I’ve been twice to Haiti, both times for a few weeks. I thought I’d share a randomn collection of thoughts & stories on Haiti to help some of you better visualize life there.
Honestly, I think the people of Haiti are better equipped than most others for tragedy. Despite the brutality of this earthquake I think the people will persevere, especially with the helping hand of the international community. Haitians have a long history of achievement and overcoming horrible tragedy. All of you should reach the history of Touissant L’Ouverture & Haiti’s independence. Their story of independence is one of the most enthralling stories of an underdog overcoming incredible odds and achieving independence. Honestly, it is even more incredible than the US War of Independence, google it ( I can’t believe a Hollywood movie hasn’t been done on Touissant L’Ouverture).
In one of my past-lives I worked for Digicel. In the Caribbean, historically nobody had cellphones except the rich. Local governments had granted long monopolies to foreign companies, the classic example being Cable & Wireless. These foreign companies kept prices extremely high prohibiting average citizens from having affordable communications. Along came Digicel, from island to island they busted up monopolies and hammered prices downwards. It started in Jamaica (where Digicel is headquartered) and then spread across the entire Caribbean. The story was remarkable before they went into Haiti.
Then they entered Haiti. Haiti has a population of 10M people. Prior to Digicel the penetration of telephony was abysmal – under 1%. To get a cell phone you had to buy a phone at a few hundred dollars and then pay something like $80 to sign up, and then pay some godawful rate to make a call locally. Digicel came in with these amazing $20 phones from Nokia and Alcatel with an insane prepaid rate of 8 cents per minute (I think that’d be near the cheapest prepaid rate in the US today). When Digicel launched there was an impromptu parade in front of the Digicel office. We signed up 100,000 subscribers in 3 days!!! Last I heard Digicel was sitting at 3-4M subscribers in Haiti.
I spent my time driving around Haiti drive testing BlackBerry’s. I ran Digicel’s corporate product line across the Caribbean (i.e. products they sold to businesses). Annoyingly we were incredibly short on engineers in Haiti (recruiting is a nightmare), so I spent my days and nights drive-testing the entire island of Haiti making sure phones worked. It was a pretty cool break from my usual job of powerpoints and spreadsheets.
The country-side of Haiti is dusty. There is a lot of limestone mining and very little vegetation. The lack of vegetation is due to an annoying perfect storm of problems in Haiti:
1. Geographically, there are mountains that sit between Dominican Republic and Haiti. Most of the water flows into the Dominican Republic. In Dom Rep there is some of the most fertile land in the world. In Haiti there is some of the least. So vegetation has a hard time growing.
2. Politically, many years ago the French stabbed Haiti in the back and basically looted their treasury when they were given independence (by levying a $10M fee… $10M in the early 1800s). Haiti started overfarming their land in order to survive. That pattern continued as economic times got tougher.
3. Socially, the country is overpopulated. There are 10M people in a very small piece of land. This means they lean on the little vegetation & resources heavily
4. Geographically, its part of both the hurricane alley and on a fault line. The mountains also make flooding terrible after hurricanes hit.
So due to all these conditions, the country is now fairly barren and dusty.
But the people are something special. In Jamaica I had a hard time being in public. I’d get yelled at often with blatant racism and/or people asking for money. Haiti was different. I’d get out and investigate a tower and the children would swarm us and come and chit chat away (I can speak French somewhat). The whole country felt much warmer than better off countries I visited in the Caribbean.
If you want to do business in Haiti, its a whole world of planning that you probably haven’t thought of. Here are some of the things Digicel had to plan for…
Security
Their data center is armed with turrets with machine guns, filled with uzi-armed soldiers. You “security-experts” here in the US dealing with viruses and biometric access haven’t seen true security threats. And apparently those weapons have been used.
Recovery and resiliency
Power is lost constantly throughout the country. Every cell tower had three generators. Not only is there priority fueling arrangements from the US, but there is a local team of donkeys to get the fuel to the towers in case of washed out/earthquake-destroyed roads (same in Jamaica as well – donkeys + machetes are fantastic backup if you lose roads).
People & Recruiting
You need experienced professionals who have worked in tough environments and speak French. Digicel was clever, they recruited the management team from Lebanon. The original launch CEO was a lady who had overseen network deployments in the Beirut war and the first Gulf war.
Landing in Haiti was an absolute shock. Realize I was living in Kingston, Jamaica at the time – a very poor and very violent city (murder capital of the world the year I lived there!), so I wasn’t coming from a big, safe city in the first place. But Haiti was a whole new ball game. In Jamaica I could drive around on my own. In Haiti I got picked up in an armoured car by Digicel’s private security force of ex-French Legionnaires, Navy SEALs, etc. We drove in convoy!
Port au Prince and surrounding area is something else. I couldn’t imagine a worse place to get hit by an earthquake. They have had a string of bad luck with hurricanes and riots that had basically caused all infrastructure to be completely destroyed. Port Au Prince is a cascade of half-built/half-destroyed properties. You see tons of roofless buildings with rods sticking out. An earthquake would have been savage (as it was).
My wife was with me in Haiti, filming for a news network. The coverage is pretty unbelievable. She has the video somewhere, I will post it when I find it.
Lastly though, the culture is amazing. They have their own amazing language, the art is absolutely amazing and incredibly unique with a crazy history of metalworking, and there are even some really good French/Creole restaurants. Don’t forget the music & dancing/stilt-walking… and of course that whole Voodoo thing. In the 1920s-1940s I have read that Haiti was what Thailand is now (cool experience/culture + sex). If only the political instability could be sorted, the country has so much to offer culturally.
Anyways, I hope my ramblings are interesting. I encourage all of you to donate wherever possible.
