There must be few places in the world as devastating as the Cite Soleil slum. I spent a few hours down there today, amid the squalor and trash – home to 300,000 people, Haiti’s poorest. Urban poverty has always been, for me, the most extreme. I’ve seen plenty of it in Africa. India also. But I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that seems so sweepingly impoverished – so desperately poor.
There is no running water in Cite Soleil. There is little or no electricity. It is impossible to describe the amount of trash that litters the ground – generated by 300,000 people each day, with no trash removal system, and no sewers. For years the police had no presence at all, and gangs still run the town. It is considered to be among the most dangerous slums in the Western Hemisphere. It’s easy to believe.
That said, my experience in the few short hours I spent there was a quiet one. I went to photograph the living conditions in the area for an NGO that is providing medicines to Haiti. At every stop, I was welcomed into the homes of strangers. Women brought their children to me to photograph, and beckoned me inside their sweltering homes to photograph the reality of their lives – charcoal blackened interiors shared often by generations of family members who have never made it out of the shanty town.
It was one of those days that reminds you how lucky you are, and how much you have in life.
April 25th, 2009 | by David in Travel
I saw a man hit by a bus today, on a dirt road in northwest Haiti. Such accidents are not uncommon in the developing world, where poor vehicle maintenance, little if any enforcement of traffic laws, and the urgent pace of poverty combine with often lethal results.
I’ve seen such things before – a man on Uhuru Highway in Kenya struck so violently that the car that hit him ground to a stop. People rushed out to pillage the dead man’s pockets before police arrived. In Albania, I saw a bicyclist pinned beneath the tires of a truck, freed only with the frantic help of passersby who extricated him, his leg badly broken.
But today’s incident was something different. The bus that hit him had just passed us, horn blazing, a few hundred yards down the road. As is often the case in such places, the bus was loaded completely. Passengers hung from the doors and windows, and several sat atop the vehicle, hanging for dear life onto small roof racks, sandwiched between loads of charcoal and market goods belonging to other passengers.
Such buses always move fast – the faster they reach their destination, the faster they can return with more customers – an urgency of economics. But this one was barreling, traveling 40 or 50 miles per hour on a simple dirt road, kicking up a cloud of dust so thick our driver had to stop for several seconds once the bus passed just to find the road again. It disappeared around the curve ahead of us, the brush on the roadside coated and quaking.
When we rounded the corner, seconds later, the accident had already happened. At first, seeing the man in the road, I thought perhaps he had fallen from the bus. His head was bleeding badly. As other pedestrians swarmed the scene, we drew nearer, and the pieces took shape. He hadn’t fallen, he’d been struck. His legs, horribly contorted, showed that he’d passed beneath the tires. His pants were in tatters, his pelvis and legs shattered completely.
In the space of seconds, a man rushed in, grabbed the injured man beneath his arms, and dragged him several feet from the center of the road. I recoiled, remembering enough from basic first aid to know not to move anyone in such a condition unless you absolutely have to. My mind flashed to the medical kit I carry when I work in such places – a small waist bag packed with a few essentials – some guaze, an Ace bandage, grubber gloves, a few tourniquets, and a clamp for severed arteries I probably wouldn’t know how to use.
We came to a stop in the road, the dust already settling on the pool of bright red blood beside our car. I saw the man’s face clearly, groaning just a few feet away – his mouth contorted, his arms flailing aimlessly as others gathered, animated and horrified. Some charged the bus, pointing accusingly at the driver. He was leaning out of his open window, looking vacantly down at the roadway, his face cloudy and distant.
I looked back at the figure in the road, unsure myself what to do for a man so shattered with a few scraps of rubber and some gauze. We were miles – hours – from any kind of help, and that in name only. Haiti’s hospitals are among the worst in the world.
He died in our rear view mirror, or was near enough to death that nothing we had would have mattered. It is a simple fact in places like this around the world. Had there been a hospital, a helicopter, or at least an ambulance – there might have been a chance. But the reality in a place like Haiti is that a bus is just one more thing to die from.
April 22nd, 2009 | by David in Travel
I saw a man hit by a bus today, on a dirt road in northwest Haiti. Such accidents are not uncommon in the developing world, where poor vehicle maintenance, little if any enforcement of traffic laws, and the urgent pace of poverty combine with often lethal results.
I’ve seen such things before – a man on Uhuru Highway in Kenya struck so violently that the car that hit him ground to a stop. People rushed out to pillage the dead man’s pockets before police arrived. In Albania, I saw a bicyclist pinned beneath the tires of a truck, freed only with the frantic help of passersby who extricated him, his leg badly broken.
But today’s incident was something different. The bus that hit him had just passed us, horn blazing, a few hundred yards down the road. As is often the case in such places, the bus was loaded completely. Passengers hung from the doors and windows, and several sat atop the vehicle, hanging for dear life onto small roof racks, sandwiched between loads of charcoal and market goods belonging to other passengers.
Such buses always move fast – the faster they reach their destination, the faster they can return with more customers – an urgency of economics. But this one was barreling, traveling 40 or 50 miles per hour on a simple dirt road, kicking up a cloud of dust so thick our driver had to stop for several seconds once the bus passed just to find the road again. It disappeared around the curve ahead of us, the brush on the roadside coated and quaking.
When we rounded the corner, seconds later, the accident had already happened. At first, seeing the man in the road, I thought perhaps he had fallen from the bus. His head was bleeding badly. As other pedestrians swarmed the scene, we drew nearer, and the pieces took shape. He hadn’t fallen, he’d been struck. His legs, horribly contorted, showed that he’d passed beneath the tires. His pants were in tatters, his pelvis and legs shattered completely.
In the space of seconds, a man rushed in, grabbed the injured man beneath his arms, and dragged him several feet from the center of the road. I recoiled, remembering enough from basic first aid to know not to move anyone in such a condition unless you absolutely have to. My mind flashed to the medical kit I carry when I work in such places – a small waist bag packed with a few essentials – some guaze, an Ace bandage, grubber gloves, a few tourniquets, and a clamp for severed arteries I probably wouldn’t know how to use.
We came to a stop in the road, the dust already settling on the pool of bright red blood beside our car. I saw the man’s face clearly, groaning just a few feet away – his mouth contorted, his arms flailing aimlessly as others gathered, animated and horrified. Some charged the bus, pointing accusingly at the driver. He was leaning out of his open window, looking vacantly down at the roadway, his face cloudy and distant.
I looked back at the figure in the road, unsure myself what to do for a man so shattered with a few scraps of rubber and some gauze. We were miles – hours – from any kind of help, and that in name only. Haiti’s hospitals are among the worst in the world.
He died in our rear view mirror, or was near enough to death that nothing we had would have mattered. It is a simple fact in places like this around the world. Had there been a hospital, a helicopter, or at least an ambulance – there might have been a chance. But such things are luxuries for most of the world. The reality in a place like Haiti is that a bus is just one more thing to die from.
April 22nd, 2009 | by David in Travel
I saw a man hit by a bus today, on a dirt road in northwest Haiti. Such accidents are not uncommon in the developing world, where poor vehicle maintenance, little if any enforcement of traffic laws, and the urgent pace of poverty combine with often lethal results.
I’ve seen such things before – a man on Uhuru Highway in Kenya struck so violently that the car that hit him ground to a stop. People rushed out to pillage the dead man’s pockets before police arrived. In Albania, I saw a bicyclist pinned beneath the tires of a truck, freed only with the frantic help of passersby who extricated him, his leg badly broken.
But today’s incident was something different. The bus that hit him had just passed us, horn blazing, a few hundred yards down the road. As is often the case in such places, the bus was loaded completely. Passengers hung from the doors and windows, and several sat atop the vehicle, hanging for dear life onto small roof racks, sandwiched between loads of charcoal and market goods belonging to other passengers.
Such buses always move fast – the faster they reach their destination, the faster they can return with more customers – an urgency of economics. But this one was barreling, traveling 40 or 50 miles per hour on a simple dirt road, kicking up a cloud of dust so thick our driver had to stop for several seconds once the bus passed just to find the road again. It disappeared around the curve ahead of us, the brush on the roadside coated and quaking.
When we rounded the corner, seconds later, the accident had already happened. At first, seeing the man in the road, I thought perhaps he had fallen from the bus. His head was bleeding badly. As other pedestrians swarmed the scene, we drew nearer, and the pieces took shape. He hadn’t fallen, he’d been struck. His legs, horribly contorted, showed that he’d passed beneath the tires. His pants were in tatters, his pelvis and legs shattered completely.
In the space of seconds, a man rushed in, grabbed the injured man beneath his arms, and dragged him several feet from the center of the road. I recoiled, remembering enough from basic first aid to know not to move anyone in such a condition unless you absolutely have to. My mind flashed to the medical kit I carry when I work in such places – a small waist bag packed with a few essentials – some guaze, an Ace bandage, grubber gloves, a few tourniquets, and a clamp for severed arteries I probably wouldn’t know how to use.
We came to a stop in the road, the dust already settling on the pool of bright red blood beside our car. I saw the man’s face clearly, groaning just a few feet away – his mouth contorted, his arms flailing aimlessly as others gathered, animated and horrified. Some charged the bus, pointing accusingly at the driver. He was leaning out of his open window, looking vacantly down at the roadway, his face cloudy and distant.
I looked back at the figure in the road, unsure myself what to do for a man so shattered with a few scraps of rubber and some gauze. We were miles – hours – from any kind of help, and that in name only. Haiti’s hospitals are among the worst in the world.
He died in our rear view mirror, or was near enough to death that nothing we had would have mattered. It is a simple fact in places like this around the world. Had there been a hospital, a helicopter, or at least an ambulance – there might have been a chance. But such things are luxuries for most of the world. The reality in a place like Haiti is that a bus is just one more thing to die from.
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All Material © 2008 David Snyder
