I started the day by descending the hill to the market from the “compound” (my term for the dwellings behind a very large gate that shelter four households).  My companion was a freelance journalist who was on a mission to find breakfast (le petit dejeuner in French, kolasyon or dejne in Creole)  for his significant other and himself.  He’s done work for Free Speech Radio.  On the way Ansel asked me if I had been to Haiti before.  I told him how I had almost bracketed Haiti in travels to Santiago and Guantanamo in Eastern Cuba and to Puerto Rico.

Here’s the view from the roof of my apartment building:

  In contrast to the idyllic scene with the sea in the distance, tableaux of dezas, or disaster, begin practically right outside the gate of the compound:

I took my leave of Ansel to start my first run in Haiti.  It’s impossible to avoid hills in my neighborhood and it was also impossible to think of the myth of Sisyphus and the Haitian people and the Creole saying I recently read that goes, “Deye mon, gen mon,” “after the mountains, more mountains.”  Do I need to stress the point that pushing boulders uphill can get tiring?  My run chock full of hills was nothing.

Tonight,  I’ve been listening to snippets fo conversations between an NPR reporter and a guest at his table.  On a day of running in the ruins, the media representatives are almost as prevalent in Port-au-Prince as the aid organizations.  More in the next blog.