September 18, 1994

When the three of us meet for breakfast at the Holiday Inn we decide to get out of 'the thick of things,' to head up the hill to Petionville and the relative safety of the suburbs. We shall be nearer to our satellite feed point, we tell each other. Eventually we break down, confessing in turn that the nocturnal gunshot was far too close for comfort.

A CBS Radio reporter comes up to us. 'Did you hear? They found a body in the Park near the Palace. An execution apparently.' He tells us that ex-President Jimmy Carter is coming to parlay with Brigadier General Raoul Cédras, the army head who ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the 1991 coup d'état. So that's why the Americans didn't invade last night. Nor will they until the Carter/Cédras meeting has taken place. Jubilant, we head on up the hill to find our gear and a new Hotel.

The Hotel Christophe has a secluded location with a good view of the bay. Again the electricity is unreliable: no air conditioning and no water for several hours a day. Eric comes to visit. NBC has hired him but he's found us Billy, another 'interpreter-come-fixer.' Billy learned his English from American missionaries. He's a good-natured fellow, in his fifties, with gaps between his teeth and long curling eyelashes that fill me with envy. Each day he arrives with a different car and driver because there is always some hassle with the car and/or driver of the day before.

Our first news event. Jimmy Carter's arrival. It's too bloody hot to wear my bulletproof vest so I don't. I'm a menopausal woman and hot flashes in temps of ninety degrees are my first concern. Anyway, Carter's here.

We rattle along with Billy in a rusted station wagon to the Military H/Q in downtown Port-au-Prince. Next door is the Presidential Palace, a plain, white, two story edifice with a long frontal upstairs balcony. Carter is already inside with Cédras and his generals. Excitement ripples through the large and vociferous crowd that has gathered—notably a bunch of holy rollers halleluja-ing on top of a truck. Between verses their leader shrieks out gobbledygook scripture through a megaphone. A group of pro-Aristide supporters grows bolder, runs through the crowd, wielding branches and shouting slogans. The police and attachés observe them with silent malevolence. There's much jostling in the crowd. I'm attached to Tim's camera and must keep up with him so I try to anticipate his every move. Feel like a clumsy mountaineer, hung with audio cables and gear. It is hot — I mean scorching — and with my headset on, the sweat burns in my eyes, runs in rivers down my face and neck. I keep thinking that I feel fingers, hands lightly touching me — pickpockets I imagine — checking me out in the pressing humanity.

We try for vox pops interviews. Billy is invaluable, posing our questions in Creole. Most of our candidates are jittery, looking about them for spies. Some refuse to answer at all. But others don't give a jot. One large woman howls her hatred for the Americans. She has unblinking eyes under a livid orange bandana in a coil on her head. She is a mambo, a voodoo woman. She says she has put an ouanga (a hex) on the U.S. soldiers. The skin is going to explode off their bodies if they set foot in this country. The crowd around her falls back in awe. Billy is respectful of such dire prophecy; he whispers 'she say when the skin fly off—they will be jus' red like meat, the blood will fall out on the ground and they will dry up in the sun into dust.' Stephan is elated. He tells Billy, 'ask her if we can visit a voodoo ceremony.' Stephan is thinking of his 24 minute documentary.

We don't wait to see Carter or Cédras. We head back to the El Rancho Hotel which houses the European Broadcasting feed point and Stefan files a sidebar.

After supper Tim and Stephan decide to go carousing with a bunch of journos. I retire early to read Diedrich and Burt's excellent book Papa Doc, Haiti and its Dictator. Graham Greene writes the Forward:

There is something peculiarly Roman in the air of Haiti: Roman in its cruelty, in its corruption and its heroism. You will not walk far in any Haitian town without seeing the names of Brutus and Cato, perhaps over a baker's shop or a garage. The auguries are still told in the entrails of beasts, and a senator will sometime take his life in his hands by a declaration against tyranny, like Moreau who spoke up in the Senate against the special powers demanded by Duvalier and paid the extreme penalty (so far as anyone knows). We are nearer to the Europe of Nero and Tiberius than to the Africa of Nkrumah.

Greene knows how to turn your blood to ice. I discover the origin of the notorious Tontons Macoute. In this superstitious culture, bogeyman tales abound. They center on a terrible giant 'who stuffs bad little boys and girls into his knapsack or 'macoute'. He is 'Uncle Knapsack' or 'Tonton Macoute'.

When the electricity fails at midnight in the Hotel Christophe, I lie mesmerized by the shadows in the shifting net curtains at my window. I listen to the cicadas awhile; then I hear something else, an eerie wailing in the valley. Common sense tells me it is just some villagers singing or chanting but my head is full of voodoo and it is ages before I can fall asleep.

September 19, 1994

0830 hours. We look up Bobby H. He came to Haiti from Brooklyn in 1985. I've no doubt his former friends would call him a 'Jesus freak'. In fact I question my own motives in referring to him as such. Tim, our cameraman, got hold of his name and number-through a quirky meeting in a New York bar with one of Bobby's former drinking companions.

Bobby used to be a rich accountant in New York City. A hard drinker, big spender, and womanizer. Now he owns nothing nor wants to. He still drinks some, likes women some—but he's found God.

He serves in the St Vincent's Home for the Handicapped and Under-privileged at 75 Rélantement in downtown Port-au-Prince opposite the prison. He is adored. A couple of young lads hang around his neck, literally. He calls himself a glorified 'super' and shakes an impressive bunch of keys to prove it. He does everything from mending crutches, to pulling teeth, to helping wash the old men at Mother Teresa's House of the Dying. Last week he assisted a hip replacement surgery on a kid with scoliosis.

He looks like a sixties hippie but he's not old enough — late thirties I would guess — sports shoulder length hair, spouts the jargon, affixes 'man' to every sentence. He is charismatic, funny. And fearless. He's sent his orphans away to safety. He's going to stay behind to protect St Vincent's property. 'It's the only home these kids have.'

What will happen if the Americans invade? He's in the heart of Tontons Macoute territory. The orphanage shares a block with the prison and the military H/Q is just around the corner. Isn't he afraid? 'Sure—' but his eyes shine like a lover's— 'So what?'

Shouldn't he get out? He smiles, shrugs. 'This is my life, man. These are my people. I love them. They got guts, man, and they got nothing! I learn so much from them. I'll never leave them. What? Are you kidding?'

Midday. The Americans land. From the Hotel Christophe we spot the aircraft carrier U.S. America moving slowly in the bay. The menacing drone of helicopters assaults the heavens, minutes before we see them. First, reconnaissance Cobras circling high, followed by squadrons of attack Apaches, their mosquito shapes sweeping steadily lower to get folk used to their presence. The sight and sound of the helicopters continue right through the night. We are not to forget for a moment that the Americans are here. The buzz of helicopters, near and distant, becomes a sound as present and predictable as the dawning of each new day, the sound I most associate with this sojourn in Haiti; it dissolves in and out of the familiar calls of crickets and birds and the grumbling thunder. It accompanies the laughter of the El Rancho waiters, chatter of the cleaning women, chanting from the valley and even the customary gunshots. It is purposely, deliberately, omnipresent.