So in that northerly spirit, we want you to name the northern-most country in Central America. It has a mix of Afro-Caribbean and Central American cultures. You can hear Creole and Spanish here, though English is the official language.

Which country is that?

The answer is Belize where after 30 years of independence the national anthem has finally been translated into the lingua franca of the people: English Creole. Reporter Amy Bracken caught up with the translator, Leela Vernon, in the diva’s hometown of Punta Gorda:

If you go down a path behind a tool and parts shop in Punta Gorda, you’ll likely find Leela Vernon sitting in her garden. Leela Vernon is a household name in Belize.

She’s known as the Queen of Brukdown – a popular rural Belizean dance music. She’s won awards from the government of Belize and the Queen of England, promoting her culture at home and abroad. She’s also known for her protest songs.

Leela Vernon (Photo: Amy Bracken)

Vernon is 60 now and likes to talk about her hobbies: organic gardening and canning, but she hasn’t given up writing songs. In fact, she’s been tinkering with the national anthem.

Belize’s national anthem is called Land of the Free. Its lyrics were written by a Belizean soldier, Samuel Alfred Haynes, in 1963. Haynes fought for the British in World War I, but soon after led a riot protesting racism at home. When Belize gained its independence in 1981, his song became the new country’s anthem.

But the song is in a formal English, so a few years back, Vernon decided to translate Haynes’ words into Creole. “I’m doing this for my ethnic people here in Belize, mainly,” she says. “So they can understand what is going on, what went on, why we celebrating.”

Belizean Creole is a mix of English and African languages. And the Creole here transcends ethnicity. It’s spoken by the Garifuna, three Mayan tribes, Mestizos, Mennonites, East Indians, Chinese, as well as ethnic Creoles.

“When you come to Belize, the first thing you need to understand that the Creole language binds all the ethnic people together here,” says Vernon. “And they have to talk Creole to communicate, so that makes the whole think unique, very unique.”

Vernon says after independence, school children sang ‘Land of the Free’ just as they had sung ‘God Save the Queen’ under British rule – with little thought or understanding. “I personally used to sing the anthem, but I didn’t pay much attention to the words, you know, until after translating it to Creole. I said, ‘This is a very serious protest song.’”

The final verse of the song says, ‘freedom will come tomorrow afternoon.’ “Meaning we are not free yet. That got to my brain, and I say, oooh, when will we be free then?… until tomorrow afternoon, that mean we are still under the whip!”

I ask her if the Belizean people are free now. She says Yes, but they also live in poverty, and she blames the legacy of British colonial rule for that. “I think the rippling effect of slavery is still taking a serious toll on the black community in Belize,” she says.

She’s referring to a recent rise in violence in Belize City. She says her country needs economic opportunities, but she also believes in the power of embracing ones culture.

Her Creole national anthem is slated to air on Belizean radio today for the first time.

Belize Anthem in Creole

O, Lan a di free bai di Kyaribeeyan See
Wi korij wi plej fi kip yu free
Unu tairant kyaahn stay ya; unu despots hafu goh
Fahn disya plays a demokrasi.
Wi ansesta blod don bles disya grong
Dats wai wi wahn free; nohmoh slayv wi wahn bee.

Koaros:
Git op – aal weh kohn fahn di Baymen klan
Put aan unu aama; difen disya lan
Jraiv bak di enimi; unu enimi hafu goh fahn ya!
Fahn wi lan a di free bai di Kyaribeeyan See.

Naycha don bles – mek yu rich rich rich
Oava mongtin ahn vali weh graas ron gud
Wi ansestaz, di Baymen, schrang ahn brayv
Jraiv bak di enimi; kip dehn weh fahn ya.
Fahn prowd Rio Hondo tu oal Saastoon
Chroo koaral reef, oava bloo lagoon
Kip wach wid di dehn aynjel, di staarz ahn moon
Kaa freedom wahn kohn sotay tumaaro noon.

(Ripeet Koaros)

Belize Anthem in English

O, Land of the free by the Carib Sea,
Our manhood we pledge to thy liberty
No tyrants here linger, despot must flee
This tranquil haven of democracy
The blood of our sires which hollows the sod,
Brought freedom from slavery oppression’s rod
By the might of truth and the grace of God.
No longer shall we be hewers of wood.

Chorus:
Arise! Ye sons of the Baymen’s clan,
Put on your armours, clear the land!
Drive back the tyrants let despots flee-
Land of the free by the Carib Sea!

Nature has blessed thee with wealth untold,
O’er mountains and valleys where prairies roll;
Our fathers, the Baymen, valiant and bold
Drove back the invaders; this heritage hold
From proud Rio Hondo to old Sarstoon,
Through coral isle,over blue lagoon;
Keep watch with the angels, the stars and moon;
For freedom comes to-morrow’s noon.

Chorus

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Truittier trash heap (Photo: Amy Bracken)

The village of Truittier, on the northern edge of Port-au-Prince, has a certain charm. Pigs snort and fowl cluck amid vegetable gardens and cactus hedges lining dirt paths. But the village’s raison d’etre lies in plain sight – piles of sorted trash in almost every yard. Truittier exists because it’s next to the city dump, where residents scavenge for recyclable materials.

It was never pleasant living here, but things have gotten much worse since last year’s earthquake. Truittier resident Gerald Desrosier points toward a pond at the dump. “They empty toilets over there,” he says. “Right over there.”

Every day, a stream of trucks empties hundreds of portable toilets into the pond. The toilets serve the million-plus displaced people living in camps around Port-au-Prince, which has no sewage treatment plant.

Elsewhere across Haiti, millions of people don’t even have toilets. Even before the earthquake, there was said to be only one toilet for every 1,000 Haitians. And the country’s poor sanitation system has contributed to chronic public health problems and deadly cholera outbreaks, like the one that ravaged Haiti last fall.

Here in Truittier there have been all kinds of health problems related to the waste, Desrosier says. And residents have to smell it when the wind blows toward the village. Desrosier‘s neighbor, Joseph Eguens, says there have been demonstrations against the dumping, but that nothing’s been done.

The aid groups that run the camps say they’re not happy with the dumping location, either. But other organizations are trying to keep sewage from being dumped at all, anywhere.

Nick Prenata of SOIL (Photo: Amy Bracken)

The canal is a reeking mass of trash and human waste. It’s even worse in the rainy season, when it sometimes overflows and the raw sewage floods into people’s homes.

SOIL is trying to help change that – and change the way Haitians think about their waste. After the earthquake, a local group asked SOIL to help set up a sanitation system here in Cite Soleil. It would be based not on porta-potties, or even a municipal sewer, but on composting toilets.

Cite Soleil’s composting toilets have separate removable compartments for urine and solid waste. Instead of flushing, users throw in sugar cane scraps from a local rum factory to cover the waste and start the composting process. Prenata says the five composting toilets at this site are used by an estimated 100 people a day. When they fill up, volunteers haul the waste off to a nearby site for what’s called thermophilic composting.

“If you get it right, the temperature gets really hot,” Prenata says. “The microorganisms eating through the feces and the carbon generate a lot of heat.” That kills off pathogens like E. coli and the cholera bacteria. Diseases avoided, wastewater problem solved.

And there’s another key benefit. What’s left after the composting process is a nutrient-rich organic fertilizer. Which is why experts say the simple technology is an innovative way to deal with two major problems at once—Haiti’s sanitation crisis and its soil fertility crisis.

Over centuries of land mismanagement, Haiti has lost much of its topsoil, and so its ability to feed itself. At the same time, it’s been dumping millions of pounds of potential soil nutrients into landfills and waterways, where they become a serious problem.

“So you have this issue of human waste treatment, and you have this issue of agricultural depletion,” says Brown University ecology professor Stephen Porder. “How you produce enough food for undernourished populations, and how you do that while solving water quality problems that lead to tremendous illness?” Porder says composting toilets, also known as ecological sanitation, are part of the answer, and a growing number of people in Haiti agree, including some in the Haitian government.

Paul Christian Namphy, a Haitian-American engineer who once worked with SOIL and is now an advisor for Haiti’s new water and sanitation agency, says ecological sanitation is the future. Namphy says that along with solving immediate problems, ecological sanitation increases people’s awareness of the realities of sanitation, and how communities can take charge of their own problems.

Certainly the idea is catching on in Cite Soleil, where the waste from the new composting toilets is already being put to work in a community vegetable garden. Agronomist Archibald Miracle, who manages the garden, says the compost generated here lets community to do completely organic farming. “It allows people to create their own little economy, when otherwise they would have to go to the market,” Miracle says.

Backers hope the Cite Soleil ecological sanitation project will be a model for Haiti and elsewhere. They say their biggest concern is finding a sustainable financing model to operate and expand the effort. More than a year after the earthquake, project organizers say donor fatigue has set in, and that the task ahead is largely to convince potential supporters that ecological sanitation systems are worth their investment.

Toilet Tales Series Page

• Our Soil
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Some Haitian fans handed money to their favorite players, and a rara band of horns and drums, which had kept many of the viewers dancing in the bleachers, moved into the parking lot of the Harvard Stadium and across the street to the business school. Dozens joined them, dancing, chanting and waving Haitian flags.

The final score was not the only thing to celebrate. The match, which drew more than 11,500 spectators, was a fundraiser for Partners in Health. At half time, the Harvard team’s coach announced a donation of $2,500 to PIH and another $2,500 to the Haitian Soccer Federation. All proceeds from ticket sales will also go to both organizations.

For descriptions, click on the slideshow title and then click show info

Election posters in Haiti (photo: Amy Bracken)

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Presidential Candidate Mirlande Manigat talking about morality, and how her campaign for President has been different from past runs for Senate.

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Opposing candidate Michel Martelly has declined to speak with the media until election results are in. However, his good friend Pras Michel, a member of the band the Fugees, weighs in.

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The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti claims the elections have been illegitimate from the start. Nicole Phillips is an IJDH lawyer currently based in Port-au-Prince. She describes the problems with the first round of elections.

The vast majority of protestors on both sides were peaceful. Generally, the violence was committed by pro-Aristide gang members in Port-au-Prince and by anti-Aristide gang members and ex-military in Gonaives and elsewhere. But occasionally a peaceful demonstration turned violent, as when a pro-Aristide activist was brutally beaten by a crowd of opposition demonstrators – an incident that was caught on tape. What’s more, leadership in and out of the government too often fanned the flames of division and mutual distrust rather than trying to unify the country.

Seven years later, on March 17, some of the one time anti-Aristide demonstrators were unhappy to know that their former enemy was back on home turf, but many shrugged it off as a citizen’s right of return. On the Aristide front, people have largely moved on, and it’s easy to forget how polarized the country was then, and how dangerous it could be to affiliate with one side or the other in certain parts of town at certain times.

Then again, history repeats itself in Haiti. The demonstrations that followed the fraudulent first round of presidential and parliamentary elections four months ago turned violent, and Port-au-Prince residents described the climate as scarier than 2004. This time a camera captured the shooting death of one demonstrator by another.

Now, with the results of the second round of the vote due out on Monday, and with findings, again, of widespread fraud, the electoral council has asked for calm. Let’s hope those vying for the top job show their leadership skills by bringing peace and unity so Haiti doesn’t keep repeating 2004.

• Haiti’s electoral council (In French)
• Michel Martelly’s website (In English)
• Citizens for Mirlande Manigat (Some English)
• Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (English)

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By Amy Bracken

Haiti has waited a long time for the results of their presidential election. And people there will have to a little longer. Preliminary results from this month’s runoff were due Wednesday, but election officials postponed them until next week citing “fraud and irregularities.” Irregularities in the first round provoked violent protests in 2010. It’s down to two candidates now.

The two candidates, Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly, could not be more different. Manigat is a 70-year-old professor of constitutional law and former first lady. Martelly is a 50-year-old pop star whose raw lyrics would be banned from US airwaves.

Both candidates have passionate supporters. Martelly’s fans have been especially lively at concerts organized by his campaign. His hot pink billboards, posters and T-shirts can be seen all over town. Even at banks and formal restaurants, employees sport the bright pink Martelly rubber bracelet.

Martelly’s campaign mascot is a bull, and he has a forceful presence, as in the televised debate. For many, that’s part of the appeal.

“Martelly is not going to be a man who’s going to be a soft man in power. He’s going to be a very strong man,” said Philippe Armand, a prominent Haitian businessman.

He says Martelly would be a welcome change from the current President René Preval.

“The most important thing today is to restore the authority of the state,” Admand said. “Martelly says he’s going to tackle corruption. We’re one of the most corrupt countries in the world, so if he does that in a dictatorial way, why not? If you don’t do that, the country cannot move forward.”

Back in December, Martelly’s supporters took to the streets to protest election results that would have kept Martelly out of the runoff. After a week of sometimes violent demonstrations, there was a partial recount. That put Martelly back in the running.

There could be trouble

Pras Michel, a member of the Fugees and a friend of Michel Martelly’s, says if Martelly doesn’t win, there could be trouble.

“The people focused, they want Michel, and nothing’s gonna distract them,” Michel said. “If the results are not what they want them to be, then you’re probably gonna have some issues.”

That worries Jean-Junior Joseph, a supporter of the opposing candidate, Mirlande Manigat. Joseph says Martelly is a populist.

“Mr. Martelly get to the second round based on the streets,” Joseph said. “Not based on the tally sheets. And everybody knows that. It’s like a movement, a populist movement, which is very dangerous.”

Politically, the two candidates aren’t that far apart. Both are considered right of center. Both identify education and rebuilding post-earthquake as top priorities. But Manigat takes a more measured approach.

She’s seen as the establishment candidate, even though she was only first lady for five months, before her husband was ousted in a military coup in 1988. And where Martelly yells during a debate, Manigat speaks in a quiet, deliberate way.

Jean-Jacques Augustin, a photographer for the newspaper Le Matin, followed her on the campaign trail.

Like a mother

“She was always very calm … it’s like a mom who teaches her kids,” Augustin said. “Everywhere we went, people declared, ‘Ba m Maman m’ (‘Give me my mom’), and she presents herself as a mom. In my opinion, Haiti deserves a leader like her.”

But Martelly and his followers are not her only adversaries in this race. There’s also public weariness. Voter turnout was estimated at a little more than 30 percent. Manigat herself points out that many simply didn’t see the point.

“What is the reward of the democratic fight of the Haitian population so far?” Manigat said. “What are the results for him? He still lives in the slums, his children do not go to school. His wife can die due to lack of medicine … democracy does not mean concrete realizations to him. For the very large part of the population in Haiti, democracy doesn’t mean anything.”

That was true for 38-year-old Vanissia Delisca. She lost her home and business in the earthquake. On Election Day, Delisca sat outside her makeshift shack in a tent camp.

“I’m not going to vote,” Delisca said. “Because I voted in the past, and I didn’t see any change. And from time to time you hear it’s a disaster; vagabonds are throwing rocks and spoiling the elections. I’m discouraged.”

Delisca wasn’t the only one in her camp who didn’t vote. Others said they couldn’t walk the long distance to the polls.

Much more accessible was a nearby church tent. Camp residents poured in, some to pray for a leader who could bring change to their country.

• Lakay se lakay … home is home

Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Photo: mediahacker/Flickr)

If Aristide were here, the thinking went, we wouldn’t be so hungry, so many of us wouldn’t be living in tents, and we would have some hope for the future of our country.

Aristide returned to Haiti on a private jet a week ago, and, aside from the welcoming demonstrations in the streets that day, nothing seems to have changed.

Elections went ahead as planned last Sunday, contrary to fears of the US government and others that Aristide’s presence would disrupt all.

Like Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, who returned to Haiti January 16, after almost 25 years in exile, Aristide is, so far, living a quiet, private life, a mere mortal.

There were, of course, the usual speculations about the real meaning behind the ex-president’s words when he spoke at the airport. Like the Bible, every bit was picked apart and interpreted according to people’s various wishes.

When Aristide declared that ‘Lakay se lakay,’ or ‘home is home,’ supporters of presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat called it a message to vote for their woman, whose campaign symbol is a small ‘kay,’ or house. Others pointed to his reference to the exclusion of his political party Lavalas as a message that they should not vote.

Still others heard his calls for love and unity to mean the country should go to the polls and move on. Meanwhile, followers of candidate Michel Martelly, whose campaign color is a bold pink, were encouraged by the use of a similar, paler shade in the painting of the wall outside Aristide’s house.

But however one interprets Aristide’s always dynamic words and actions, and whatever concrete benefit or harm they could do to the country in the months to come, for some, all that matters is the mere fact of his return.

This was driven home to me as I walked down Rte. de l’Aeroport against the tide of marchers following Aristide’s black SUV as it crawled through the masses to his house. The mood was triumphant but not particularly warm. I was sworn at a couple of times, and one young man looked at me and said, “It’s called democracy, blan!” ‘Blan’ here means not just ‘white’ but those from first world countries and others involved in Haiti.

In this scene, I was a proxy for the US, who, along with two other so-called blan countries, France and Canada, had removed Haiti’s first popularly, democratically elected president from power in 2004, and who had objected to his return home on this day, citing concerns about its effect on elections.

The young man’s indignation made me smile. It went way back. Fresh on the heels of the American and French revolutions, Haiti’s had gone farther than those countries. Led by ex-slaves, it brought liberty to people of all races. But in the two centuries since, the country has suffered under dictatorships, invasions, occupations, and political and economic meddling by the great democracy to its north.

More recently, as democracy seems to be taking hold, it is struggling against its own leaders’ corruption and disregard for its own people, as well as, for better or for worse, ongoing intervention from outside.

Free and fair elections continue to elude the Haitian people. The first round of presidential and parliamentary voting, last November, was marred by blatant and rampant fraud, as well as logistical nightmares that prevented many from fulfilling their civic duty.

The second round was better but still highly problematic. Polling stations echoed with would-be voters’ outraged cries, “I can’t vote! My name isn’t on the list!” Sometimes it was an illiterate person who was lost in the letters, other times the would-be voter had gone to the wrong station, but, inexplicably, many names were simply missing.

Meanwhile, women were dramatically outnumbered by men at the polls I visited – a fact that some attributed to uneven burdens of responsibility for household and childrearing tasks, while others cited a fear of violence. And, especially in remote areas, the pregnant, the elderly, and parents with small children stayed home because buses weren’t running, and they didn’t want to (or were unable to) walk the long distance to vote.

Turnout was estimated to be ‘only’ 30 percent, which is low for Haiti, whose voting rate has at times been higher than the US. But given all the obstacles and reasons for disaffection, this could be considered remarkably high.

At one station, ballots arrived more than four hours late, yet voters who had gotten there at six, the supposed time of opening, said they would wait for as long as it took. For some it was simply their civic responsibility. Others had particular interests in the outcome.

The list of what the president needs to do is unspeakably long, but among voters I spoke with, it often went like this: “Education. And, of course, housing and everything else.”

A number also pointed to the need for the leader to work well with the international community, upon which the county is now more dependent than ever for aid. To Marcel Lochard, an engineer waiting for hours to vote at a downtown station, dealing with the outside world is not simply a matter of diplomacy. It’s about being able to manage, and not get eaten up by, all the international actors who have an interest in Haiti.

Next to him stood Ari Desliens, who has been trying to get his college degree for years but keeps having to drop out for financial reasons. He said the simple fact of the elections is important, because now stalled international funding will flow to the government. He also said the simple fact of Aristide’s return was key. “Aristide’s presence restores the people’s confidence,” he said.

Haiti needed the tens of millions of dollars invested from other countries into these elections – not to mention the billions of dollars one hopes will be disbursed after the new government comes in. But to achieve democracy it also needs a people and a government with the confidence and the ability to sometimes go against the demands of the money-givers.

Is this possible? As a citizen of the US, where money from lobbyists is an entrenched part of the political system, and where the leaders sometimes fail to support the will of the people in other countries, this blan still considers her country a democracy – something to emulate but also defy.

Second round of presidential elections take place on Sunday in Haiti (Photo: Serenity)

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with reporter Amy Bracken in Haiti about the return of former leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide and about the second round of presidential elections that takes place there Sunday. Download MP3

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins:  I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Haiti holds a presidential run off on Sunday. This is an especially big endeavor in a country still struggling to recover from last years earthquake, but it’s not the biggest news there. Today the former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, returned home after seven years in exile. Supporters welcomed him outside the airport. Aristide remains a popular figure in Haiti but he’s a divisive one as well. The World’s Amy Bracken was at the airport at Port au Prince when Aristide arrived. Amy, describe for us just what you saw.

Amy Bracken:  Well actually it was pretty amazing because this is the moment that thousands of Haitians have been waiting for for the last seven years and it felt pretty calm driving into the airport. I think so many people didn’t believe it would actually happen. And then it was very tightly controlled. I think that security was a major concern. There were a lot of journalists, a lot of Haitian journalists and journalists from around the world, and some special invited guests, people who Aristide had been in contact with, some close friends. So you definitely heard cheering when he arrived and it was an extremely emotional experience for Aristide and the other people on his flight to walk down the steps. There was some crying on the part of his wife and daughters and members of the crowd as well. There were a number of people afterwards who talked about how pleased they were with his return and of course since this was a very selected crowd, there were people like this. Dr. France Large who was a very old, very close friend of Aristide’s who was asked to attend and felt like his return was extremely important.

Dr. France Large:  I believe that it is a very good thing for Haiti. I believe that President Aristide symbolizes the dream of Haiti, of the Haitian people. So I believe that now that the President Aristide is there and things will be a little more clear for the Haitian people to decide what we really want.

Mullins:  Once again, Amy, you said that was a long time friend of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s. It was a select group that was there today but throughout Haiti, how popular is this man?

Bracken:  Well he’s still extremely popular. I mean, you go out in the streets and it was very hard for his car to even move because it was just mobbed. Once people realized that this was actually happening there was a lot of sort of ecstatic celebrating in the streets. I mean it’s hard to know quite what his popularity is because the people who aren’t so excited are very quiet. So I had some quieter conversations with people on the back streets and some people would quietly say, “Well, you know my life didn’t actually change at all under Aristide and so I don’t think he’s going to make any huge change when he gets back.” It was also interesting to see, even among the people who were really excited about him coming back, there were very different interpretations about what his return meant at far as  the elections that are happening that are happening on Sunday and as far as his role in the future. Some people have felt like elections really can’t happen now. Aristide’s a reminder of his own party that’s been excluded from the vote and a reminder of the fact that we really should have a president like him rather than the people who are running. And for other people the felt like Aristide came in, he hasn’t said anything specifically about the elections or the candidates, what he would really want is for us to move forward peacefully as he said and that would include just voting on Sunday and getting on with building a new government.

Mullins:  Okay. Reporter Amy Bracken in Haiti. Thank you.

Bracken:  Thank you, Lisa.

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Eight months after the earthquake in Haiti, mountains of rubble still clog the streets. By one estimate, only about 2% of it has been cleared away. But a group of artists in Haiti’s south has found a way to make use of some of the debris. The World’s Amy Bracken reports.

AMY BRACKEN:  Two and a half hours away from Haiti’s capital is the historic and artistic town of Jacmel. It was hit hard by the January 12^th earthquake. And people there are still struggling to recover. On a narrow downtown street, the simple façade of the FOSAJ art center remains intact. But walk around the building and you see the back wall has been sheered off. Sheets of metal hanging off the roof bang in the wind. The artists now work in the courtyard. Among them is 24-year-old painter Joseph Sevenson.

SPEAKING CREOLE

JOSEPH SEVENSON: When the earthquake struck, within 15 minutes, the first place I ran to was FOSAJ because I knew a lot of my fellow artists were working here. When I got here, I found most of the building had fallen. I went around back and saw my paintings on the second floor were under the rubble, and I couldn’t get them out.

BRACKEN: Fortunately, no one was killed here. But the art center’s director, an American named Flo McGarrell, died when a nearby building collapsed.

SPEAKING CREOLE

SEVENSON: FOSAJ is a different place without Flo because there isn’t another director who can coordinate international activities for us the way Flo did. There’s no FOSAJ without Flo.

BRACKEN: Under Flo’s leadership, Sevenson and other FOSAJ artists successfully bid to design logos for Timberland t-shirts. They also found foreign buyers for their paintings and sculptures. Despondent over all they had lost, the Jacmel artists took a bus to Petion-Ville, a town on the edge of the capital, to visit a Haitian-American art seller. Her name is Ruth Goldman.

RUTH GOLDMAN: They came down to find out how I was, and they looked so bad, and some of them were very sick, and some of them actually camped here a few weeks.

BRACKEN: One had a high fever from an infection on his mouth where a brick had knocked out some teeth. Some had been sleeping in the streets.

GOLDMAN:  And so when I saw them and they looked so bad, I told them, “You guys, you just have to sketch, you have to draw, you have to paint.” And they told me, “But we lost everything, we have nothing to work with.”

BRACKEN: Goldman had been collecting markers for a class she was teaching.

GOLDMAN: So I told them, “Here, Sharpees!” and they told me, “Ruth, you know, we have nothing, didn’t you hear? We have no canvas, no papers. Everything’s under…” So, quick thinking, I just said, “Well, use the rubble, the same rubble that killed all these people. Use that.”

BRACKEN: She showed them images of pieces of the Berlin Wall that were going for hundreds of dollars on e-bay. Goldman says some of the young men were highly skeptical. But they took the markers, and came back with some decorated rubble. She says the work was a rush-job.

GOLDMAN: But while they were there, in my office right there, a customer walked in, saw the three rocks, picked them up, gave me her card, and told me, “I want these three rocks.” And I told her, “I don’t have a price yet.” She goes, “I don’t care. Just charge me.” So I looked at the guys and they were like, in disbelief, and so they each made a hundred bucks. So they went back happy, and the following week I had 40 rocks. And the week after that they told me, “You need a truck to come up to pick up the rocks.”

BRACKEN: These clearly weren’t rush jobs. Artists were pouring their hearts into the work. Now the upstairs of the Petion-Ville store, also Goldman’s home, is full of rubble art, and she’s planning to create and sell catalogs of the works. She’s also organizing an international exhibition. Jacmel painter Joseph Sevenson says the rubble art is helping in more than one way.

SPEAKING CREOLE

SEVENSON: Haitian artists all need help because we need material, in addition to everything else. So we make these souvenirs for people to buy, and with the sales, we can make a little money to survive.

BRACKEN:  He adds that the souvenirs also help ensure that people outside Haiti don’t forget what happened here on January 12^th. For The World, I’m Amy Bracken, Jacmel, Haiti.

WERMAN: I’ve seen photos of some of the rubble art and it is amazing, and moving, the images combined with the medium they’re painted on. You can find those photos at TheWorld.org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Pierre Richard (left) and Natanael Rodriguez, Haitian and Dominican volunteers outside Grand Goave, Haiti (Photo: Amy Bracken)

Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola but the two Caribbean nations have not exactly been good neighbors over the years. However, as The World’s Amy Bracken reports, the January earthquake that devastated parts of Haiti seems to have changed that. (Photo of Haitian and Dominican volunteers: Amy Bracken) Download MP3

• BBC coverage of Haiti earthquake
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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

AMY BRACKEN:  Haitians and Dominicans each have a litany of bad memories. Haitian elders can’t forget 1937 when Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the massacre of thousands of Haitians living in his country. Younger Haitians talk about the ill treatment of Haitian migrant workers across the border. Dominicans, for their part, point to Haiti’s 22-year occupation of their country in the 19^th century and they complain about Haitian street children in their capital. All that may explain why it’s been rare to see Dominicans in Haiti in recent years. But that changed after January 12^th. Thousands of Dominicans poured over the border to give food, water, shelter and medical help. Many have gone home since then, but not all. In a mountain community two hours west of Port-au-Prince, about 70 volunteers have set up camp to help locals rebuild their homes. The volunteers are working with Un Techo para mi Pais, a Chilean organization. But most of them aren’t Chilean. They’re Haitian and Dominican. For many, it’s their first time working and playing with their cross-border counterparts. [SOUNDS LIKE] Nathanial Rodriguez is a 29-year-old graduate of Santo Domingo’s Institute of Technology. He’s come to Haiti several times since the earthquake hit. But before that he never crossed the border. It wasn’t exactly his choice to come here. He signed up to volunteer with Un Techo and this is where they sent him. And he wasn’t exactly at ease here at first.

SPEAKING SPANISH

NATHANIEL RODRIGUEZ: I was walking alone and I came across three Haitians who stopped me. It scared me a bit and they asked me in Creole if I was Dominican. I didn’t know what they were asking. I didn’t understand. I started to feel a little frightened. They asked three times and finally I got it and I said, “Yes, I am Dominican.” And they said, “Thank you.” All three said thank you for your help in the little Spanish they spoke and that calmed me down to the point of crying because it showed that sometimes tragedies, crises, create opportunities.

BRACKEN: Another volunteer, [PH] Cecia Voci, is a Haitian communications consultant. She says for the first time she has Dominican friends.

SPEAKING CREOLE

CECIA VOCI: For a long time everyone said Dominicans are mean, that they would cut Haitians in pieces. We used to be afraid, but now we see it’s not true.

BRACKEN: The Dominican response has astonished even Haitians with a deep knowledge of their neighbor. Guy Alexandre served twice as Haiti’s ambassador to the DR.

SPEAKING CREOLE

BRACKEN: He says he wasn’t surprised by the fact of the solidarity after the earthquake. What he didn’t expect was the enormity of that solidarity. Dominican president Leonel Fernandez was the first foreign head of state to visit Haiti after the tragedy. His government facilitated access to Haiti for hundreds of international relief organizations unable to fly in to the devastated country. Guy Alexandre experienced the Dominican response firsthand when his wife was pulled from the rubble of her office building. She was medevaced to the DR where she stayed for months getting surgery and physical therapy. Alexandre accompanied her across the border.

SPEAKING CREOLE

BRACKEN: He says it was clear in the streets of the Dominican Republic that pretty much everyone of all walks of life was feeling compassion for Haitians. Of course, compassion can dissipate. After a hurricane wiped out much of Santo Domingo in 1930, Haitians rushed in to help. And that piece of island history is widely forgotten. But Alexandre thinks that this time the mutual good will might endure.

SPEAKING CREOLE

BRACKEN: He says he hopes the two countries will continue to wash away the historical negative impressions they have of each other and to construct good relations. And he’s confident that important steps are being taken in the post-quake period. In July, the governmental-mixed Dominican Haitian Bilateral Commission met for the first time in ten years. Later that month, President Fernandez broke ground on a new Dominican funded state university in northern Haiti. Ruben Silie Valdez is the Dominican ambassador to Haiti.

SPEAKING SPANISH

RUBEN SILIE VALDEZ: President Fernandez said something very important to me. He said, “Ambassador, since the earthquake, we’re going to have an earthquake in the relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Everything will change.” And I think everything has changed.

BRACKEN: Still, Haitian historian George Michel thinks it’s going to take some time and some education.

GEORGE MICHEL: We don’t know each other. That should be the official policy of both governments, the Haitian government and the Dominican government, to make the other nation know more about the other one.

BRACKEN:  For now that is happening on a small scale with student exchanges, joint medical teams, human rights workers collaborating along the border and volunteers building homes together in rural Haiti. For The World, I’m Amy Bracken, Grand Goave, Haiti.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

DAVID BARON: The earthquake that struck Haiti in January left hundreds of thousands of survivors in need of immediate medical attention. The international community responded with doctors, nurses and equipment. As a result, many Haitians received medical treatment for the first time. Parts of Haiti still have more free health care than ever before. But this has created a problem. The temporary abundance of free care appears to be a factor in the decline of Haiti’s own health care system. The World’s Amy Bracken has the story from Port-au-Prince.

AMY BRACKEN:  When CDTI Hospital opened three years ago, it was touted as the best medical facility in Haiti, with CT scanners and other technology rarely seen in the country. The private hospital catered to Haitians who could afford the 25 dollar consultation fee. After the earthquake, it provided round-the-clock free care to anyone who needed it. But today the hospital is quiet, empty, closed. Reynold Savain is a radiologist and the hospital’s director.

REYNOLD SAVAIN:  To have a private hospital operating right now, in this situation, it’s not possible.

BRACKEN: Savain says providing free care after the earthquake has driven him deeply into debt. To the bank, to the staffers who worked for months without full pay, to pharmaceutical suppliers whose products he gave away, and to local doctors who invested in the hospital.  Savain says he was grateful to the foreign organizations that provided medical staff and supplies after the disaster. But he also needed financial support.

SAVAIN: All these people wanted to give was medicine, medical supplies, and doctors, rotational doctors, and at one point I couldn’t take it any more. So at the end of March I said okay, this is it, everything has to stop.

BRACKEN: And after the emergency phase ended, Savain says his patient base dried up.  Many are now going to the free clinics run by international groups. Savain was forced to close down. Other private hospitals fear the same fate. Michel Théard is a cardiologist and board member at Hopital Canapé Vert, just up the road.

MICHEL THEARD: We have an average of 8 to 10 patients a day, which is not enough to maintain the hospital open. And the problem is that the NGOs are working giving the free care, so when they will leave, you will find nothing. The medical condition of Haiti will be worse than before.

BRACKEN: But Hans Van Dillen, Haiti mission chief for Doctors without Borders, or MSF, says aid groups that treat Haiti’s neediest should not be blamed for damaging the private system.

HANS VAN DILLEN: I don’t see MSF being responsible for destroying the private sector as has been said now. Well, not only MSF, of course, but the fact that there is free health care in Port-au-Prince is much more important.

BRACKEN: Still, MSF won’t be around forever. And neither will     other aid groups. Earlier this month, another NGO, International Medical Corps, pulled out of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital. IMC had been running the public hospital since shortly after the earthquake. The Hospital’s director asked them to leave. Jason Erb of IMC says his staff were unhappy about going, but they understood that after the emergency phase, the presence of foreign doctors can be a problem.

JASON ERB:  In Haiti before the earthquake, I believe it was less than 45% of people actually had access to healthcare, and that includes private and public. And so we know that in coming in we have provided care to people who maybe never had it before. It’s difficult to stop providing that, but it’s not something that can go on forever. And it’s not something that helps to develop the health care system here in Haiti.

BRACKEN: Before the earthquake, the Haitian government financed the public hospital.  Emergency care was free, and the rest was heavily subsidized. But patients had to buy their own medications and bring them to the hospital. And hospital staff periodically went on strike, abandoning patients in their cots, because the government hadn’t paid them in months. Now Haiti’s government is pledging to make health care at the public hospital completely free with the help of international donations. That remains to be seen. But Alix Lassegue, who runs the main public hospital, is still concerned about the state of Haiti’s private health care system.

ALIX LASSEGUE: I think there is a necessity in a country like Haiti to have private sector. The majority of doctors or nurses working in the public sector work also in the private sector because the salary paid in the public sector is not sufficient to take care of the family, all the expenses for the daily life.

BRACKEN: In other words, if private health care in Haiti collapses, it will bring the public system down with it. Lassegue hopes the government will also help private medicine. Others, like Théard of Hopital Canapé Vert, say they’re hoping for a public-private partnership, one that would provide care for anyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

THEARD: I believe the new avenir of the future of medicine in Haiti has to be mixed. Private won’t work any more.

BRACKEN: But in order for a public-private system to work, Haiti will have to rely on international funding for the foreseeable future. For The World, I’m Amy Bracken, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• See Amy Bracken’s photos from Haiti
• See more of Amy Bracken’s Haiti coverage

It’s been six months since Haiti fell victim to one of the most destructive natural disasters on record. On January 12, at 4:53 in the afternoon, in 35 seconds, a 7.0 earthquake killed an estimated 200,000 people, and left more than a million homeless. Today, more than 1.7 million Haitians live in camps. As The World’s Amy Bracken reports, the effort to get people back into houses is being held up by one major obstacle: a lack of cleared, usable land.

This is Champs de Mars, Port-au-Prince’s main square-turned-tent-camp. Things look a lot like they did a few weeks after the earthquake struck. More than 20,000 people continue to live here, huddled in tents and makeshift huts.

One resident, Raymond Alcena, says there are two differences, but they’re not positive ones.

“Since the state stopped aid from coming in, we have less of a chance. There aren’t people helping us anymore, and these days it’s raining a lot. We’re in misery. We’re in mud. People get wet inside their homes. Your radio gets wet. All your stuff gets wet. This is misery we’re living in,” says Alcena.

Nadege Dorceau and Adonis Katille in their shelter in Champs de Mars. (Photo: Amy Bracken)

In late March, the Haitian government and international organizations ended large scale food distributions to avoid harming the local economy. Camp residents say they want more than ever to return home. Many of those sleeping in the Champs de Mars come from the Fort National neighborhood. And some have been hired to remove the mountain of rubble that’s been keeping them out.

In this hillside community, local crews are filling wheelbarrows using shovels and their hands.

And they’re still finding bodies. Every day.

Back hoes have finally begun to aid in the clearing effort. But bringing vehicles in here has been a challenge. Like much of Port-au-Prince, Fort National is a crowded slum, with nothing but narrow footpaths connecting most of the homes. So the back hoes literally have to drive over destroyed homes in order to get into the neighborhood.

“This reconstruction rehabilitation phase will last between 10 and 20 years. It’s true,” says Vaccaro.

Chiara Vaccaro is with the US agency for international development . She’s an architect leading a team of engineers assessing buildings across Port-au-Prince. They’re determining if the buildings should be repaired or demolished.

A home build atop mounds of rubble. (Photo: Amy Bracken)

Vaccaro says the international response in Haiti has been enormous, but so are the challenges.

“There is no zoning, no urban planning in this city, so it’s very difficult to go through each house and report the GPS, documentation, and the name of household and the property, so it’s a huge work,” says Vaccaro.

Vaccaro’s group is working primarily in slums, where property ownership is often unclear. So far, they’ve managed to assess about 42,000 homes.

Once that phase is done, the demolition will begin. And that will create even more rubble.

Sylvain Merlen is overseeing debris removal for the UN.

“We estimate that the 20 million cubic meters that need to be removed from public and private land will fill about 8,000 swimming pools and will cost over half a billion dollars to remove.” says Merlen.

The Fort National neighborhood in Haiti remains covered with rubble. (Photo: Amy Bracken)

He’s talking about 8,000 Olympic swimming pools. And about that estimated 500 million dollar removal cost? Merlenne says when the Haitian government submitted a request for international funding, it neglected to mention debris removal. So he’s working without a dedicated budget.

“A lot of Haitians have taken a lot of enthusiasm in moving the debris, but most of the time the debris went as far as a wheelbarrow can carry. There is no funds for heavier equipment,” saya Merlen.

Merlen says some trucks have been brought in, but not enough. And then there’s the issue of where to put the debris.

“The most important bottleneck is there is no land that has been clearly designated for debris storage and processing,” says Merlen.

What all this means is an enormous delay in clearing enough land to rebuild.

Rosemine Delice with her husband Chandler Joseph and their son, Chanderson, who was born in this shelter in the 'Canaan Two' camp, north of Port-au-Prince. (Photo: Amy Bracken)

Timo Luege heads a coalition of organizations trying to get people into transitional shelters, houses made of wood and metal. Luege says there are plans to build 125,000 homes but so far, only 3,200 have been built.

“The problem is there’s nowhere to put the housing,” says Luege.

At a Red Cross warehouse on the edge of town, trucks are bringing in transitional housing kits, mostly bundles of two-by-fours, at a rate of 800 a week. There they sit until land becomes available. Red Cross employee Valerie Verougstraete is negotiating access to land in Cité Soleil, where the group hopes to house more than 500 families.

“We are dealing with the mayors, which is a very complicated issue, because each community has three mayors, there is a principle mayor, and then two other mayors, and not all the time they are on the same line. It’s a complicated issue,” says Verougstraete.

Everything here is a complicated issue. If there’s a silver lining, it can be found in the thousands of people employed in this whole messy process of cleanup and reconstruction. The longer it takes, the longer they have jobs to support their families, even as they live in tents among the rubble.

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• Photo gallery
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• Talking Travel: revisiting Haiti

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP:  I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston.  There’s joy in the streets of Port au Prince, but it has little to do with what’s going on in Haiti some five months after the devastating earthquake.  Haitians are gripped by World Cup fever.  Even though their soccer team isn’t playing in South Africa.  Haitians are largely rooting for Brazil who is set to play Portugal tomorrow.  As The World’s Amy Bracken reports from Port au Prince, the matches are giving Haitians a break from their post-quake woes.

AMY BRACKEN:  The once empty lots around Haiti’s Sylvio Cator Stadium are full of tents and improvised shelters.  UN peacekeepers patrol the stadium entrance.  And excited crowd has gathered around one of the military trucks.  But this isn’t about food distribution.  The peacekeepers from Brazil are handing out yellow and green soccer shirts emblazoned with Brazilian and Haitian flags.  On this day, Brazil is playing Ivory Coast and thousands of fans are pushing into the stadium to watch the match on huge LED walls set up on the Astroturf.  Since the World Cup got underway this month Haiti’s radio and TV stations have been dominated by live coverage, replays, commentary and World Cup theme songs.  When Haiti’s beloved teams, Brazil and Argentina are playing, everything comes to a halt.  Crowds gather around small TVs in tent camps and on the streets.  They also watch on 17 movie screens set up by the UN mission here.  But it’s hard to beat the set up at Sylvio Cator with the two giant LED walls.  A local soccer player acts as emcee, orchestrating a full on bleacher party, complete with a cheerleading squad.  The cost of all this is significant.  The LED walls alone are worth well over a million dollars.  They were donated, but the Haitian government paid for the shipping.  And the UN mission here spent half a million dollars to make it possible for Haitians to watch the games.  I asked the events emcee, Ben Constant, how they can justify spending so much on soccer when people still need food, water and shelter.

BEN CONSTANT:  When it come up to soccer, Haitian don’t care about food, place to sleep, government.  We don’t care.  It’s soccer.  For the World Cup, we don’t care as long as Brazil or Argentina, we don’t care, we’re just in the game.

BRACKEN: It’s not just the expense.  After the January earthquake, several thousand people set up camp in the stadium.  But a few months later they were coaxed by NGOs, then forced by Haitian riot police out of the stadium to make room for soccer.  These are the people now living in tents on concrete blocks behind the stadium.  But during the Brazil-Ivory Coast match, then tent camp is virtually empty.  Most of its residents are sitting in the bleachers next door.  One exception is Wilkins Dodin.  He’s a young factory worker standing outside his tent in a blue and white striped shirt, under blue and white street decorations, the colors of his favorite team, Argentina.  Dodin says he has mixed feelings about making way for the viewing of the World Cup.

INTERPRETER:  It’s nice to be able to see games there, but on the other hand, living in the stadium is better for us.

BRACKEN: For instance, he and other camp residents now face higher risk of flooding.  Still, many who emerge from the stadium after Brazil wins three to one, seem pretty euphoric.  Newspaper columnist Patrice Lerebours calls soccer in Haiti “the opiate of the people”.

INTERPRETER:  After the earthquake, people were starting to demonstrate in the streets because they felt they weren’t being taken care of.  Since the beginning of the World Cup, there are no more demonstrations, no protests, all has stopped for one month.  Even thieves aren’t in the street.  It’s total passion.  It’s insanity.

BRACKEN: Philippe Vorbes remembers when the insanity was about him.  It was 1974 and he was playing for Haiti in the World Cup in Germany, the only time his country has ever been part of the event.  For him, it was one of the most important events in Haitian history.

PHILIPPE VORBES:  We have two independence.  The first one is 1804, the second one is 1974 when we qualified for the World Cup because it was an opportunity to show what Haiti really is, at that time what Haiti was at that time.

BRACKEN: Today he says, even with Brazil and Argentina serving as Haiti’s surrogate teams, the World Cup has a special significance.

VORBES:  They still don’t have anything.  The only thing left is soccer.  So this is their World Cup.  This is the only way they can enjoy life.  They don’t have money.  They don’t have no place to go.  They don’t have nothing.  So give me my soccer.

BRACKEN: For The World, I’m Amy Bracken, Port au Prince.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.