This trip was no exception, and what I saw and heard was the most pitiful, sad and hopeless Haiti I'd ever seen. Further, it is a virtually lawless Haiti. There are almost no police or Haitian military to keep any semblance of order. In the past the role of police and army was quite mixed, they being both the source of political terror and basic civil order at one and the same time. Now they are gone, with the exception of a handful who appear during the morning and evening rush hours at places like Martin Luther King and Airport Road, and Martin Luther King and Lalu, directing traffic.
Petty crime is on the increase.
On my last evening in Haiti a group of university students who were staying at the same guest house as me, wanted to go to the Hotel Oloffson to hear RAM perform it's wonderful music. They asked me to go since I knew the ropes of riding public transport, spoke Creole and was the sole male in the group. This was not my concept of a good idea, but they hadn't been to the Oloffson nor heard RAM, and they really did want that experience. We were living off Delmas 91, and walked out to Delmas. What a shock.