Detoured in Haiti

We met Rosa in the Port-au-Prince market. She sold limes from a sliver of a stall and smiled often, even when it seemed there wasn’t much to smile about.

She lived deep in the countryside, about ninety minutes away by car. She didn’t have one, so she took tap-taps, colorful pickup trucks packed with passengers. The trip took most of a day each way.

She’d stay at the market for several nights, selling fruit until every lime was gone. Then she’d head home with a few dollars. Two, if she was lucky.

Our producer, Marvin, bought out her stall and asked if she’d let us film her story, a video portrait to be included in our broader coverage of Haiti’s first democratic election. She agreed.

Driving through the countryside, houses made of mud, tarp, and metal scraps sagged by the roadside. Canals overflowed with fecal sludge. The smell kept me breathing through my mouth.

Rosa’s home, a two-room hut shared with her husband, children, and extended family, lacked electricity and plumbing. They cooked over a fire pit, used a hole in the ground as a toilet, bathed and washed in the river, and drank water pumped by hand from a communal well.

Her children stared at Joanne, my sound person, fascinated by her pale skin and strawberry-blond hair. One girl hesitantly reached out to touch it.

“Bel,” she said with a smile, meaning “beautiful” in Creole.

Joanne smiled back and snipped off a few strands for them to keep.

“I hope it brings them luck,” I said.

I thought about my own kids at home. Their clean sheets and school lunches.

We came to Haiti to cover a story. For Rosa and these kids, this wasn’t a story.

We followed her to the fields. She showed us how she picked limes, filling a heavy burlap sack. Hoisting it onto her shoulder, she strained under its weight. It weighed about forty pounds, pulling her down with every step.

We decided to shoot a reenactment of her trip to the market. It felt simple enough.

She climbed onto a tap-tap. I joined her briefly in the back with the other passengers, camera rolling. At the next stop, I hopped out and got into our jeep to shoot from different angles.

She started to climb down to follow me. I waved her back. “Stay there. We’ll catch up.”

She nodded, but I wasn’t sure she understood. I didn’t stop to make sure. Our jeep pulled ahead so I could shoot the approaching tap-tap at the next stop. When it arrived, Rosa wasn’t on it.

We drove down the road toward a gathering crowd. Fruit was scattered across the road. I jumped out.

Rosa lay on the ground, bleeding and unconscious.

I felt sick. Sweating. Chilled. I couldn’t move for a second. No phones. No medics. I never saw how she ended up in the road. How did it happen?

We lifted her into the back seat, her head resting on Joanne’s lap, and sped back to Port-au-Prince. Marvin gripped the wheel. Ninety silent, jarring minutes over rocky roads.

Every pothole sent a jolt through Rosa and all of us.

I kept replaying that last shot, wondering if our filming had anything to do with it. Wondering if she tried to follow me.

Was she robbed? Pushed? With every bump came more questions.

Blood seeped from her head. Her body was limp but still breathing.

Inside the hospital, bloodstains covered the walls and floor. The smell of disinfectant and something worse spoiled every breath.

No mattress. No bedding. So hot inside, yet a chill raced through me.

For twenty American dollars, we had a doctor examine her. He spoke English and had trained in the States. He handed me a list of medications and supplies and told me where to buy them.

“Patients must buy their own,” he said.

I went to get the medicine. Joanne stayed by Rosa’s side. Marvin went to the German embassy looking for better care. The elite didn’t come here.

Helpless, scared, and ashamed, I didn’t know what else to do.

I had a camera, not a cure.

I came to tell stories of democracy and hope. Now this was our story.

That night, a quarter moon hung in the sky as darkness covered the city. We left Rosa behind in that hellhole hospital and drove back to the hotel.

We had clean sheets and air conditioning. She had a grimy gurney. While we sat down to a three-course dinner, Marvin assured us she would be okay.

I wanted to believe him.