Tell someone you are going to Haiti for a visit, and you will likely get a sour cringe that questions the wisdom of your decision. Indeed, the word Haiti typically conjures up visions of gang violence and extreme poverty. A place in perpetual chaos and filled with people desperate to escape. In short, a country to avoid. That is, after all, how TV, social media, and government advisories portray Haiti.
And that is how many of us in TCI see Haiti and Haitians as well. Especially after seeing pictures of a sloop intercepted with 100, 200 or even 300 migrants who have just made a harrowing journey across an unforgiving ocean.
All the more reason for me to hop on a short 40-minute flight from Provo to Cap-Haitien for three days and see for myself how Haiti is doing.
Now, I have been to Haiti many times over the past 30 years, so I am somewhat familiar with the country. I used to support the Cap-Haitien Fire Department with equipment and training (including swim instruction). I also helped to arrange annual visits for an American surgical team.
Those trips gave me an on-the-ground perspective of Northern Haiti. And they even instilled the confidence to organize three day tours from TCI to see the sights and experience the culture and daily life.
But the last time I was there was in 2019. Since then Haiti had gone through profoundly hard times, including the assassination of its President, Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Shortly after he was killed, gangs took over of most of Port-au-Prince. Ever since, the gangs have sadly become the face of Haiti while Cap-Haitien has remained in the shadow.
Time for an update to get the real story.
Returning Impressions
When traveling to Haiti, my heart always skips a beat when the door to the airplane closes and the propellers start to whirl. At that point, even before take-off, I’m mentally in Haiti. In a little more time than it takes for the ferry to reach North Caicos from Provo, the rugged, green mountains of the north coast of Haiti emerge from the clouds, a world away from TCI.
After landing in Cap-Haitien, the first thing I notice looking out the window is the profusion of aircraft. The airport used to be rather sleepy with just a couple of planes on the tarmac. No longer. Jets, turbo props, single engine planes, and helicopters take up most of the parking. And that’s even after airlines from the US stopped flying in.
The reason for the busy tarmac is plain: No carriers fly into Port-au-Prince except for the Haitian airline, Sunrise Airways, along with a couple of UN and government chartered helicopters. International aviation authorities consider the capital too dangerous for everyone else. That and the danger posed by gangs inside Port-au-Prince has led most non-government organizations (NGOs), international businesses, and many foreign and government offices to relocate to Cap-Haitien.
Over the past few years, ships too have diverted to the port of Cap-Haitien to unload containers. The dramatic shift in activity from south to north has made Haiti’s second (and often neglected) city the de facto capital of the country. The busy airport highlights Cap-Haitien’s new status as the hub of Haiti.
The airport arrival terminal also reflects the marked power change that I had not expected. It used to be dark and musty. Now the terminal is clean, well-lit, and amazingly efficient. Immigration has stopped using paper forms for passengers to fill out. Instead, everyone is given an app to upload on their phones to provide information with a bar code. Yes, Haiti is on the cutting edge of high-tech application for airport arrivals. Moreover, helpful airport agents who speak excellent English provide patient assistance to anyone who needs it.
A Haitian friend arranged for my pick-up at the airport to take me to the Hotel Roi Christophe in downtown Cap-Haitien. I had driven down this road dozens of times and remembered seeing the swaths of garbage and plastic bottles lining the route and even spilling out to the bay. Distressingly, the trash is still there. Like most western visitors to Haiti or any developing country, I used to ask, “why don’t they get some bulldozers and big trucks and just…” But I stop myself. I am not there to judge, but to observe. It’s too easy and arrogant to think we, who do not live there, have all the answers to solve the problems based on a drive-by.
Revelations In Traffic
When my car approaches the city center, the trash tapers off, though piles show up here and there, as a cacophony of mass commerce comes into view. Endless stalls and tiny shops that sell everything from spices and fish to clothes and car parts cram together on the sides of the streets.
The traffic slows to a crawl with scores of tap taps (small trucks converted into minibuses), tuk tuks (three-wheeled motorized rickshaws from India) and mopeds. They all compete for rutted road space with new SUVs, banged up sedans, and huge Mac-trucks. Narrow streets meant for two lanes of traffic morph into four or even five lanes of traffic. The mopeds, often carrying three or four kids, weave in and out like a choreographed ballet. The blare of horns, smoke from barbecue goat, and occasional plumes of exhaust fumes fill the air.
Not that different than when I was there before. Just lots more cars and people. I am told that Cap-Haitien’s population has roughly doubled over the last few years from a quarter million to around a half million as people have fled the crisis in Port-au-Prince. But this town functions and feels remarkably safe with no sign of any gangs or even fear of gangs. That point needs to be stressed.
What I do not see are many police officers or any armed forces. The next day, I would see one officer in front of the courthouse. And on the way back to the airport, I would see two more officers breaking up a fist fight between a couple of young men. The police pulled the men apart without the need to use a baton or any weapon and properly deescalated the confrontation.
Notably, neither men in the fist fight pulled a knife or a gun. That short, dramatic scene, which I caught on video, revealed and reinforced the other side of Haiti—another world away from the capital. The people of Cap-Haitien seem to have their own code for keeping the peace with police on hand to step in when needed, but otherwise largely invisible.
Haitian Art & Society
My car drops me off at the hotel that had once been the French governor’s mansion in the late 1700s and still drips with old colonial ambiance—enclosed courtyards with thick walls supported by imposing arches that let the breeze flow through.
Haitian paintings adorn the walls of the Hotel Roi Christophe, all bursting with vibrant colors. Intentionally simplistic with flat surfaces and a lack of formal perspective, the artwork depicts riveting scenes of everyday life—market ladies, mountain farms, working sailboats, and Vodou ceremonies. In Haiti, art mirrors life as the people live it, a perpetual flux between the real and the surreal.
Oddly, animals from Africa, like giraffes and lions, also fill canvases. I once asked a Haitian artist why they paint pictures of animals that do not exist in Haiti. He said “We paint those animals because we dream of them when life is too hard.” I did not need to ask more.
Many of the paintings show famous Haitian generals leading troops in the revolution for freedom more than two centuries ago. For Haitians, those are not just scenes of long ago historical events because here the past fuses seamlessly into the present. For every Haitian, the slave revolt that won them their freedom in November 1803 forms the core of identity and pride, as if the revolution happened last week. The victorious enslaved changed the French name of the country from Saint-Domingue, to Ayiti (Haiti)— the original name of the country given by the indigenous Taino Indians. It means “land of high mountains” or “sacred high land.”
As the second independent republic in the Americas and the first free Black republic, Haiti became a beacon for the enslaved escaping from other Caribbean islands—including Turks & Caicos. In the 1820s and early 1830s before slavery was abolished in British colonies, the enslaved on Grand Turk and Salt Cay would sneak away at night and take sailboats on the beach. As skilled sailors, they set course for Haiti steering south by the stars to their freedom.
Today, of course, the flow of people escaping is in the other direction. The irony is not lost.
The Paradox Of Cap-Haitien
Below the surface of the city’s bustle, however, an anxiousness lurks. It is not obvious to the casual visitor who sees a pervasive healthy hustle. But more Haitians see no future in the country that struggles to escape the economic malaise.
Many once fled by air to a country in South or Central America where they didn’t need a visa. But as travel restrictions tightened, that door has nearly closed.Others opt to take their chances on a packed boat bound for TCI, the Bahamas, and the US. The price hovers around $2000-$2500 to reach TCI depending on the quality of the vessel and whether it has a motor. On a moonless night when the seas look calm, nervous migrants gather on a north coast beach. After a brief Vodou ceremony, they shove off from the shore, knowing full well they may drown during crossing.
At the same time, other signs point to hope. In Cap-Haitian banks lend money to hotel and apartment construction projects, shipping containers pile up waiting for trucks to deliver them to buyers, and investors from the Haitian diaspora search for opportunities. Parks brim with young and old gathering to socialize as the afternoon wanes, and they stay well into the night.
The restaurant scene thrives with plenty of live Kompa and Zouk music every evening of the week. I had an excellent dinner and a local beer at a popular cafe called Cap Deli on the waterfront. The power never went off while I was there.
The vast majority of Haitians in the city dress well, never ragged, and children appear neat in their uniforms as they dash off to school. I didn’t see anyone who looked hungry or sick except for a few street urchins who come out of the shadows to beg. But they posed no threat.
What to make of this paradox of two conflicting truths playing out simultaneously in Cap-Haitien? Call it the real world, where quandary, contradiction and complexity constantly confound, except that in Haiti the edge cuts a little sharper.
What I saw was a calm community where people move around, conduct business, and speak freely without fear. I noted a civility in a city that seems to work, however fitful and patchy, despite the poverty and the overcrowding. All of which draw a sharp contrast to the brutal, intractable plight of Port-au-Prince.
If there is a takeaway, it is that Haiti cannot be dismissed with superficial labels that fail to capture the nuances and vast differences. Cap-Haitien represents the far more promising face of Haiti and richly deserves to be in the spotlight.
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