The alarm went off at two the following morning for our our five fifty-three flight to Port-au-Prince. We made our way, bleary-eyed, to the airport and found ourselves in a sleepy departures hall with all the shops firmly shuttered and not a cappuccino in sight. With Hurricane Matthew making its way steadily through the Caribbean, we checked the weather channels to see if it would make landfall in Haiti. It was veering towards Haiti’s south-western peninsula and was expected to arrive within forty-eight hours. We began to wonder if we would get there before the airport closed. But boarding commenced on schedule and we were soon on our way.
I had an aisle seat and Nicky was in the middle, so when we started our descent, there wasn’t much for us to see. I craned to get a view of the island, but could only glimpse patches of green, white and blues: the indigo of the Caribbean and the lighter blue of the sky. Reassured that the hurricane hadn’t arrived, I retreated to my book.
We touched down just before nine and emerged into a tropical clammy heat that felt like West Africa.
Neither the airport buildings nor the arrivals hall dispelled the notion that we might be in Africa. But the posters advertising Caribbean beach resorts just north of the capital gave away our real location. We were met by the base manager, Patrick and driver Sanley, who drove with a nonchalance that belied both the traffic and the state of the roads.
Dusty, garbage strewn roads with potholes that stretched all the way across and beyond provided a battleground for a helter skelter of cars, taptaps and motorbikes that weaved in amongst each other in seemingly random trajectories.
Port-au-Prince hugs the foothills of Kenscoff, the cloud-shrouded mountain that overlooks the city, and hugs them hard. Its many foothills are precipitous, growing in stature and steepness as they near the mountain, turning the twelve-kilometre journey from the airport to the crew house into a thirty-minute rollercoaster ride.
In its place was a voluminous six-bedroom house, situated in Belvil, a gated suburb, and one of the sanctuaries where wealthier Haitians, and UN staff, retreat from the mayhem. It seemed deserted, its doors ajar to take advantage of the breeze. We were shown up to our room, where we dropped off our luggage before exploring our new home.
Despite the obvious lack of a swimming pool, it was more than we’d ever expected from a crew house. Apart from the six bedrooms, there were two lounges, one with a television and the other on a lower level. The kitchen was a good size and seemed well equipped, if a little dated. When I had a closer look at the four-burner gas stove, I let out an involuntary shiver. It was wretched. The sort of wretchedness that eventually accumulates when something hasn’t seen a scourer since it was born: last century sometime.
The rest was typical of a crew house: stale food in the cupboards, bottles of water stacked haphazardly outside an empty cupboard in one corner and dirty dishes in the sink. In contrast, the garden was beautiful with a profusion of tropical flowers and a scattering of coconut palms. In one corner, a vine covered pergola looked like a good spot for Sunday lunch.
‘Where are the other crew?’ I asked Patrick.
‘In their rooms.’
Nicky and I looked at each other. ‘Here?’
Patrick looked at me strangely. ‘Yes.’
‘But it seems so quiet.’
Patrick shrugged.
One emerged a few hours later. He seemed to by a nice guy, but he soon retreated to the darkness of his room. The other didn’t emerge from his bat cave until the following day.
So once we had unpacked, with no-one to talk to, Nicky and I rolled up our sleeves, boiled up some water, dug out all the cleaning stuff that we could find and began the long and arduous process of dismantling the stove piece by piece and giving it the first thorough cleaning of its life.
By the time we put the kettle on, our first day in paradise was drawing to a close. And Matthew had yet to make landfall.