03/12/1992

FIRED UP FOR A HAITIAN HOLIDAY

Eric Ellis, Port-Au-Prince

HAITI?" "Coups!"

As gunshots echoed around the shanties of Port-au-Prince below us, the magnificent veranda of the Hotel Oloffson seemed as good a place as any to make fun of blighted Haiti with a word association game. One, or three, of Morgan the barman's lethal fruit punches lent further levity to proceedings.

"Haiti?" "AIDS!"

My partner was a right-wing Miami-based islands racketeer - "Bush should have nuked Baghdad". To him, Margaret Thatcher was nearer than God.

"Imagine Maggie in charge of this place," he ventured, "it would be just like England. England with palms and machine-guns."

Benighted places have a habit of uniting people who would never encounter each other in normal life, whatever that is. Foreigners regard each other with trepidation in Haiti, wondering what bizarre reason brought the other there. Nothing could be so simple as tourism. Haiti is a place one rarely visits for simple sightseeing.

Perhaps that's why these places are benighted, and few countries come more screwed up than Haiti.

Gallows humour may well be the only way to take this country, the world's first black republic, created in 1804 when the island's self-liberated African slaves tore the white strip out of the colonialist French tricolore.

One doesn't have a good time in Haiti, one has an interesting time and my American companion and I were having an interesting time laughing at each other's bad jokes and getting fairly sozzled in the balmy Caribbean night.

We had been warned by Ambrose, the Oloffson's resident multilingual gossip-fixer, not to go down into town, not even to watch a seemingly harmless soccer match between a bunch of army jocks and a civilian side that drew its players from the Cite Kokio ghetto.

"It much too dangerous, man. Many bad man on the streets now," he said, darkly.

Well lubricated, we ignored him. Ambrose was right.

The match at the national stadium dissolved in a scoreless draw, and supporters of the two sides spilled onto the streets outside the ground to continue the battle. Army 2, Civilians 0.

We ignored Ambrose because we thought he might have been favour-farming. Haitians hold that if you do something for someone, they have an immediate obligation to pay you back.

Hence the cloying, infuriating condition that afflicts every blanc, or white man, that visits Haiti - scores of Haitians hanging on your every whim.

Ambrose was an expert farmer and by the end of my week in Haiti, he let it be known he expected me to virtually sign my life away.

In the event, I signed on for an enamel painting of a tap-tap, the ubiquitous mini-buses that ferry Haitians around, which was admittedly a good buy at $13.

Graham Greene wrote The Comedians from a cottage in the grounds of the 90 year-old Oloffson, a hotel, he wrote, "where you expected a witch to open the door or a maniac butler with a bat dangling from the chandelier behind him".

It's not difficult to see where he got his inspiration.

The Comedians' Hotel Trianon is a very thinly disguised Oloffson, sans the body of the cabinet minister that Greene had floating in the swimming pool, the politician having taken his life before Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier's hated Tonton Macoutes did.

Bodies may not be there, at least not the week I swam there, but real life still throws up some unusual sights at the Oloffson pool, like the crocodiles one proprietor kept there as pets and for target practice.

Famous for its Monday night voodoo ceremony, the Oloffson has had as many eras as Haiti has had presidents.

Built either as a presidential residence or as a hospital for invading US Marines - no-one quite knows which - the Oloffson has been everything from a bohemian sanctuary for the American and European beau monde to a halfway dosshouse for hippies to a guesthouse for American gays.

Lately, thanks to Haiti's frequent coups (there have been nine since the Duvaliers fled to France in 1986), the Oloffson's new owner, Haitian-American Ronald Morse, has focused on accommodating the media army that regularly descend on Haiti, more recently in September when the elected former priestpresident, Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was rolled by the army.

The Oloffson's main bar gets all the US networks by cable; CNN, BBC and French channels by satellite dish; and the phone, fax and telex are three of the few things in Haiti that are secure.

With a South Seas meets Beirut meets Soweto ambience, Port-au-Prince itself is endlessly fascinating but very difficult. A made road is a revelation, and the few cars on the road tend to be four-wheeldrives.

To get a reliable breadth of the problems that afflict Haiti, one should visit the ghettoes like Cite Kokio and then the wealthy mulatto suburb of Petionville and the beautiful gingerbread homes of Haiti's thousand-odd millionaires clinging to the side of the hills overlooking Port-au-Prince.

If that excursion explains the effects of Duvalierism on Haiti, the US embassy on Harry Truman Boulevard gives some idea of Haiti's geopolitical conundrum.

The American writer-humorist P. J. O'Rourke omitted Haiti from his hysterical 1987 travel book, Holidays in Hell. Some countries are too hellish to even contemplate for a holiday.

FACT FILE

HAITI is a West Indies republic in the Greater Antilles. The most direct route to Haiti from Australia is via Los Angeles and Miami.

Qantas, phone (02) 957 0111, has daily services to Los Angeles where you connect with a choice of American carriers to Miami.

With Northwest Airlines, phone (02) 290 4455, you can fly from Sydney to Los Angeles and Miami via Memphis for about $1,600 return.

This includes six days' twin-share accommodation in Los Angeles and two-day car hire.

American Airlines, phone (02) 956 7055 and Haiti TransAir have daily flights from Miami to Port-au-Prince.

The cheapest return fare, a 14-day advance purchase ticket, is about $300.

DOS AND DON'TS AMID THE BULLETS

DO VISIT the extraordinary Citadelle, the 170-year-old fortress carved out by the slaves of King Christophe from a mountain and visible for 50 kilometres from the rugged northern country surrounding Cap Haitien, Haiti's second city. (Legend has it the blood of 20,000 slaves who died in its construction was mixed into the mortar.)

But however romantic it might seem, don't be conned into hiring a mule from the hundreds of mule-boys at Milot, the village below, to climb the 1,000 metres through jungle.

It will take about three hours and La Citadelle will be the less enjoyable for the uncomfortable ride and incessant babble you're bombarded with. Rather, hitch a ride on the many four-wheel-drives that come through Milot en route to the fortress.

Do take a wad of small denomination $US notes (ones and fives). Cash may be cumbersome but a greenback opens Haitian doors in a way local currency(gourdes) never will. Do take a moneybelt for your cash and valuables, and keep it out of sight.

Don't hire a car. Far too expensive, generally in worse condition than the roads and far more trouble than they're worth. Take buses and party all the way to your destination.

Do get a second, third and even fourth opinion on bus timetables. I didn't and twice was left waiting 10 hours for a bus that left an hour before I got there.

Don't wear a linen suit and panama hat.

Do buy Haitian art. The marche de fer (iron market) is great for cheap enamel works and papier-mache, while canvases are most reliably bought from Issa on rue Bonne-foi and Nader, 92 rue du magasin de l'Etat.

Do hire a daily guide, particularly in Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien and preferably through your hotel. Haitian hustlers are relentless and can drive you to tears. $US10 cash will suffice.

Do learn a few words of the Haitian patois, kreyol. It's worth it just for the delight of seeing Haitians fall about with joy.

Do prepare for Haiti. Its history is fascinating and explains a lot about the country today. One of the best books is Papa Doc - Baby Doc by James Ferguson, while a good guidebook is Cadogan's Guide to the Caribbean. Greene's The Comedians must be read while staying at The Oloffson.

Do stay at the Oloffson. It's one of the most eccentric hotels in the world. Besides, owner Ronald Morse needs the money and so does Haiti.