October 2nd 1994.

Back to Haiti. EBU (European Broadcasting Union) can use my services for Aristide's return. Stewart, one of the video editors is burned out and has already departed, right in the middle of the work. There's been violence, killing, looting. Things look bad and of course newsworthy.

I plead for a couple of days in New York to get my affairs in order. It is reluctantly given. I speak to my sister in Bulawayo. My mother is worse; she is bed-ridden and she is no longer speaking. I have to go home as soon as possible. I'll be home before Christmas I promise my sister.

October 3rd, 1994

I'm staying at El Rancho, the hotel where most of the media are established due to the proximity and convenience of the satellite feed points. It is a very different experience this time; I have time on my hands. The violence and looting have subsided. Nothing to edit for the first three days. I read in my room, type a few notes, sunbathe, swim and pop in and out of the edit bay.

Poolside. I drift in a sunlit sleep with the familiar hum of helicopters. Suddenly I hear a harsh scraping noise. I open my eyes to a pretty young Haitian woman hauling a chair up to my table. 'You are a girl?' she asks. Girl. How lovely. Thirty years melt away in sleepy accord. I'm used to the question. I have worn a near crew-cut since I was twelve. Ever since I wanted to be Marlon Brando as Marc Antony in the 1953 Joseph Mankiewiecz version of Julius Caesar. The woman smiles and settles down in the shade, under the umbrella. I've seen her before. She's an operator, high class, well dressed. I saw her work the bar the last time I was here at El Rancho. Her name is Claudine. She is one of a bevy of beautiful prostitutes that hangs around the pool. 'You speak French? Spanish?' she asks. I am non-committal, embarrassed now. What on earth does she want? 'Non-pas du tout. Non je ne parle pas bien le francais ni espagnol.' I say gruffly and bury myself in the New York Times. She's persistent and very flirtatious. She engages me in a discussion about 'Haitian Art' (about which I know nothing) and makes an appointment to show me some canvases. Why am I so awkward around this woman? Because of who or what I think she is? I hate feeling so superior. That's the trouble with having nothing to do; you indulge in self -examination. I have to admit that I am attracted to her. I resist the urge to act out. I know she would accommodate me.

My status and my gender are troubling to me. How do I perceive myself in this context? Every day I get to view material that separates 'us' from 'them'. We are 'the media' investigators, snoops; through our eyes 'they' are presented to the outside world; their poverty and ignorance and innocence are reported for personal and political expedience. The visuals are not too subtle. Every day I look at footage of demonstrations and celebrations. Why do cameramen always have to shoot women as sex objects? The camera lingers on their thighs, buttocks, breasts; they are seldom interviewed or taken seriously. What hypocrisy: to report the plight of women here in Haiti with our words and demean them with our images. It says more about the prevailing social conditioning of the visiting cultures than it does about the residents. I'm the biggest hypocrite of all; I fall in with it and I'm a woman. Feminists would label me 'male identified'.

October 5th, 1994

Good news. Stephan S. is coming out again too. Terrific. I really like to work with him. He asks me to book him a room at El Rancho. Rooms here are gold. Reporters will not give them up. They leave but continue to pay for them until they or a colleague returns.

Linh O., our coordinator, is a shrewd young Chinese-Vietnamese woman who grew up in Germany. She speaks several languages fluently and is a natural leader. She has been in Haiti for three months to date. Linh describes being at the Hotel El Rancho as living in a 'golden cage'. One exists in a privileged, gleaming paradise but it's illusory; one cannot leave because of 'being on call', and even if one could, it is still dangerous; there are snipers about; things happen. I know what she means. Reality floats out of reach. I lie by the pool and think about Claudine. I did not keep my appointment with her. She hasn't been around the hotel in days—nor have the other girls. I wonder if the hotel manager has banished them. The present feels unbearable for all the sunlight. I observe my colleagues through a similar lens. They become listless, grumpy, bored, get drunk whenever they can. Hangovers worsen the condition. Liaisons begin and end. New restaurants, new experiences are sought. Some journalists become rundown and ill and maneuver to return home early.

October 8th/9th, 1994

Incoming news gives us sketchy accounts of Saddam Hussein's troops on the move again towards the Kuwaiti border. The emphasis shifts dramatically. The 100 odd journalists due in from Washington DC have cancelled. The focus is now the Middle East. News from Haiti is old hat. Cédras, holed up in his home up the hill in Pétionville, keeps the media on 24 hour stakeout. When will he leave? How many more sidebars are there? You can follow the U.S. soldiers around as they search for weapons or go on rural sortie. You can follow up reprisal stories, the beating up of an attaché, or the finding of another dead body. Eventually even the saddest, most somber slum story palls. What an indictment of the times. The news business reduces you to jaded and unfeeling pulp. How on earth can one justify one's existence searching for 'high after high'? There is always the empty aftermath, the come-down after every event.

Cédras officially resigns. The crowds outside the military H/Q are jubilant. The mob brings him a suitcase, jeers at him, and stones his car as he departs.

October 14th, 1994

Cédras drags it out to the last and leaves Haiti just before sun-up. The worn-out, waiting press corps record his flight. A battery of lights follows every ignominious footfall onto the aircraft that will take him and his family to Panama.

Back at the feed point, Linh's Haitian driver Shintock tells a horrifying story. He has heard that Cédras, just before he left, ordered the murder of 52 prisoners in the Pénitentiare in downtown Port-au-Prince. This rumor is not confirmed but I guess it reveals the fearful awe that ordinary Haitians have for the tyrant Cédras. Folk Art appears on every whitewashed wall welcoming Jean Bertrand Aristide, the 'Father'. He is also depicted as Hero, Teacher, Soldier, Saint, Priest and Forgiver.

There are many 'Manifestations'—spontaneous demonstrations. The symbol of the rooster and the word Titid, the affectionate term for Aristide, is displayed everywhere. Effigies and lovingly constructed models are proudly borne aloft. One ingenious model is Bato zap zap. It features a huge battleship with Aristide in military rig hanging out of the wheelhouse.

A fervor overtakes the people. They want to change everything. They take their cue from the U.S. troops to clean out the old and start again. Brigades of women sing and wield birch brooms. Even the streets of the stinking Cité Soleil are no obstacle. The days and nights are filled with frenetic sounds from the oddest assortment of home-made instruments. Optimism reigns supreme. Americans hand out T-shirts and bandanas in a feast of propaganda.

I finish a long edit for NOS, Dutch TV, working into the early hours of the morning on the morning of Aristide's return. Walking back to my room in a thin moonlight I see the shape of a man against the night sky between the restaurant block and the bungalows. At first I think it a statue it appears so still. I'm almost upon it when it splits into two heads. They're not touching. The second head belongs to a Haitian woman. She's not looking at the man. She's looking right at me. The man doesn't see me. He is leaning forward concentrating. He's thrust his right hand inside the waistband of her white panties—that's all she is wearing. She is looking at me, a brazen, knowing look. Claudine. Telling me I'm no different. I'm filled with shame and anger all at the same time. The man — I get a glimpse of his profile — is a European journalist I've seen around. He's pulling down his shorts with his free hand. I make myself invisible and pass by.

In my room I'm furious. It is as if I am ravishing Claudine. I feel as if I've joined the enemy. It's a sobering moment, the perfect metaphor for the exploitation of the country. Everything I know about Haiti is hearsay, is suspect, the brutality, the poverty, the disease, the ignorance and voodoo sacrifice, all these elements exist but the way they are 'interpreted', written about, and used to conceal the truth or to manipulate public opinion disturbs me. My own conditioning, my personal prejudices have made it so easy for me to conveniently accept without question. It has been so easy to point at the violence and despair and blame the victim with the racism of condescension.

October 15, 1994

At last. The father returns to his people. It goes according to plan, thank God. Helicopters land in the Palace gardens one after another. Crowds do their thing. Aristide, behind a bullet proof screen on the Palace steps, makes a long and tortuous 'reconciliation' speech. The amplification system is useless and the crowd cannot hear him but they don't care. They are ecstatic. The father is home.

October 16, 1994

It's over. Flights are full. Impossible to leave when I intended. I'm half sorry-half happy. One more day to flutter in the golden cage high on the hill above Port-au-Prince.