete darkness. So – when driving at night there’s the added challenge of not running into someone when you divert from the road to avoid hitting a hole.

(I was planning to add a photo here, but nothing captures the reality. Will keep trying).