Often, when one group of people ignore the rules of the road, it’s a catalyst for chaos. South Africa is a good example of this. So, in Haiti, where even basic traffic rules, like which side of the road to drive on, are treated as mere suggestions, it is astonishing that it all seems to work.
According to ITV, repairing all the potholes in England and Wales would cost £14 billion. If that were accurate, repairing all the potholes in Haiti would cost more than the UK’s gross domestic product. It isn’t a coincidence that almost everyone drives SUV’s. Going to the shops feels more like an expedition than an outing. And, because the city spreads up the side of a mountain, with hills radiating from it like fingers, there are only a few arteries from ‘downtown’ to ‘uptown’. The seven kilometer journey uptown to the supermarket in Pètionville can take over an hour.
Ironically, the worst section of road in the city is the kilometer or so outside the US Embassy in Tabarre. There, the potholes are reversed: little islands of tar sticking out of the dirt waiting to rip the sumps from the bold or the unwary. A constant pall of dust hangs over the embassy, fading the colours of the flag that hangs listlessly outside. It’s probably Haiti’s way of saying ‘thank you’ for interfering in their politics.
In a city with choked roads and knackered cars, the potholes slow everything down. Where there are potholes, accidents are slow, almost graceful affairs, but on the few smooth stretches of road, things often turn deadly. In our first two months, we saw two motorbike riders lying dead in the street; a newly dismembered Tap Tap appeared one morning. It still lies on its side on one corner as a memorial to those who were in it when everything went wrong.
Speed bumps calm things down in the suburbs, where the roads are generally in better condition. They aren’t the long, rolling speed bumps that SUVs sneer at as they cruise by at warp speed, but the short sharp ones that reach up and tear the guts out of the disrespectful.
Our daily commute to work is a good example of what it’s like to get around. There are two main routes, the shortest one is unremarkable, but during rush hour, nothing moves. So we often take the back route through Vivy Mitchell. It’s a bit of a roller coaster ride. It starts off innocuously enough along the back roads out of our gated suburb to the foot of Rue Vivy Mitchell. That’s where the cog engages and the car tilts up for the big climb. It rattles to the top, bouncing over the speed bumps and potholes. The next section is harmless: a sharp left turn, followed by a sharp right. Then the road plunges down, past a police checkpoint and on to the bottom where it swerves right and starts to climb again. When we plunge down the second drop, I brace for the loop.
About halfway we reach the flat lands, leave the roller coaster and board the bumper car. It’s easy to avoid the other cars on the straighter roads at the bottom of the hill; stray goats, dogs and cows are the main obstacles. But closer to the airport, where the road widens, the action picks up again. The roads there are heavily potholed and everyone seeks the path of least resistance: swerving back and forth like drunkards, veering from one side to the other, undertaking and over-braking, all in an effort to stay on the tar.
At first, we relied on Sanley, our driver, to get us around. But we wanted our independence and were determined to venture out on our own. It’s one thing to sit passively (if you don’t count the clenched teeth and white knuckles) while someone else negotiates the mayhem. It is a completely different tin of tuna to do the driving yourself.
We made an arrangement with Sanley to hire his car. It is a Ford double-cab and has seen better days. Half the indicators didn’t work, the windscreen wipers had no blades and the bodywork was held together with wire. We dubbed it The Beast.
We quickly learned that there are many intersections, but few stop streets. Nobody pays any attention to either. Most intersections need some extra caution, because it’s seldom obvious who has right of way. Even when it does seem evident, it’s always good to remember that assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.
The busier intersections are more of a challenge. Traffic from four or more directions meets in the middle and grinds to a halt in a Gordian knot. One by one, the cars, taxis and trucks disentangle themselves from each other, working their way carefully through the snarl until they are free again. It requires just the right balance of passive aggression, and it wouldn’t work anywhere else in the world. But here, nobody gets stressed. When we first made it successfully through one of the big intersections, we both whooped, high-fived to celebrate.
On one occasion, we had to cross a line of cars that was bumper to bumper in the opposite direction. We settled in for a long wait, but a taxi in the queue reversed to try to let us through. There still wasn’t space to turn. We couldn’t reverse because the traffic behind us was equally backed up. Then the guy on the motorbike behind us made space and signalled for us to reverse. We made the turn, squeezed through the line of cars and were on our way: synergy amongst the chaos.
One-way streets are not always signposted and it is not uncommon to meet someone coming down the wrong way. In our case, we managed to go the wrong way a couple of times and met cars coming the right way. There was little more fuss than a quick flash of lights to let us know that we had cocked up.
Our first foray out of town was to one of the beaches north of the city. We had passed the airport and were almost out of town when a policeman pulled us over. He was very smartly dressed and extremely polite. The conversation went something like this (in French and a little Creole):
‘Bonjour.’ He said, smiling.
‘Bonjour. Koman ou ye?’ Nicky had already learned some Creole.
He smiled, came straight to the point. ‘I’m okay, but I’d be much better if I had as much money as you have.’
My heart sank, but I kept smiling.
‘Too bad,’ Nicky said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the beach.’ I pointed to the others who had seen us being pulled over and had stopped a little way ahead. ‘With our friends.’
‘Have a nice day,’ he said. And that was it. He could have fined us for an almost endless number of things, but The Beast doesn’t exactly exude wealth. We’ve come to love the car because it allows us to blend in.
After almost four months, driving here has become normal. The open drains, the Mack trucks that hog the road, the fact that nobody indicates all add to the challenge. They are just part of the daily commute.