Day Fifteen: The Forever Drive
Photo: Grant Fuller
Hurry up and wait. That’s been the theme of my time in Haiti. Today was full of frustration as my best efforts were thwarted at nearly every turn. Even if you start at the crack-a-dawn, you can easily spend an entire day and get very little done. An hour in the car to arrive at the bank. An hour in the bank line to retrieve not enough money. An hour across town to an interview that doesn’t happen. An hour waiting for lunch at the only decent joint for miles around. An hour recording audio that’s unusable thanks to a ridiculously loud tractor. An hour convincing security guards to give you access. An hour in a traffic jam with UN soldiers pretending to help. An hour of being distracted by the sights of another devastated neighborhood. And that’s it. Eight hours, plus some. Six o’clock rolls around and darkness takes over. The day is done and the checklist hasn’t changed.
I thought I was used to the slow pace of life and business in the developing world. But when you’re only here for a couple weeks, you need things to move a little faster. It’s simply not gonna happen, especially when this nation has just seen a historic earthquake. So I’ll continue to hurry up, I’ll surely wait for ages, and I’ll buck up and deal with it.
Follow Grant on Twitter: www.twitter.com/grantinhaiti. Donate to Grant's reporting project: www.clpmag.org/grantfuller.