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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Port-au-Prince ‘gingerbread’ houses from the 19th century; Mafoun’s dancers – not smoking or drinking but dancing with candles; a ‘tap tap’ bus – used as taxis, the name comes from the ‘tap’ that people give the side when they want to board or alight; drummers beating out a rhythm

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y V I R A N D E S I L V A A N D C A R O L I N E E D E N

Travelling through Haiti, Caroline Eden discovers authentic Vodou ceremonies, unexpected mountain views and a country opening its arms to tourists

Back on the Map

drumming. Shaking a quart bottle of Barbancourt rum with one hand, Mafoun passes by leaving a trail of cigarette smoke in her wake. Her dancers, each one holding a lit candle, groove behind her, forming a conga-like procession. They shake their hips and nod their heads, moving trance-like around a large table laden with rum, silk flowers and popcorn that has been scattered like confetti. These are gifts for summoning the Iwa (spirit conversers). Milk-coloured wax drips down the dancer’s brown arms. Sweat rolls in rivulets off their faces. The air is thick with smoke. Dozens of trance-like male drummers sit in the semi-darkness, singing the same chorus over and over. The scene is pleasingly authentic, dramatic and intense.

Outside, raindrops spring off the cobblestones. ‘Haitians are like sugar and salt, they don’t like to get wet,’ Chauvet says straightening his multi-pocketed utility vest as

On the outskirts of the town of Milot in northern Haiti, night cloaks the hills like a blanket. The air buzzes with mosquitoes. My feet

sound feeble on wet cobblestones as I follow the sound of a rolling drumbeat made by many hands. A thin cloud shifts in the sky and suddenly a moonbeam illuminates an eerie white crucifix on the roadside. It quickly disappears again. Then, turning onto a dirt track, I enter a small hall. Roosters scuttle aside. Under a corrugated roof a hundred or so people are in ecstasy. The Vodou ceremony is in full swing. The arrival of my out-of-place presence apparently goes unseen.

‘That’s the mambo, the Vodou priestess. Her name is Mafoun,’ says my guide Pierre Chauvet, motioning towards a curvaceous woman whose buttocks are bouncing passionately to the

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he points to the crowded room. He tells me that in her ‘ordinary life’ Mafoun doesn’t drink or smoke cigarettes but she has been ‘mounted by Jean Laurent’, a local Iwa who is a lover of debauchery, decadence and general hedonism.

Then from a dark corner, an elderly woman emerges. Mafoun pads across the dirt floor and leads the woman to the table. Aside from a silk petticoat, the woman is naked. I put my camera away. Mafoun, still singing, still smoking, begins her alchemy. Taking the woman’s small hands into hers she gently cracks an egg onto the woman’s scalp. Then, rubbing an elixir of yolk and some kind of red soda into her short frizzy hair, Mafoun gently administers a cranial massage.

Chauvet tells me that the believer is in good health but has come to be cleansed. Mafoun smiles at her disciple, and gets a toothy grin in return. It is an odd scene for the uninitiated to witness but it is nothing like the Hollywood ‘voodoo’ of zombies, snakes and sacrifice. Vodou ties communities together in Haiti. It forms the country’s national identity and it is the cultural expression of the Haitian people. It also connects today’s population of nine million to their ancestral homeland of West Africa, where they lived before being brought to Haiti as slaves to work on sugar plantations. Despite the saying that Haitians are ‘70 per cent Catholic, 30 per cent Protestant but 100 per cent Vodou’, anti-Vodou campaigns have recently been stepped up. Some say Haiti’s first ever Roman Catholic cardinal, Chibly Langlois, is to blame after he reportedly dismissed Vodou as ‘magic.’

As I stand up to leave, Mafoun puts down her rum and stops dancing. She gives me a warm smile, then leaning in gently she presses me against her huge sweat-drenched body and hugs me tightly. As I walk away, she gives me an unexpected thumbs-up. I return one awkwardly. More dancing starts. The ceremony will continue late into the night.

We depart slowly. Our driver is focusing on the road – ominously called Carrefour La Mort – that will take us to our hotel in Haiti’s second city, Cap-Haïtien. In the minibus I am committing observations to paper and Chauvet is telling me how, under French rule in the 17th and 18th centuries, Cap-Haïtien was the richest city in the Caribbean. This unpaved mess of a road, punctuated by holes and made more hazardous by wandering pigs, makes you wonder where all those riches went.

SLOW RETURNSDawn brings a weak sun, deafening birdsong and a patience-testing seven-hour drive south to the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Easing out of Cap-Haïtien, we snake cautiously through the metallic churn of battered 4x4s, candy-coloured tap-taps (shared taxis) and convoys of white UN trucks driven by Uruguayans in wrap-around shades. Ready for more downpours, women

chatter on the roadside dressed in homemade rain hats fashioned out of bubble-wrap and shower caps.

We trundle along jungle-clad roads for several hours before entering into the traffic-choked city of Gonaïves. This is where, in 1804, a declaration was signed that created the world’s first black republic. Fittingly, we spot a monument to Jean-Jacques Dessalines – leader of the Haitian Revolution – standing tall in the town centre. We then drop further southwards, slowly skirting the western coastline of the Gulf of Gonâve. In small towns, summery carnival music blasts from barbershops providing a cheery soundtrack.

Makeshift settlements on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince signal the entrance to the city. Around 85,000 people still live in these camps after the deadly earthquake that shook Haiti in January 2010. It was estimated that around 250,000 people were killed when, in the town of Léogâne (an hour’s drive from the capital), a magnitude 7.0 earthquake flattened the entire region. Locals, Chauvet tells me, refer to the earthquake as ‘guddu guddu’ after the noise the buildings made when they collapsed.

It was one of the world’s worst ever urban disasters but it has not crushed the spirit of the Haitian people. At night in the city, people dance to live music in nightclubs while artistic graffiti brightens walls and gives snapshots of Haitian politics. Creative industry abounds at places like Village Noailles too where arty flat metal sculptures, known as fer découpé, are made.

Gradually, infrastructure is returning. We pass the newly rebuilt Iron Market in downtown Port-au-Prince, instantly recognisable by its giant red roof. This is where you can buy everything from a wig to a cat on a rope and barter for souvenirs like paintings, key rings and wooden statues. These aren’t made for tourists in Haiti per se – business wouldn’t be very good if they relied on the small numbers arriving – but for tourists all over the Caribbean. Haiti makes around 70 per cent of the Caribbean’s tourist souvenirs. They are made here, then shipped out to be fraudulently stamped with ‘made in Puerto Rico’, or similar. Next to the market many buildings, once banks and offices, are crumpled heaps of rubble still. As we drive along, Chauvet poignantly says, ‘we can only talk of what downtown used to be.’

Bolstered by the current calm, Haiti has been

The saying goes that Haitians are ‘70 per cent Catholic, 30 per cent Protestant but 100 per cent Vodou’

ABOVE: the Statue of the Unkown Maroon in Port-Au-Prince, a symbol of Haiti’s struggle for independence; LEFT: Jacmel, a town in southern Haiti tentatively accepted as a UNESCO World Heritage site

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ABOVE: a street in Cap-Haïtien; RIGHT: Anse-à-Galets is an island northwest of Port-au-Prince; FAR RIGHT: a waterfall at Bassin-Bleu near Jacmel

removed from America’s ‘most dangerous places’ watch-list. Encouraged by this, western brands are starting to arrive such as the recently opened Best Western and Marriott hotels. UK-based tour operators are arriving too. Exodus, Wild Frontiers, G Adventures and Steppes Travel now all offer tours. Haiti, it seems, has turned a corner.

CLEAN, GREEN AND SERENEOccasionally tour groups head to the high-altitude market town of Kenscoff, a couple of hour’s drive from Port-au-Prince, in order to experience a greener side of Haiti. We follow their lead and leaving the city limits, climb up the Route de Kenscoff in the direction of the Massif de la Selle.

The urban stew quickly falls away and soon terraced fields and red earth dominate the landscape. After an hour’s drive we reach 6,000 feet. Vegetables are being harvested in fields. Pine trees create a natural canopy. Crossbills and hummingbirds buzz around and the air is clean. In a country where deforestation is a huge challenge (today only around two per cent of the country is forested) Kenscoff, looks, feels and tastes, a bit like paradise.

The other immediate difference is that there is far less sign of the plastic rubbish that plagues the country. Despite the ban on Styrofoam boxes – mainly imported from neighbouring Dominican Republic – thousands of takeaway cartons still pollute streets and clog drains causing floods. Out of the minibus the air is cool

and fresh. The taste and smell of burning rubbish is conspicuous by its absence.

RECYCLING AND RE-EDUCATING Up here, one family is leading by example in the battle against rubbish, deforestation and hunger. Wynne Farm Ecological Reserve is run by Jane Wynne, a proud Haitian, environmentalist and educator. Slightly built and wearing an orange bandana, Wynne’s enthusiasm, positivity and laughter proves infectious. Within moments of me arriving, she is steering me past the yurt (‘this is where we have our yoga classes’) and the compost loo (‘the walls are made of bamboo, but it’s quite safe’) both of which she is proud of. We stop to admire the climbing vines of Black-eyed Susan and Wynne’s bandana merges perfectly with the abundant orange petals.

Spanning 30 acres of land Wynne tells me

In a country where deforestation is a challenge, the high-altitude market town of Kenscoff feels like paradise

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ABOVE: fer découpé metalwork at Village Noailles

When to goDecember, January, February and March are the best months to visit, avoiding the intense heat of summer and the rainfall between April and November.

Getting thereThere are no direct flights from the UK. Exodus has a 12-day tour to Haiti from £2,399 including return flights from London (exodus.co.uk/haiti-holidays).

More informationHaiti is malarial. Visit a doctor for advice before travelling. British passport holders can buy a visa on arrival at Port-au-Prince airport for $10. Hotels: Cap-Haïtien – hotelroichristophe.com Port-au-Prince – hotelvillatherese.comWynne Farm Ecological Reserve: wynnefarm.orgTourist information: ExperienceHaiti.org

iC O - O R D I N A T E SH A I T I

how her father, Victor Wynne, born in New York, arrived in Haiti in 1925, as a civil engineer during the US occupation (between 1915 and 1934). He later returned, married and purchased various plots of land from local landowners around Kenscoff. His aim was to fix the misuse of land, tackle deforestation and eradicate threats of erosion. He founded and terraced Wynne Farm with 40 men in 1956 propagating indigenous species to conserve Haiti’s biodiversity and emphasising the need for soil conservation, composting and reforestation. He also experimented with agricultural techniques such

as terracing and the use of bamboo in the soil to stop run-off during the rainy season. ‘Bamboo is a saviour to us. It regenerates and it is flexible in earthquakes,’ Wynne says.

She calls to one farmer who is carrying a basket on her head filled with vegetables. Putting the hamper down, the farmer holds up – one at a time – a cabbage, a handful of carrots, a bunch of dill, green peppers, potatoes and a sizeable squash. It’s an impressive haul in a country that fails to produce enough food and imports 80 per cent of its main staple, rice.

Today when Haitians visit, Wynne tells me, they are encouraged to put their hands in the soil and to ‘reconnect with nature.’ There is a recycling area too, which often amounts to several tonnes and on Sundays there is a farmer’s market.

Next, we jump back into the minibus and drive with Wynne to her main reserve, a little higher up the road. ‘On a clear day it’s like a map of Haiti up here,’ Wynne says. Despite the haze we can see the southern mountain range and the sprawling city of Port-au-Prince. Around us 15-litre water bottles have been recycled into giant plant pots and lettuces sprout from them. In greenhouses Alstroemeria blossom in hues of peach and yellow, practically bursting out of trays. Honeybees buzz around the Acacia trees.

One problem, Wynne tells me, is fencing. ‘It would cost us $150,000 to put in a cyclone fence to stop people just jumping over and picnicking. People help themselves and take what they want, when they want.’ She sighs. Then, with a sparkle back in her eye, she says ‘ironically, that is what my father would have wanted. He bought this land to show Haitians the beauty of what they have.’

The hope for Haiti today is that as the tourists slowly start to return, it won’t just be the Haitians who will experience this beauty.

map to follow

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