Haiti: New Island in the Sun

PASS Haiti by. That was the advice given to the passengers on the steamer Medea in Graham Greene's novel The Comedians. Until recently, that is exactly what most potential tourists did -and for good reason. Haiti was the stronghold of the tyrannical Frangois ("Papa Doc") Duvalier. During his 14-year regime, thousands of Haitians were executed for real or imagined political opposition, and no one, including foreign tourists, could feel secure from harassment and arbitrary arrest.

Now all that seems to have changed.

Papa Doc is dead, and the title of President for Life has passed to his son Jean-Claude, 21. Under the comparatively benign rule of "Baby Doc," the activities of the dread secret police known as the Tontons Macoutes (Creole for bogeymen) have been curbed. The ostentatious display of military presence has been muted, although rifle-bearing police and militiamen can still be seen on the streets of Port-au-Prince, the capital. Even more important from the tourists' viewpoint Jean-Claude has extended a welcoming hand to foreign investors and visitors.

The foreigners are responding enthusiastically. Cruise ships that once sailed by have added Port-au-Prince to their itineraries. Airlines have increased international service from eight flights a week in 1966 to more than 60 a week. Last year more than 100,000 people visited Haiti, double the number only five years ago, and arrivals so far this year are at an alltime high.

No Paradise. Haiti bears little resemblance to the stereotyped Caribbean paradise. There is only one golf course, a modest nine-holer used mostly by diplomats and resident Americans. There are barely half a dozen overworked tennis courts. Gambling is confined to a rather dingy casino operated by an American named Mike McLaney.

Even the opportunities for such standard tropical pursuits as swimming and sunning are limited. Both Kyona and Ibo beaches-the only ones anywhere near the capital city-have limited facilities. In addition, they are a spine-snapping one-hour trip from Port-au-Prince over roads that are hopelessly rutted and potholed. In fact, Haiti's poor roads virtually confine all but the hardiest tourists to the capital city and its environs.

But Haiti offers enticements of its own. Even in the rural areas close to Port-au-Prince, it is still the land of "mountains of very great size and beauty, vast plains, groves and very fruitful fields" that enchanted Columbus in 1492, when he landed on the island he called Espanola. In Haiti's unpolluted air, sunsets are breathtaking, night skies are spectacular, and colors so vivid that they have inspired Haitians to become a nation of artists. There are more mundane attractions. Five days in a comfortable Port-au-Prince hotel can cost as little as $125, including breakfasts and dinners-far less than in the more familiar Caribbean isles. Another lure is the quick divorce; Haitian courts issue divorce decrees in less than 48 hours.

What new visitors find most compelling about Haiti, however, are the Haitians themselves. Their culture, deeply rooted in the African past and leavened by 18th century French colonial rule, is unique in the Western Hemisphere. From the faces of its people to the unofficial national religion of voodoo, from the ox-drawn carts and brightly painted buses to the folk arts and cacophonous marketplaces, Haiti is reminiscent of West Africa, the former slave coast that is the ancestral homeland of most of its inhabitants.

The Haitian way of life has persisted almost unchanged since the slaves revolted, expelled the French and founded the New World's first black independent nation in 1804. Few countries in the colonial era were willing to deal with a country established on the dead bodies of former slave masters; in recent years the unsavory nature of the Haitian government has tended to keep that isolation intact. As a result, Haiti is a country that has turned in on itself and had little commerce with other nations, one reason for its dismal economic status (annual per capita income: $80).

Laughter. From the moment visitors step off the plane and pass through the customs checkpoint in the new expanded Port-au-Prince airport, they are assaulted by the sights and sounds of Haiti. Driving toward the city, they pass dilapidated thatched-roof shacks. Peasants crowd the roads, balancing on their heads the flowers or fruit, tin cans or huge straw baskets they hope to sell in the marketplace.

There is also a sound on the city streets that to most urban Americans is unfamiliar: laughter. For although Haitians have lived for almost two centuries with poverty, political turmoil, tyranny and foreign occupation (by the U.S. Marines from 1915 to 1934), they seem to have come through it all with their cheerfulness and self-respect almost miraculously intact.

Whatever the reason, Haiti's 5,000,000 people-unlike those in some of the other Caribbean isles-demonstrate no hostility or arrogance, but only a friendly curiosity toward visitors. Certainly they are not in awe of blancs.

The hospitality of Haitians has apparently rubbed off on some of the expatriate innkeepers who have settled in Port-au-Prince. At the gingerbreadstyle Grand Hotel Oloffson, for example, owner Al Seitz, a native of Connecticut, is reluctant to add more rooms to his charming anachronism because "if it got too big I would lose personal contact with the guests." But the stay at the Oloffson is worth it if only to meet Columnist Aubelin Jolicoeur, Haiti's unofficial ambassador of good will, who drops by with a diverting account of the past week's goings on. Equally solicitous are Proprietors Georges and Gerty Heraux of the Sans Souci, who sometimes put up last-minute guests in their own home if no room is available at the hotel. Despite the construction noise, the same hospitality is evident at Habitation Leclerc, a new $1.5 million resort complex being built on a Port-au-Prince hillside by Olivier Coquelin, owner of Manhattan's Hippopotamus discotheque. Hans von Meiss-Teuffen, manager of the resort, will often meet guests at the airport, take them on tours of the capital and order up special meals from his kitchen.

Many of Haiti's scarce hotel rooms (only 1,040) are located in Petionville, a relatively posh and attractive Port-au-Prince suburb on the side of a steep mountain. Some of the most luxurious are in the El Rancho Hotel, which has four $150-a-day suites complete with electrically powered draperies, mahogany furniture, and maroon marble bathtubs with rather delicate plumbing. (One of the establishment's few drawbacks: incessant music by the pool.) Petionville is also the site of most of Haiti's elegant night life. Among the restaurants are La Lanterne, known for its shrimp soup with brandy, pate maison and red snapper, and Chez Gerard, another French restaurant that may well be Haiti's best.

Drums. Another nighttime activity sought out by most tourists is a voodoo ceremony. For a small fee they are invited to witness frenzied drumming and dancing, the inscription of strange patterns in the ground, and often the sacrifice of a chicken. What they usually see is a pale imitation of authentic rites. The actual rituals in which the Haitians invoke their loas (gods) take place far off in the hills in the dark of night. The drums sometimes heard during the day are simply beating cadences for corn-bites, or cooperative work teams.

Travel in Haiti is always exciting, if not comfortable. Most Haitians, both in urban and rural areas, travel in "tap-taps," pickup trucks with bench-equipped wooden cabins built onto them. Each bus is gaily painted in many colors and designs, and each has a flamboyant name (for example, "The Scorn of Woman," "The Miracle" and "The Wrath of God") that signifies to Haitians that the bus plys a neighborhood route, for example, or has a downtown destination. All Haitian vehicles race wildly along streets and roads crowded with pedestrians, their horns honking incessantly. Miraculously, the accident rate is low.

For the tourist, the best form of transportation is the chauffeured car, which can be hired for $3 an hour or $20 a day. Those with license plates beginning with the letter L generally have drivers who speak some English-a great help to American tourists in a country where 80% of the population speak only Creole, a French-based language that Parisians nonetheless find incomprehensible.

Unlike the grim days under Papa Doc, tourists no longer need military passes to travel in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince. On the way to the beaches, visitors and Haitians alike must stop at an army checkpoint-a hangover from the days when Haiti feared invasions from everywhere. The guard, however, merely asks their destination and then waves the car on.

Perhaps the most spectacular of the limited rural tours is the trip up the mountain road from Port-au-Prince to

Kenscoff, about 1 3 miles away. The terraced farms clinging to steep mountainsides, the brilliant foliage and even the boys along the road who toss flowers into passing cars (in the hope that motorists will stop and buy more) all contribute to a scene of rare beauty. At Kenscoff, the bright colors of the wares in the huge, open, hillside market, as well as an occasional cockfight, provide other sights rarely seen by Americans. The marketplace is sometimes enlivened by a "ra-ra," a spontaneous celebration that frequently occurs in the spring when people don colorful costumes and engage in impromptu jam sessions with "vaccins"-flutelike instruments made from bamboo. One other side trip-to Cap Haitien on the northern coast-is almost worth traversing the particularly bad roads or risking the frequently canceled air trip. Once there, tourists can take a two-hour horseback ride up La Ferriere mountain to visit the ruins of the Citadelle, a huge stone fortress built by one of Haiti's liberators, Henri Christophe, to ward off an invasion that never came.

Baseballs. Actually, there are enough attractions within Port-au-Prince to occupy tourists for the good part of a week. In the well-to-do Lyles district, there are the remarkable Victorian gingerbread houses, with intricately carved balustrades and spires, that are now commanding Stateside real estate prices. At the Iron Market, beneath a twin-spired iron roof, hundreds of Haitian entrepreneurs haggle with tourists over the price of wood carvings, sisal mats, dolls and hundreds of other products displayed in crowded stalls. There is the formal city hall, outlined at night with strings of glowing light bulbs, and the National Palace, which is guarded during holidays by light antiaircraft guns. Everywhere the streets in the overcrowded city teem with people, many of them politely but persistently hawking goods or guide services to any tourist in sight. Port-au-Prince also has more than its share of slums, which bear elegant names like Bel Air, Poste Marchand and Leclerc but often have open sewage ditches running through them.

The slums are swelling as peasants flock to the cities in search of the $1-a-day wage required by Haitian law. Many of the jobs they find are in small assembly plants, which contract with foreign firms for the cheap labor of Haitian workers. In one plant, 3.7 million Rawlings baseballs are stitched together every year for export to the U.S. Explains Owner Jules Tomar: "Baseball sewing is a nonexistent art in the U.S." But even these jobs are few and far between; at least one-third of the Haitian population is unemployed.

A little of that slack is being taken up by the popularity of Haitian art. One form is uniquely Haitian. Unlike other islanders in the Caribbean, Haitians do not use oil drums as instruments for steel bands. Instead they flatten the drums and cut them into graceful, imaginative steel sculpture. Pieces by Murat Brierre usually sell for about $300. But it is the primitive Haitian painting (much of it now mass produced and second rate) that has largely captured the imagination-and the dollars-of tourists. The bold, brilliant-hued Haitian art is displayed and sold everywhere: in a proliferating number of galleries throughout Port-au-Prince and its suburbs, in restaurants and hotel lobbies, and in the homes of prominent Haitians.

The works of such increasingly sophisticated artists as Rigaud Benoit, Andre Normil and Prefete Duffaut are already selling at hundreds and even thousands of dollars. But bargains can still be had if tourists are willing to search out true primitives like St. Pierre, who works as a caretaker at a large home on the road to Kenscoff and paints in his spare time. He sells his characteristic bird-and-leaf designs for as little as $10.

Although Haiti is an exotic and unique vacation land, there are signs of change. Outside money, particularly in tourist-related businesses such as ho-telbuilding, is coming into the country at the rate of $60 million a year. In the most ambitious of the new proj ects, the island of Tortuga, off the northern coast, is being developed into a resort that will include 13 hotels, condominiums, private homes and a large airport. There are also a number of heady proposals to build expensive new roads to Haiti's southshore beaches, which are as beautiful as any in the Car ibbean but still practically inaccessible.

As the tourists and the money begin to flow in, they raise the specters of commercialism and exploitation in a land that may not yet be ready for them.

They also raise a haunting question:

How long can Haiti remain unspoiled?

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