Wednesday, June 1, 2011

All sorts of excitement yesterday...

Yesterday was a good example of what I've been saying for over a year: Haiti is not nearly as dangerous as the media makes it out to be. But things can rapidly escalate into being dangerous, and THAT can be dangerous if you're not prepared.

Sharon, Howard and I left the house about 11am. We took a couple tap taps, walked the streets, all very peaceful. At the gates to the tent city, we saw the cousin of a friend of mine. Hugs were exchanged, then we went on a nice walk through the same tent city that I've been in a hundred times. Hands down the safest (and most well known) tent city in Haiti.

When we saw the UN, Haitian police, some guys cuffed in the back of a truck and a crowd starting to form, we picked up the pace - sometimes stopping to assess a situation can delay you long enough to really put you in harms way. We had passed the crowd, the school, crossed the creek, and had just climbed the sand-bagged-gully to the main road of the IDP camp when the shots started firing.

Pop pop pop, pop! We stuck together, speed-walking to reach the security checkpoint at the top of the camp. There was a different sound - not a shot fired, but something exploding. My lungs started burning - not from the walk, but from the tear gas that had been shot into the crowd below us. Shirt over my face, I was about to tell Sharon to do the same when she turns to say her eyes were burning.

A few more meters to the security station. A friend of mine was working security, his eyes got a little wide when he realized where we came from. We passed the checkpoint and ducked behind some trees to catch our breath. (Note: the UN was firing up in the air to disperse the crowd, not actually at people. Since we were uphill of the chaos, we made sure there were large tree trunks between us and the line of fire.)

Howard was able to fish out a surgical mask from his backpack for Sharon - who gave it to the man carrying his screaming child towards the makeshift tent hospital. The child was screaming - probably partly in fear, partly because of the tear gas. You could see the school from where the tear gas had been used.

Sweat pouring, adrenaline pumping, we made it safely to our intended destination - the pharmacy at the hospital.

Like I said, this is a perfect example of how rapidly things can change here in Haiti. As I'm reading over this journal entry, it sounds way more dangerous than it actually felt. The biggest danger to us was being hit by a stray bullet from the UN since "safety" was on higher ground. Or maybe it's just that I've lived in Haiti too long...

~PJ

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