Back to work in Port-au-Prince

By Nico — February 2, 2010 | 5 comments

Port-au-Prince – The city has changed a lot since the 13th of January. Downtown still looks like a war zone. But as the food lines become routine, and help starts to arrive, life seems to grow back towards a sort of a “normality” at least a street level.

Drivers honk each other in the crazy traffic, women bargain at the markets, backhoes and workers clean up the rubble, young men chat up the girls at bus stops, banks and stores reopen slowly.

Journalists recycle stories and UN soldiers seem as sleepy as ever. You can even have a conversation without being interrupted by army helicopters flying low.

This ruined city is swarmed by people hungry to live. The old inequalities and social order are starting to show their face again. The pain and misery seem to be covered by the sheer will to move on. Mothers will remember their lost children in silence.

People didn’t have time to grieve, they are hungry, they need to find work and rebuild their broken lives whether they still have a family or not.

For the professionals, there isn’t much left to do as all major businesses are down. The main industry is now the aid industry.

But the “street” economy is back at work. Even in the “well off” camps you can have your laundry done, buy cooked meals. You commonly see “phone charging” spots, where someone will charge your phone out of a car battery. In a country were 80% of the population lived with less than 2 dollars a day, people know how to survive. Within poverty, people create “micro” markets.

Edgar Royal restarted is bicycle repair shop that he runs on the side walk.

Bicycles waiting their turn with Edgar:

Fede Wousmail is carving car parts out of old tires.

Every where people recycle things, build coal stoves with scrap metal. “Business is not as good since many people have left town”. Like most of the people I meet, Fede accepted this new reality, “it is much harder to get by, but we’ll be fine”.

Tags: Economy Featured Nicolas Jolliet Port au Prince Survivors Web Video