Lost in the fire

By Nico — February 9, 2010 | 7 comments

February 5, 2010

Port-au-Prince - Madame Nicolas had been living in this wooden house since 1982. Her sister-in-law, Madame Fritz, tells me that after the earthquake on the 12th she had gone to the country in order to be safe. Before leaving, Madame Nicolas made the mistake of hiding all of her papers in the house.

Today, while people were scavenging for building materials on the nearby pile of rubble, someone lit the wooden house on fire. Some say it was a cigarette, others say the looters set it on fire because they couldn’t get in. We’ll never know.

This was a classical historical wooden house, and one of the last ones standing on this downtown street. It hasn’t rained for weeks, things are very dry and light up like matches. Madame Nicolas’s house went down in less than ten minutes. Almost 30 years of memories went up in smoke, just like that.

The police came very quickly and arrested the first guy they saw running with loot in his wheelbarrow. I asked a policewoman, Berline, what they do with people they arrest since there is no working court system or jails anymore. “For small offenses like this, we just release them after a few hours. For serious offenses, we lock them up at the police station until the courts can function again”.

Lighting a house on fire while looting is a small offense here. Where I live (Toronto), I risk life in prison for walking in the street with a beer in my hand.

At least this system will prevent many innocent people from being locked up, since the police force is not in “hunting” mode — and the guy they caught is innocent of setting the house on fire.

It is true that the police has been very tolerant and calm since the earthquake. Two weeks ago I saw the police catching looters inside a shop – they simply let the kids go, after keeping them lying down on the ground for a while.

Although the firemen showed up only after the house had collapsed, both they and the police were on the scene within minutes.

In some ways, things are well “under control” in downtown Port-au-Prince.

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