The other post on the Jacmel Carnival really just gives a flavour of the music and a bit of the dance but there’s a whole lot more to it and the town is famous for its masks. This video probably describes it better than I can.
Jacmel celebrates Carnival the weekend before things kick off in Port-au-Prince, or this year in Aux Cayes. It’s a great town, pretty safe and friendly, small and clean and with a great Carnival tradition. This just gives a little taste of some of the music and dancing- more to come.
It’s a real shame that most NGO workers here aren’t allowed use motorbikes, taptaps, buses, hire cars… The roads here are great fun until the control arm on the jeeps suspension breaks and you have to get it welded back together… but more on that later.
Village Noialles in Croix des Bouquets (out past the airport to the north of P-au-P) is home to dozens of metal-workers and artists. Their work varies from the repetitive patterns of tourist craft to some far more interesting one offs. If you’re planning a visit be sure to bring a large suitcase. Most, or probably all, of the best pieces are far too big for my rucksack but much of their work can be seen in New York often enough if that’s easier to get to. It’s worth a look.
Once you get used to the heat and keep in the shade as much as possible Port-au-Prince is a great place to walk around. Unfortunately a lot of the sites only give glimpses of what once was. Graham Greene describes the place very well in ‘The Comedians’ and almost 50 years later it still captures the flavour of the place. Mostly friendly and chaotic. I paid a visit to the Hotel Olofson, the inspiration for Brown’s Trianon, and it is exactly as I imagined reading the book.
The monstrous monument in the photos is the eternal flame commissioned by Aristide but never completed. There are plans to rebuild the cathedral in Port-au-Prince which collapsed in the earthquake but these things take time. The National Museum, the Pantheon, with its interesting conical roof-lights, houses an interesting collection ranging from the formation of the republic to the more recent struggle to rebuild and includes the anchor of Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria. Little else in Chanmas remains from before the earthquake and although many people have been moved out of the square a lot of tents still remain.
After spending just over a month here I have decided the bike is definitely the way to get around in Haiti. Having travelled north and south, east and west by 4WD and tap-tap, motorbike and bus, if I ever make it back to Haiti it will be with a decent mountain bike. There are so many trails perfect for mountain-biking, and so many places that you can’t reach on four wheels. When you leave the main roads and drive into the hills with every person you ask, the road gets an hour longer until the roads fizzle out and you turn around. Derrier mon gen mon.
Granted, I wouldn’t fancy traveling the length of the country on the type of bike you see around here. I reckon Haitian bikes reflect the fact that for many Americans cycling is only for children. Most of the bikes here arrive in shipping containers as used bits of bikes reassembled by Haitian mechanics out of the best jumble of parts available. Most of the donor bikes are tiny, leaving the odd person who uses a bike riding around with knees everywhere.
Apart from raping women and children, shooting men, and bringing cholera to the country, the Minustah, the UN stability force in Haiti, are also said to steal these little fellas. You can hear all these stories in some of the K-Naval music although calling a Minustah ‘Voleur Cabrit’ is rumoured to be a shooting offence. 
I’m not sure but a couple of these might not actually be dogs.
I found this old advertisement for Haitian tourism in a little museum run by the Baptist Mission in Fermanthe in the mountains south of Port-au-Prince.
I only had a short visit passing through Gonaives on my way from St Michel back to Port-au-Prince but it left an impression. Arriving from the East I was struck by the number of colossal river beds with only a small trickle of water now in the dry season. During the typhoon that engulfed the city and the surrounding rice fields in 2008 the volume of water in the rivers must have increased to a thousand times the normal winter level. The result was devastating with huge loss of life and countless stories of people trapped for days in the tops of trees. Place de l’Independence has recovered well with an interesting cathedral and a monument to Dessalines, where in 1804 he proclaimed Haitian independence; the first black republic.
drtomdoyle 