A Tale of Two Hotels in Haiti

It's run by Richard Morse, an American of Haitian descent who was a painfully beautiful and feckless American hippie/preppie when I first met him and he first started running the hotel two decades ago. Over time, he has ripened into something far more Haitian. Now, Morse is a virtually dredlocked grey hair, and a legendary figure in Port au Prince, both as a cultural hotelier and as leader of the traditional/rock band RAM, which plays at the hotel every Thursday, and makes the old beams tremble.

But in the earthquake this past Tuesday, the old beams really trembled. Everyone ran out. The hotel held its ground and did not fall, although part of the retaining wall on the rue Capois broke off and killed a passerby. It was evening, usually a time when the hotel's guests gather on the broad veranda for drinks, popcorn, peanuts, and welcome punches, as they are called.  

Since then, all the guests and a hoard of journalists have been sleeping in the driveway. Two nights after the earthquake struck, some curious passersby came up to look at them, mistaking them for corpses. Morse himself has roamed the city with his cell phone, one of the earliest voices to be heard internationally from the wreckage--on Twitter (@RAMhaiti).

Among his many talents is mastery of the written word, and even in his short tweets he created a sense of the weirdness, the mystery, the terrible destruction, the loss, the death, and a man walking through a terrible new landscape. Meanwhile, he had the troubles everyone else had, but magnified: he had to find food and drink in all the chaos for guests numbering probably over a hundred. His generator collapsed. His receptionist was too scared to come in. He may have lost several of his employees. They have not been heard from.

Well, so the last time I was down there, I stayed at the Oloffson that first night. Some people had occupied my usual room long-term. I was packed off into a little room on the side of the maternity (the hotel was once used as a hospital and has retained some  of the lingo). My one light turned on and off only if you twisted the bulb in and out. The curtains over the windows were sparse, and I kept falling in and out of the bathroom because of the little step there at the doorway. It was... atmospheric. 

Anyway, I was working hard, and feeling mature and efficient. I decided to take the hard-hearted route and move up the hill to the Montana, a place I'd sworn I would never patronize because it was modern and dull and filled with fancy development people and business types. I preferred, and prefer, the motley clientele of the Oloffson, which includes writers and artists, musicians, oddballs of all sorts, daughters of Haitian presidents, folk-singers who never pay their bills, photographers having migraines... everyone interesting. 

I forsook all this cultural and human splendor for a business office, decent communications, full service amenities, etc. I moved up the hill. I was on the third floor of the Montana--I prefer low floors because I live in LA and I've made the (probably wrong-headed) decision that I like to be closer to the ground in a pancake situation, not that I ever imagined there would be an earthquake in Haiti. Never occurred to me. 

And surprise, the Montana was not so bad as I had imagined it to be in my romantic youth in Haiti. It was clean and things worked--there was hot water, all the time! Nor was it as efficient and coldly perfect as I had imagined. I fled Morse's Thursday music night only to discover that the Montana was having a huge Haitian wedding near the pool on that same evening--until midnight.

When I saw the pictures of the flattened Montana this past Wednesday, I was horrified and nonplussed. I could see that the many floors, with their balconies and vines, had all settled on top of the bar where my cell phone would work, and where I'd made all my calls. The terrace where I'd run into a number of friends having drinks was crushed, and the wrought iron balustrade was lurching out of the wreckage at an unlikely, violent angle. The presidential suite, which I'd visited and where Wyclef Jean used to stay in Haiti with his giant entourage, was sitting on top of the whole thing, utterly destroyed.

So many Haitians, visitors to Haiti, lovers of Haiti died at the Montana. Earthquakes are the most democratic of natural disasters-- the slums came down but so did the hotels and the houses of the rich. Those people who worked at the Montana--who'd carried my baggage and written my bill and brought me my lambi with djon djon (conch and local mushrooms). Probably all among the dead or wounded. 

But the Oloffson withstood the rocking. One thing we learned was that old buildings, solidly  made of wood in the 1800s and 1900s, fared a bit better than new buildings, which were often slapped together from cement block and concrete. Still, so much has fallen that--as with New Orleans--the city will never be what it was, will never have the same character. All the monumental edifices fell: the Presidential Palace, the Cathedral, Army headquarters, the Palace of Justice, the Parliament. The little houses of the slums collapsed into piles that look like pebbles, wires, and woodchips, tin roofs lying like accordion folds on top of one another. Downtown, entire neighborhoods are in wreckage. 

Petionville, the wealthy redoubt at the top of the hill overlooking Port au Prince, slid around wildly and hundreds of houses, shops, markets, and shanties were lost, with casualties to match. Cyril Pressoir, a friend who runs a small travel company up there, told me in an email today that he lost "many great friends," some of whom he'd had to pull out of the rubble with his own hands.

There hasn't been much communication with Jacmel, the small, picturesque seaside town that attracts many visitors, but it too was badly damaged in the quake. The Cyvadier Plage hotel lost one building. The colonial downtown lost many others, with loss of life, too, no one yet estimating how many--but many, that's for certain.

 

A whole geography must be remade in Haiti. But the problem is this: will people care about Haiti the way they did about New Orleans (not that the reconstruction of New Orleans has been perfect, by any means)? Will they gather in construction crews with Habitat for Humanity to get stuff to Haiti and rebuild? Will college kids from the U.S. and elsewhere make three-week trips to Haiti to help out, for the nest three or four years, until the job gets done? Will Haiti's foreign friends stick with it? Housing must be put in place for hundreds of thousands of people. That's a huge job, requiring colossal resources and the will to work in trying circumstances.

The circumstances will be trying, at least for the first six months. But Haiti will always be Haiti, and I say that with optimism. It's a resourceful country, where people are used to making a lot out of very little. Haitians will be incredibly generous to their helping friends. And no one has a sense of fun like Haitians who sense that affection is shared. Eventually there will be music again, and dancing, and spicy food, strong rum, strong coffee. There will be the eternal hot nights and starry skies. There will be a welcome punch. 

I'm going to be on a crew to help out in Haiti. Will you?

Amy Wilentz wrote about Haiti in Condé Nast Traveler's September 2009 issue

More Reporting on Haiti from the editors of Condé Nast Traveler
* Clive Irving asks: "Where are the Americans?" (part 1 and part 2)
* When Kevin Doyle visited Haiti in February 2009 with Population Services International, he saw a country of "crippling poverty."  Post-quake, Doyle hopes that Americans  "realize just how close to home Haiti really is, and how desperately it needs our help."
* How to Help Haiti:  A list of organizations on the ground
* How to support the work of Condé Nast Traveler partner Population Services International with their work in Haiti
* Cruise Haiti?  A question posed to readers