LA SOURCE, HAITI (July 2010) — “When you walk out the airport, make a hard right and whatever you do, just keep walking,” spoke an abrupt and unfamiliar voice over the cell phone. “There’s gonna be a lot of people,” he continued.

Airport in Port au Prince Photo/M. Payne
click photos to enlarge/slideshow

Struggling to keep pace with the thin, ambitious porter carrying my bag, I followed as we shoved our way through an impatient, sweaty crowd that had formed around a rudimentary luggage carousel.  

“How will I find you?” I asked over the phone, my voice trembling after the narrow escape of a violent shoving match between two groups of people attempting unsuccessfully to clear customs in the line next to me. 

Moments before, I had smiled at a child who now wept as her mother figure stood at the receiving end of a lawless reprimand and was escorted away into the bowels of the emaciated airport.

Perspiration dripped from my wrist down to my elbow as I pressed the phone to my ear, struggling to hear his answer over the unfamiliar notes of Creole and French dancing around me in a chaotic melody.

"Don’t worry.  You’ll be easy to spot,” said the voice on the other end of the phone and hung up.

The young porter set down my bag, beaming as I placed the sweat-soaked ten-dollar bill I had been holding into his frail, calloused hand. 

“Heavy,” he said referring to my bag with breathless gusto, his enthusiasm fueled more by the unsubstantiated size of my tip than the satisfaction of a job well done. 

“Clothes,” I offered, referring to the contents of my bag.  “…and shoes.  And a soccer ball… For kids.” 

Fearing the guilt I would most likely encounter coming for only 72 hours and contributing to the relief effort minimally at best, I had gone to the store the day before and picked up as many pairs of flip flops as I could.  Thinking about Haiti’s kids in the spirit of the World Cup, I also grabbed a soccer ball. 

The porter nodded clearly not understanding as my eyes met his with blanket suspicion masked by naïve compassion. 

In broken English, he expressed his gratitude as I subtly clocked the location of my passport and wallet in my pants pockets.  Travel documents and cash intact, my gracious but suspect gaze softened and I offered yet another “thank you,” this time in French and motivated by the fact that my new friend hadn’t robbed me. 

Vaguely aware that my lack of faith in the young porter was contrary to the very purpose of my trip, I reminded myself that unlike at least 300,000 others, he was alive and unlike 85% of the 1.8 million homeless in this new land I found myself in, he had a job. 

Street Market in Haiti Photo/M. Payne
click photos to enlarge/slideshow 

Leaving the airport behind me, I made a hard right into the harsh sun, feeling embraced by the palpable humidity as I tumbled into the dusty remnants of Port Au Prince.  And I found myself on a journey unlike any I could have imagined.

It began three months earlier in Los Angeles when I attended the premiere of the acclaimed film THE PHILOSOPHER KINGS, directed by Patrick Shen.   The documentary explored the world of custodial workers at prestigious universities and colleges across the United States.  Josue Lajeunesse, a custodial worker at Princeton University, was one of men featured.

Born and raised in Haiti, Josue fled his economically strained homeland to seek gainful employment in the United States.  Since 1986, Josue has held two jobs —as a custodian by day and a taxi driver at night, living a humble life in order to provide for a better life for his extended family in both Port-au-Prince and the small village of La Source, located north of the coastal city of Jacmel. 

While Josue had many ambitions for the village of La Source, none could come to fruition without first providing simpler access to fresh water.   Villagers young and old, many without shoes in hundred-degree heat, walked up hill, nearly two miles.  Because of the rocky terrain and steep incline, most had been injured and a couple of people, losing their balance carrying fifty pound jerry cans of water, had fallen to their deaths. 

Learning Josue’s story, Shen and a small crew accompanied him to a pre-quake Haiti where in perhaps the most touching and profound moment of the film, they captured the humble custodian as he recognized the dire circumstance of his family’s village.

Compelled to help, Mr. Shen and the students of Princeton rallied with a Los Angeles based grass roots non-profit group called Generosity Water to build a cistern in La Source.   A simple action that would drastically change the lives of nearly three thousand people. 

Brothers Josue and Chrismedonnes
Photo/Jess Koehler click photos to enlarge

Now, many months later and despite the devastation caused by the January 12th quake, the village of La Source celebrated their resilient nature and inaugurated the cistern a day shy of the quake’s six-month anniversary.  

Patrick Shen and his crew were there to document the event for their new film "La Source."  The films purpose is to promote awareness about the global water crisis.  I was somehow bestowed the honor to be asked to come along to see the filming of this pivotal point in the documentary.

As the result of so many good fortunes built on the back of great suffering, I found walking through the doors of the airport, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun reflecting with suffocating intensity off of the gray white ash of the collapsed city around me. 

A high chain-link fence surrounded the sidewalk parallel to the airport, lined with the pleading eyes and errant voices of tattered Haitian children shoving their small hands through the fence’s links, matching my brisk pace as I headed right.

Swarms of porters, most scarred, some missing limbs, eyes, and sometimes both, surrounded me. 

Mercilessly, two and three at time they yanked at my bags from all sides and tugged at my arms now soaking wet with a blend of my sweat and theirs.  Eager for the security of an American, I called my cell phone connection.

“Are you wearing a blue shirt?” he asked. 

I was but so was everyone else around me, as that was the uniform of the Haitian workingman… at least those working at the airport. 

“Yeah,” I answered, looking for a face that lacked desperation.

“I see you.  Keep walking,” and again he was gone.  Quickly, I put my phone in my pocket, zipping it for safekeeping, my distrust again trumping my aspiring altruism. 

Moments later, among a wall of black faces at the protected sidewalk’s exit into the city, were two white faces I assumed were my ride.

 “I’m David,” he said, given the voice a body and before I could introduce myself, “and this is Bryn,” he continued, introducing me to a thin man roughly my age in sunglasses and a baseball cap with “Pilot” spelled neatly across the front. 

David took my bags, tossing them into the back of an SUV tricked out up with tires and accoutrements sufficient to out-maneuver a lion across the Serengeti at night.  

From Hell to Hope: 72 Hours in Haiti, page one
From Hell to Hope: 72 Hours in Haiti, page two
From Hell to Hope: 72 Hours in Haiti, page three

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