Wrapping up in Haiti and in the words of Chris Rock...

Sac passe ('what's up'),,
 
On Monday, I grabbed a 19-passenger prop-plane leaving Port-au-Prince to the north of Haiti, Cap Haitian. After we had boarded I noticed my bag was still outside and when I saw the tar mack crew about to close the doors I quickly jumped off the plane and told them I wasn't  going anywhere without my bag. They informed me that the luggage compartments were full and so they could fit every one's luggage but mine and the other 2 'blancs' (foreigners) and as such, it would arrive on one of the next flights a good many hours later. Thankfully, the pilots were from nearby Dominican Republic and so they spoke Spanish and after reasoning with them, they agreed to throw our bags into some of the extra passenger seats. The flight itself was good and no one seemed to be bothered that I had held up the plane a few minutes or that someone had to sit beside my stink bomb of a backpack.
 
Cap Haitian (aka CH or Cap) is a town of about 250,000 strong where cruise ships used to dock about 20 years ago. Today, those cruise ships still stop, but about 40 minutes west of CH at a place called Labadie. What's funny is that the cruise companies actually call it 'Espanola' so tourists don't think they are stopping in 'dangerous' Haiti when they arrive. Apparently the water is pristine, but I will have to let you know next time as I stayed in Cap to visit potential partners and didn't get a chance to soak in the surf, sand and sun.
 
During my days in the north, I met with Konbit Sante and Meds for Kids, two health care-related groups. Konbit Sante is working with the local public hospital to improve its internal systems, capacity and infrastructure; Meds For Kids (MFK) produces something that looks like and basically is peanut butter, with the intent to curb malnutrition amongst children in Haiti. What it does is, it sets up mobile clinics around and in town so local women can bring their kids to see if they meet the international guidelines of malnutrition or not. MFK measures and weighs each child and if the child cries too much or becomes too difficult and won't stand on the scale, the mom is asked to stand on the scale first with the child and then without the child, to get the difference (i.e. the child's weight). If the infantd is deemed malnourished, the mother is given 5kg of peanut butter to last for two weeks when another assessment is done (to see if they have gained weight).
 
Since these clinics are mobile, they literally go wherever they can find a place to setup shop. That meant the clinic we were at during my visit was sitting on a local garbage dump. The best way to describe it is as Chris Rock describes a similar area during his visit to South Africa, in this month's Vanity Fair special edition on Africa..."Imagine the worst ghetto in America. Now set it on fire. Now try to put out that fire with shit."
 
In between spending time with these groups I toured around Cap walking up and down its port and streets. Unfortunately I forgot my video camera charger at home and my camera busted a week ago so the only pictures I have of Cap Haitian are the memories in my pea-brain. Snap snap, record, zoom, pause and fade out.
 
I returned from CH to the capital yesterday and had a few meetings to wrap up my stay here for my first visit in Haiti.
 
11 days in a whirlwind of experiences and meeting some very interesting people...from the slums of Cite Soleil to the child soldiers that helped fuel the past decade of violence to UN troops roaming the streets in tanks and body armour to the hospitals providing needed care to locals and to the continuing belief, that even in Haiti, business can and will do amazing things!