The Voyages of Brendan

The Travel of Journey of Joshua T. Harvey, World Traveler, in honor of St. Brendan the Navigator

6.23.2006

"Protection"

This is one of those bizarre stories from Haiti that you hear about. I am not going to try and pretty up the prose, because this story needs to be protected in memory simply for what it is.

Last night we went to the Hotel Olaffson, one of Port-au-Prince’s best known landmarks, to hear the band RAM, one of Port-au-Prince’s best known bands. The Olaffson was made famous as the setting of Graham Greene’s novel The Comedians, and has been a meeting place for Bohemians, ex-pats, and “journotrash,” as author Bob Shacossis has dubbed them, for about fifty years. The building itself is, well, infamous as a monstrosity: white gingerbread, turn of the 20th Century, three stories tall, built into a rock face on a hillside, part art nouveau, part haunted house. The décor is vodoun oriented with statues and flags and so is RAM’s musical style, a mix of konpa and vodoun rhythms. RAM, founded by ex-pat Richard Morse, a disgruntled New York musician searching for new beats in the era of New Wave schlock who bought the hotel on a whim, weathered the political turmoil of the first coup d’etat in 1991 and the preceding unrest, writing subtly subversive songs in the racine style, using tradition drums in addition to drumset, bass, guitar, keyboards, and vocals. Richard Morse himself was routinely shaken down by the Tonton Macoute even as the Cedras government used his band as a front of faux democracy and false freedom of speech. At the return of Aristide, they performed at the National Palace to thousands of fans. Subsequently, one of their songs was used on the soundtrack to the movie Philadelphia.

We arrived at the Olaffson around 10PM. This is very late for my standards, but we went with two students who are staying here and their German friend, Marin, who has been working in Port-au-Prince for several years. They had been to see the band during their last trip in March, so I felt that taking a small risk was warranted; they themselves thought nothing about going, but, though I was encouraged by their attitude, I thought them to be a bit gallant. Nonetheless, we loaded up the Pathfinder and went downtown.
We passed by a police checkpoint, but they were stopping people going in the other direction. “Helene,” I said, “It’s funny that we weren’t stopped because when I changed shirts today I left my driver’s license in the other shirt pocket!” We laughed at our brazen luck. I also said that if anything should ever happen on the road, Helene should start calling me “Monpere” which is “Father”—as in priest—in Kreyol, because priests seem to have special status in Haiti. We laughed at how funny that would be too.

On arriving we were directed to a parking space on the road beside the hotel. Suddenly teenage boys are clamoring around the car. As we got out, it finally dawned on us, with some help from Marin’s French and Kreyol skills, that we were going to have to pay them to “protect” our car. This protection is basically a racketeering and extortionist ploy: they are protecting your car from themselves. People who refuse to pay up front routinely return danced-out and a bit inebriated to find their tires slashed.

We walked up the torch-lit driveway to the massive staircase leading up to the wrap-around porch and front entrance. The bar and club rooms were full of people, gathering en masse closer to show time. As clubs go, this was no exception—we waited at least an hour for the band to start. They finally exploded onstage with the polish and energy of a decade-old house band. The real coup, I thought, was that Richard Morse bought this decaying edifice and made his band the weekly act. The subsequent turmoil mixed with steady performances has made RAM coltishly legendary to anyone who knows anything about Haiti. I could write more about the music, the drumming, the fervent dancing of the crowd, but it has to be heard and seen to understand the experience.

Helene quickly found herself dancing with a Haitian man and having a good time. Marin and the two students were drinking beers as I watched from the side room where the music was not too loud for my ears (I did bring earplugs, but I thought that I did not need to stick out anymore so than I already did). At around 1:30AM I started to feel tired and cautious about the drive home. One of the students had had enough as well, but the other three were still partying. Helene was now wearing the hat of the Haitian man. Marin and the remaining student were downing a glass of the hotel’s celebrated rum punch. I consoled myself with the fact that this was a one-time experience. I was still entertained by the scene, but I was getting restless.

At the band’s break, Marin, the two students, and I convened on the porch to take in the breeze, watch the Haitians grinding to Kreyol rap and pop tunes, and conversing about politics, religion, and other topics about which I am all together too ready to discuss but which require some alcohol for others to feel at liberty. Suddenly, a series of hits on my shoulder revealed Helene wandering off, being dragged by the Haitian man and carrying his hat. I didn’t realize until later that she was trying to be rescued, so we all just waved at her as she passed by.

The band resumed but was soon slowed by a power outage. There were enough safety lights to keep things unhidden and people dancing. Resistant to the end, RAM carried through with drums and a capella chanting. By now I had enough excuses to try and call it a night, but one of the students reminded me that this was prime RAM, just like in the coup d’etat days when machete-wielding soldiers cut the power to silence the seditious guitars only to discover that the power of the African drum, the power of Ginen, could not be silenced. I sank back to listening for a few moments until Helene showed up saying, “We have to go. This guy won’t leave me alone.” We escorted her, a scrum of handlers protecting her from an unwanted suitor, to another room. Her shadow was fleet. We actually went outside to a back area to hide but he still appeared like a high-schooler in heat.

“He kept telling me that he loved me—in English,” she muttered, “and that”—and I quote—“he could ‘go for hours.’” I finally turned this charade into the strong suggestion that we would now be leaving. Marin curtly but warmly confronted the poor and lonely man thanking him for a pleasant time with Helene, but that we were all going home for the night.

We wandered through the jungle of side-stairs and palm trees to find our car, safe as promised. The boys demanded payment, which we gave to them. I was willing to give them a $10 bill, but Marin insisted only on 100 Gourdes or so, which is about $2. We paid one boy and began to drive off. In a typical Haitian situation, another boy knocked on the window demanding his payment too. We told him that we had already paid someone and that he would have to work it out with the other kid. He was resilient and even annoying—this quotidian scenario plays itself all over the city constantly. We finally just drove away.

It was now about 2 AM.

The two students argued on the way back how we should have treated the boy, pity or loathing. I sat silently, not knowing what to think, watching the darkened streets for potholes. We came around a corner. Police checkpoint. Men with machine guns and shotguns. Waving us to stop.

This is not the first time I have had a gun pointed at the vehicle I was in, nor will it be the last, I am sure. Everyone was very calm. Routine checkpoint at 2AM.

There are commercials on during the World Cup matches that inform you how to identify real policemen from fake policemen. Many men in Haiti have acquired uniforms and use it to their advantage in all sorts of ways, ranging from mostly harmless to deadly.

The first identifying attribute is to check the identification cards hanging around their necks, “Not inside the shirt, nor pinned to a pocket” the commercial instructs in Kreyol. These men had chains, but no cards. Anywhere.

The second trait is that they will be driving a vehicle marked with the police seal, a number on the side, and a special license plate with the same two marks. Their vehicles did actually have all of these.

Were these real policemen or not? What is one to do when men have weapons?—it makes authenticity a moot point. Demanding to see their badges—where would that lead us?

We rolled down our windows. The lead officer demanded, in perfect French, to see my “license de conduit” and my passport. It was ironic for him to ask me for my papers, while none of his could be found.

It’s a funny thing, speaking Kreyol daily—the French is still there in the brain, but it is much more difficult to pull out on demand, hidden—like the policemen’s ID badges— nowhere to be found; it comes out conjugated sometimes, and not others, confused and unclear, a pastiche as vague as these men’s truck markings. I attempted to speak back in French, but not quick enough. It was clear that I had left my license at home.

It’s a funny thing, leaving the license at home. I actually pulled it out of the other-shirt pocket and locked at it, then put it back in, not feeling like it was important—no little warning voice of intuition—thinking, “I’ve never had to have this before—it’s not like anyone respects the police here anyway.” So odd how much respect a man with a shotgun garners on the Haitian roadside after midnight.

It was now 2:15 AM.

He berated me, nicely but sternly, for a minute for not having my license or my passport. No foreigner carries his passport in Haiti, and one of students in the back seat—did I mention before that they were law students?—said as much in French. Not good French, but better than my now-faltering conversation. The lawyer took over in a series of well-played, but unsuccessful tricks.

I always carry my license with me, but had left it at home tonight on accident.
--No excuse.
He had his driver’s license and a photocopy of his passport in his wallet. Could he drive?
--But I was the one driving now.
He and everyone else had been drinking, so I, who had not, was sober-driving.
--But if there was or had been an accident, I would be the one liable.
Not if it was his car and I was sober-driving.
--(This apparently does not work as well in a country where people drunk drive often—but not so often because no one drives after night here. It’s not safe.)
--Could we please step out of the car?
Absolutely not.
--Are we hiding anything illegal in the vehicle?
No. Search the whole car, from top to bottom, we have nothing to hide,
--What are you doing here?
We are working on a student research paper. Here are our student ID’s.
--What school?
The University of P***
--You should all have your passports and driver’s licenses.
We don’t carry our passports in this country—it is unsafe and there are bandits about.
--It is national law that you carry your passport for identification at all times. Do you think I could go to the Dominican Republic and drive and not carry my passport there?
But no visitors here carry passports. We are warned not to.
--But it is the law.
Then can we send someone home to pick up the driver’s license and passports and return?
--You are already breaking the law.
But if someone could just go get them, we could show you that we are not here illegally.
--It is too late for that.

This went on for about 5 more minutes or so until Marin, who was ahead of us and had already passed the checkpoint, was returned escorted by two armed men after she explained that we were following her back to the road that we all knew so that we could make it home safely.

I started asking Saint Brendan to make a way for us.

Marin jumped right in, blond hair, dimples, an angel from Almagn—so we all thought after this adventure—in French and spoke with the police. After several more minutes of discussion, in which she basically said “Give us the ticket or a fine or let us go” (but in much more diplomatic terms), he said the infraction would cost us $300 Haitian. This equals 1500 Gourdes. Or, $40 American. The exact amount we had in the car.

It’s funny about this $40. A week before the trip to Haiti, one of Helene’s friends was discussing the trip with her and said, “Here is $20. Keep it in your pocket for something important.” It sat in her pocket through all of her travels up until this point. Just before leaving the house, one of the students paid me for some crafts, so I had put that, you guessed it, $20 into my pocket—just in case. I had the feeling I should. (Strangely, not my license, but $20.) If I had paid the boys outside the hotel as I had thought reasonable, we would have been short $5-10.

There was another five minutes spent trying to assure the policemen—if they even were policemen—that $40 American equals $300 Haitian, one policeman actually calling someone on his phone to make sure this was correct.

It was 2:30 AM.

After this resolution the situation lightened up considerably. They had told the student that his French was very good and we all had agreed that it was a frustrating experience, but suddenly things became even less official. They said that there was another checkpoint on the road to our house and that they would call ahead for us. We watched one “officer” do it. They gathered around our car and told us that the road ahead was very dangerous, so we should follow them and they would protect us. We felt this a welcome piece of news. Helene, who did have her license on her, switched places so that we would be on the road legally. The men got up into their truck with their gear and arms and took off into the night, us trailing behind. At the main road they waved and we thanked them as they wished us good night. We made it home safely.

2:45 AM.

We discussed with Thay, who was working security on our arrival, what had happened.
He sort of laughed but also warned us about fake policemen, but then added that if they had the police truck, then it was okay; we were home safely; oh, and if they had not been real policemen things would have turned out very differently. For the worse.

Great.

Now, could it be that I did not bring my license for our own safety, so that we could be stopped, hassled, but then kept safe on the dangerous road? I wanted to think that as I wandered off to sleep. I never felt like I was in danger, nor was I afraid. Mostly I was annoyed and tired. But, was there a point, if any? To prove God’s love and protection?

As Theremise prepared to cook dinner and clean the kitchen this morning, I told her the whole story as a way to practice my Kreyol. She was concerned for most of it, saying, “They are not real policemen if they don’t have their papers around their necks.” This was validating because it seemed like the government was aiming for transparency after months of vigilante justice and hooded men dressed all in black disappearing dissidents; policemen must be identified as such (though, I wasn’t sure how broadcasting exactly how was going to stop bandits from copying those features also); even more so validating because the publicity gained through the World Cup matches was actually being seen and people were receiving the word on the police force. After asking why we were leaving the house way after the time we should be returning to it on any given night, I told her I was well aware of the safety concerns, that the young were often too gallant, and that it was a one-time event only. Besides, we had learned our lesson. She was confused about the badges and the police vehicle, though. We decided it wasn’t important whether they were real police or not, because “N’ap viv”—we were still alive.

I turned to telling this tale as a lesson to myself and everyone else. But the moral of the story is not whether we were foolish or whether one should not go out after dark in Port-au-Prince.

I started thinking about how Marin would not have taken us through any place dangerous, and so I wondered why we needed their protection. From who? Their “protection”…..

We had been scammed.

Confirmation from Helene that the men did have some sort of badges, only put into shirt pockets and….and in places where we would not be able to identify them by name or number. With a real police truck. I suddenly remembered them waving a Haitian motorcyclist through after a brief chat and maybe even a car or two with no problem….
They were real policemen hiding their identity but using their legitimacy to make money. Here we were, an SUV full of white people, in the middle of the night….It suddenly dawned on me: we needed to pay them for their “protection”—from themselves.

Little boy racketeers grow up to be men racketeers.

With guns.

If someone requires you to pay them for protection, just remember whose interests they are protecting, and from whom they are likely protecting you.

EDH: I was told 11PM-4:30AM

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