Photo Essay: Remembering Haiti Before the Quake

Emily Troutman will be writing a series of dispatches from Haiti for AOL News. Follow her on Twitter.

(Jan. 15) -- I heard the lull in the conversation even on my first day in Haiti last month. It always followed discussion of one of the country's many problems -- "and, oh, we have earthquakes." Then there was a quiet moment. It's painful to remember now.

I traveled the country for three weeks as an independent photojournalist, trying to understand, even then, the tremendous humanitarian crisis there. I also traveled with an honorary title, U.N. Citizen Ambassador, and spent a great deal of time knocking on doors.

People were happy to tell me what they knew. In exchange, I promised to share the story of Haiti, to bring attention to the issues that were important to them.


I first met with Andy Wyllie in Port-au-Prince. Andy is the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). His office was at the U.N. compound in Petionville, near Hotel Christopher. He was new to Haiti. I had been introduced to him via e-mail through friends in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he worked previously.

I spent a month in the DRC last year, and as we got to know each other our shared experiences became a constant refrain: "What do you think? Which country is worse off? Haiti or DRC?" And sometimes, "Which country has nicer people?" or "Which country has better music?"

People like us play games like that. Compare/contrast about all the horrible places we had been. It was a way to make conversation; it also was a way to learn and see patterns. To define each country and decide whether money was being spent in the right ways.


Haiti was so destitute, so broken. Our first conversation -- my first real conversation in the country -- was about planning for disasters. Andy told me bluntly, "There is no plan."

The hurricanes that devastated Haiti, particularly the town of Gonaives, in 2004 and 2008 made planning a priority. The priority. But for most of its existence, Haiti has had a highly centralized government, with local authorities either invisible or impotent.

Of course, the first part of any good plan is coordination between local and federal authorities. But local governments in Haiti rarely governed. I soon learned "capacity building" was a slow process.


I went to Gonaives a few weeks later, with Andy and a team assembled around Kim Bolduc, the Deputy Special Representative for the U.N.'s mission in Haiti, and I saw the situation for myself. Public garbage collection did not exist. In Gonaives, like so many other places, people threw their garbage into the canals, clogging the drainage system and making hurricanes an even scarier proposition.

Haitians threw the trash there and then waited for the government to pick it up. It's a problem that all the humanitarians in the country felt they contributed to: a culture of dependence. The phrase I heard most in Haiti, from everyone at every level of society was, "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day ..."

But the needs remained. Haiti's problems were complicated, old and typical. Haiti was ruled by autocrats for so many years that it seemed no one shared any sense of national identity. If the country doesn't serve you, why should you serve it?


So as I learned and saw more of the country, my Congo vs. Haiti debate with Andy grew complex. In Haiti, there were no farms, no public schools, no jobs. But there was peace and a vivid, gorgeous culture.

The music was intoxicating and everywhere. Musicians played on horns they made by hand. Port-au-Prince itself was a yellow and blue and pink tapestry of taxis, each intricately painted to reflect something about the owner.

There was Croix des Bouquets, a town filled with nothing but artists. There was the Grand Rue, a slum filled with sculptures that spoke a new language. Sculptures made out of trash! By people living in aluminum shacks! It brought an exclamation point to any conversation! The art! The art! It was Haiti's wildly beating heart. VIDEO: Horns Lead Joyous Dance in Haiti


But then there was the talk about earthquakes. With everyone, conversations went around in circles like this: hurricanes, security, food, jobs, trash, health care, education, infrastructure, governance ... oh, AND earthquakes.

Earthquakes were an "icing on the cake" problem. Or more accurately, a "salt in the wound" problem. They are not frequent, but because of the country's location, they can be devastating.

Even on my last day there, I talked about earthquakes with my friend, Jean-Cyril Pressoir, as we drove up the hill on John Brown Avenue; ironically, and terribly, it was just as we were passing the U.N. compound on the way to Petionville.

"We are due for one," he said.

And I just said, "I know." Because everyone knew.


The sun was setting, and I looked out at the orange-tinged hillsides, teeming with gray cinder block shanties. "That would be bad," we both said. And then there was the familiar, morbid lull.

As we drove in silence, I reflected on my time in Haiti and knew I had to come back. It wasn't a place to be calculated, and comparing it to anywhere was futile. It was struggling and poor, but it was beautiful. The country's joy and the music, where it existed, defied the evidence of its ordinary failures. Somewhere underneath, it was alive.

"Next time I come," I said, "I want to climb those hills and go right there." I pointed to the highest cinder block house on the mountain, trying to imagine what it looked like inside, wanting to meet whoever lived there and see what the world looked like from their window. We agreed it would be interesting. "Next time," we said.


For the first 48 hours after I heard about the earthquake, I didn't sleep. I obsessively combed Twitter looking for any news of who was dead or alive. When I finally learned the extent of the disaster, and that the U.N. compound, including Hotel Christopher, had collapsed, with most of its staff inside, I felt like I was trapped under the rubble, too.

Sitting here in Baltimore, in the blue light of my computer, I could barely breathe, knowing that I had accidentally photographed the last few weeks of the lives of many of my new friends. Andy, Cyril and Kim survived. Others did not. Every photo from those final weeks implores, "Come find me." And so I will go back. I know that what awaits me in Port-au-Prince will be unbearable, but I made a promise: to share Haiti's story, to talk about what is important.