Part III: Flat tires and Gangsters (Feb. 5th)

We get a flat tire for the second time. That’s almost one flat per day at this point. Luckily, there seems to be a tire repair place on almost every block. Phillip ignores the flat at first, but people on the street start telling him about it. The bus drivers, the tap tap drivers, and whoever happens to notice the deflated tire chime in. Haitians are like that, they’ll tell you your business. This can be an incredibly useful thing, exempli gratia, the flat radial. However, as a photographer, it can be an extremely distracting quality.

For Instance, during my first visit to a large tent city I came across an old lady sitting in the front of her shelter. She sees Mike and I with our big cameras and she let’s out a yelp getting the attention of her neighbors. She pops back in her tent for a second, and then comes out, hunched over, pretending to be crippled and waving her hands in mock expression of begging and worshipping us. Her prank works, and I instinctively take a picture of her. She got me. She stands up strait and begins to laugh at me, along with everyone else who had been privy to the practical joke. In one brilliant moment of theatrical improvisation this lady analyzed and in perfect parody, summarized the relationship that many photographers have with Haiti and the earthquake. Photographers want actors for their stages. We want Caravaggio paintings, and tragedy, and good light in our photos. We want moments in time to feel authentic and unrehearsed. However, when you come to a country when even the old women play pranks on photographers, you can imagine what everybody else is like.

Philip tells us the tire will take about 45 minutes to repair. He tells us to go ahead with Gregory, and explore the neighborhood. This is Philip-code-language for, “get lost, I’m taking a nap in the truck, and good luck.” We toddle off with Gregory to a hillside tent city we’d spotted a ways back. Now, I have nothing against Gregory, in fact he’s a genuinely sweet and caring man. He giggles at almost anything, and he’ll always take the back seat no matter how hot it is.  He knows Port au Prince better than Philip, and in summary, he’s a capitol fellow. But a word of caution in regards to his street sense—to put it delicately, he’s the type of person who comes barefoot to a shit-kicking contest.

Tent cities may appear chaotic. They may seem to be the unruly consequence of people stripped of home and modern convenience. However, such a quick assessment would be inaccurate. In actuality, this diaspora of ruin posses a great deal of order. The reason for this is that they are generally comprised of people who were part of a community prior to the earthquake. These communities, the survivors, took what they could, and simply found the closest open space to rebuild. After only three weeks, these impromptu camps become fairly permanent, and businesses start opening up: food huts, barbershops, cell phone recharging stations, and even cyber cafes, comprise a burgeoning and active mini-economy. The inherited cohesion from the preexisting community facilitates the continuation of life despite extremely difficult conditions. One of the great resources of survival for Haitians is their strong sense of community.

The tent city that Mike and I went to was set on an arid hillside, radiating an ambiance of high desert ghost town, along with the extreme heat of the day. The people here were almost as thin as the stick like frames they used for shelters. The general condition of the camp was such, that most of the skeletal like shelters were hardly covered by anything. They were built with the expectation that supplies would come, but non had arrived. People were sitting around with little to do, and there was no sign of any of the commerce I’d seen in other camps.

We wandered through, and occasionally got a tired, “bonjour,” in response to our greetings. We got to the bottom of the area, just a small dirt path, and from behind a solitary tree, a man calls us over. I’m slightly alarmed, and Mike and I start walking away. But Gregory sprints to the beckon of this man like a hare in heat, and returns to us with an urgent smile confirming that, in fact, he was calling us over. Even from thirty feet away, the godfather like slouch of the man suggested emanate trouble if his summons was disobeyed. It just couldn’t be refused. With resignation and grumbling, Mike and I make our way over. I’m greeted by a man sporting dread locks and wearing a Che t-shirt. There is something cold and reptilian about him. His eyes are small and they have a dusty flatness that leave me guessing as to his intentions. He rarely looks at me in the eye, and when he does, I’m met by a face chiseled in anger.

Gregory begins to explain our presence to Che. I speak very little Creole, just a few phrases I’d managed to pick up in that last few days. I can’t say for certain what Gregory said, however based on my face reading skills, and the response I saw in Che’s face, I’d say a rough translation of Gregory’s words were, “These two Bonapartists are pleased in the general failure of Che’s revolution, can they take a pictures of you beefcake,”—because frankly, only language like this could have produced the seething and near murderous anger that exuded from Che Jr. when he looked up at us.
In a sort of deferential and royal manner, Che dismisses Gregory, and looks at us for the first time. He starts talking to us in a thick tone of disgust. By this point, we’ve attracted the attention of the tent city. We’re surrounded and hedged in by a jungle of thick arms and deep shadows. There is no backing out of this. We cannot politely excuse ourselves from this feast of anger, and running is not an option. That sort of panic would be like running from a dog, which will only incite the dog to chase and snap. We could do nothing more than stand our ground.

The only adjective that comes to mind with which to describe Mike at this point is boiled. He looked overdone, cooked, and more than finished. His skin was splotchy white and red, and his near catatonic state was possum-like. I was starting to freeze too. Things were looking bad.

At the very crescendo of this tense moment when I expected to be hit, or striped of my bag, a man pushes through the crowd. He looks like Fifty-cent, with an easy and cute charm belying a sinister playfulness that scared me even a little more than Che Jr.’s blunt anger. English. He spoke good English. He introduced himself as “Game Face,” and told us that Che Jr. was the general of this camp, and that he, Game Face, was second in command. “Second in command,” I thought to myself, “General!” These were words that I did not like to hear. He began to explain to us that we needed to help, and that he had a list of demands. List of demands makes me think of kidnapping, hostages, and hostage taking! And in fact, while Game Face was talking to the General, he starts talking to him in English. General apparently understood English, a fact he kept from us. Game Face clearly didn’t want his conversation overheard by the rest of the group surrounding us, and he starts pleading with the General in English, “don’t do this man. We’ve been down this road before. We know where is goes. We can’t do this. Don’t do it man.”Game Face spoke for a few moments more like this, apparently repairing, to some degree the damage Gregory had done. Game Face then offered to translate. Despite my misgivings, I liked Game Face, and I could tell he liked us.

Now there are very few things that I’m consistently good at, but one of them is talking. If you give me an in, most likely I can convince you of almost anything. Casuis Clay could sting like a bee, but I can whisper like a sage. The General would not listen to Gregory, and he would not listen to us, but I knew he would listen to Game Face. I can’t exactly describe what came over me at that moment, maybe it was just my adrenaline, or maybe it was something more. But I had a profound moment of clarity. My mind was clicking and calculating, figuring, and almost describing to me what I needed to do. I saw what I needed to do before I did it. I had been lost in the situation, but now I had my finger on the vain of it. It was a simple matter now of feign and retreat, feign and retreat.

I don’t remember my exact words, but I knew I needed to convince the General of two things, 1) That Mike and I were on his side, and 2) That we could help with his list of demands. The dialogue was fast and complex. Game Face’s translation was excellent. He rendered my words well in kreyol based on the effect they had on the General. My memory of this conversation is vague, and I can’t recall what I said in much detail. All I remember is how I felt. I was exuding confidence. I spoke passionately, and deeply, and I tapped into that source of inspiration that compels me to photograph and think and hope that my photography could make a difference in the first place. It was authentic and refreshing.  I spoke boldly, and I surprised even myself. Honestly, I don’t know the Misha who pulled off this escape. He’s not the Misha that picks his nose. He is not the Misha who is habitually late to everything, and this Misha was not the Misha that I wake up as most mornings. This Misha could take over the world, or a least Manhattan, and certainly the Misha who could get his dream girl in a matter of weeks.

Our negotiations were almost at a close. The General wrote his name into my moleskin and by the end of it the crowd made room for us now that we had won favor with the General. Game Face offered us a small tour of the camp. Things still felt tenuous, so I agreed. He brought us down the road, and pointed to a spot where a child was playing in the dirt. “You see that spot,” he pointed, “two policemen are buried there. The earthquake was very dangerous.” This statement was chilling. Did he mean that the policemen died in the earthquake? Or, did he mean that they were killed in the earthquake? I didn’t ask for clarification. I steered us back towards the road at this point. The conversation turned to Game Face and his crew. He describes the way Haiti works, and he gave me more insight in a few moments than I had received by days of riding around with Phillip and Gregory. Game Face told me that many communities elect leaders to protect them. He belonged to a group of rapper gangsters called, 33rd Side. He claimed that the people had elected them as leaders, but who knows. Despite the hostility I felt from the General, he seemed to care about the people under his care. However, I noticed that the General had the nicest hut in the camp. It’s possible that the 33rd Side group was asking for “protection” money. But I can’t say for sure. Anything is possible in Haiti.

It all felt like a game of chess. There was well wishing and much hand shaking now with Game Face as we paused at the main road. No reason to get jumpy. Game Face kept saying to me, “Misha, one thing please. There are a lot of bad people in Port au Prince. Do me one favor. Be safe. There are certain areas that you shouldn’t go into.” He kept saying this to me. Was it a warning, never to come back? Was he just trying to be helpful? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if Game Face was like the old lady who tricked me into taking her picture—maybe it was all a bunch of theatrics.

Despite my extreme high, despite the insight I had gained into Haitian society, despite the fact that I felt I had finally found a real story, and despite my true and sincere desire to help this camp, I would not return.