An Expat Returns

The trip to Cap Haitian requires an overnight stay in Fort Lauderdale prior to catching an early morning charter flight on IBC airlines. Registration occurs in a downstairs portion of Terminal 4, next to baggage claim. It is fairly laborious as photocopied are made of your passport, everything is weighed, including you, and a paper seating template is filled out by hand. The waiting area has a few seats and they were filled by families with sleeping children and several older folks dressed in traditional Island garb. Unlike my first time in March, there were not large medical groups. I had a single duffel bag, primarily filled with supplies donated from my colleagues at Miriam, and labeled with the address for Hospital Sacre Coeur. Even though there were less than 40 passengers, the checkin took close to two hours.

Another American man, about my age, was standing nearby and we struck up a conversation. He was returning to Cap Haitian to work with his Denver based mineral exploration firm. He was overseeing the building a compound outside of Cap for their employees, and working with the Haitian government on mining rights and creating jobs for the local population. We discussed the challenges of the infrastructure, the costs he has to factor in for things like water and electricity generating capacity, and the high tax and fee rate charged to corporations doing business in Haiti. He mentioned that their buildings would be reinforced to withstand earthquakes. I found myself thinking about large corporations exploiting the natural resources of poor countries. Then his voice trailed off. “You know in Port au Prince, the houses were just cinder blocks, there was no rebar reinforcement. When the quake came, everything turned to powder and they collapsed quickly. There were a lot of expats with my company working in the region.”

Daven shifted his body stiffly. He nodded, “Several broken vertebrae, and multiple leg injuries. I was on the ground floor of one of the two houses were rented in PAP for offices. The second floor pancaked on top of me, but the beams fell into a teepee so I wasn’t killed. I was buried for 20 minutes, and felt a lot of weight on my chest, making it impossible to breathe. Managed to get pulled out by some coworkers. I really couldn’t walk and they set up a hammock for me in the courtyard, then they walked 30km (18 miles) to the American Embassy. A few days later, I was in the back of a truck, bouncing down the road to the harbor. When I saw the Coast Guard corpsman, I knew it would be OK.”




He was evacuated to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, then to a rehab facility stateside. He has been back several times to Cap, staying as long as 5 weeks. He still struggles when he’s in small confined spaces, sleeps outside in a truck when in country, and just shakes his head sadly at the rate of recovery in PAP. But in the same breath, he is optimistic about meeting the challenges of being successful in a resource and infrastructure constrained environment. He told me he came back because others depended on him, including the 75% of his workforce drawn from the local population. He has the same kind of gritty determinism that I see at Sacre Coeur.
We all know people who have suffered significant emotional and physical trauma that shapes their subsequent lives. Some are paralyzed by fear and cannot move forward; some are galvanized by the experience and make it their life’s work; and others weave it into the quilt of their being. And for me, I realized preconceived prejudices can block true understanding.

As we parted at the Cap airport, we exchanged contact info. “I’ll give you a buzz when we’re done with the compound – I’d love for you to stop by next time down and meet my team.”

My new lessons from Haiti began before I ever left the States.