At an orphanage three hours north of
Port Au Prince, I played with the children and took photos. One little
boy seemed to be almost catatonic. The boy
looked right through my lens and through me. I will never forget that as long as I live.
HENRY ROLLINS: HAITI I
recently returned from a trip to Haiti. I wanted to see what Port Au Prince and the outlying areas looked like a year and several months after the earthquake struck on January 12, 2010.
I spent several days in Port Au Prince, walking through rubble and down the paths and alleyways of the improvised tent cities that are all over the city. I had a translator with me, a Haitian man named Jimmy. Good guy.
I think it took him a little while to get used to me, as I would go bounding into some of these places that I had a feeling he really didn’t want to go into.
I couldn’t blame him. Some of the scenes were very miserable.
We drove past a tent city, and I asked Jimmy to park. I stood on the street that overlooked the place and took a few
28 |
OriginMagazine.com
photos. Some men looked up and in perfect English, told me to stop, so I did. One man yelled out, “Come down here, we need you!” I went down there, and after they calmed down somewhat about the camera, I asked them what they needed. I looked around at this stretch of tents and thrown-together housing and reckoned they needed everything. I told them that I was just one guy, not an NGO. One of the men’s shoulders dropped slightly, and he said they could use some soccer balls for the kids and some soap. He then corrected himself and said forget the soap, they could really use some soccer balls. I told them I would be back with soap and soccer balls. A few of them got angry again and said they didn’t believe me. Jimmy started looking anxious. I told them I would see them soon and we left.
We went first to a street where the money changers hang out. We haggled a good exchange rate and changed up American dollars into Haitian gourde. We then went to a market and bought several pounds of soap bars and all the soccer balls the place had.
We went back to the tent city. I think they were a little tripped out at how quickly we returned. At the sight of the soap and soccer balls, I was immediately surrounded by a large group of people, all ripping the soap and balls away. Two men started arguing over an 8 cent bar of soap. We calmed them down and almost as quickly as they had rushed towards me, everyone rushed away, except for the two men, who were almost at blows over a bar of soap.
Human beings should not be reduced to a state where they almost get into a fight over a small bar of soap.
The soap represents something much larger that perhaps some people in the West take for granted. Most of us bathe regularly. It is nothing to write home about, it’s just something we do. A state of basic, functional hygiene is a given. In a place like Haiti, where the heat and moisture are extreme, one can begin to feel less-than-becoming very quickly. When that happens, one’s sense of dignity plummets and humans can get
Photo: Ben Swinnerton 2008
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164