The Marche de Fer, or Iron Market, is an iconic part of Port-au-Prince's commercial life, and it was totally destroyed in the 12 January 2010 earthquake. The CEO of Digicell, an Irish telecoms company with major holdings in the Haitian market, sponsored the reconstruction of the Marche de Fer to give hope and a pulse to business in downtown Port-au-Prince. There are two sides to the Marche de Fer: one is tourist gimcracks and a lot of paintings of various (and often dubious) quality, and the other side is practical and household goods.
Looking across the home goods side of the Marche de Fer.
Turtles! Lots of vendors were settling small turtles as pets. There were also a number of adorable kittens on very short ropes at most of the home goods stalls. Turtles play an important role in several Vodou ceremonies, so maybe some these turtles had bright futures.
Modern health care, Haiti-style. These are leeches, the old-fashioned blood-suckers. They were for sale all over the place in the market in plastic Coke bottles, and according to people we asked, are still quite popular as a medicinal treatment for a number of ills. Who knew? Luckily we can get medevaced if anything goes really wrong....
Kitchen goods, foods, spices, pots and pans -- you can get anything you need at the Marche de Fer!
Rice and beans - several varietes! - for a healthy diet. I think our dry food comes mostly from the grocery store (our maid does the shopping for us) and only the fruits and veggies come from the markets.
I think this is dried hibiscus for tea. I've never seen it like that, but they told us it was flowers for tea, and I think that's what the picture on the package looks like! And I think the bark-like things in the left of the photo are cinnamon.
One of Port-au-Prince's arteries. You can see the sprawl heading up the hill in the background; those houses are mostly in what is called "precarious conditions," and I understand there is a major political issue simmering about the government's hope to move people out of dangerous zones (landslides and mudslides) and the people's determination to stay where they've always been, except, they haven't always been there because the sprawl is relatively recent. To say there's a certain degree of distrust between the people and the government is fair in Haiti these days!
Note the almost first floor-high pile of rubble on the left side of the photo. Clean up of businesses has not advanced much because people simply left downtown and headed to the higher ground of Petionville, a town joined to Port-au-Prince by urban sprawl before the earthquake and the home of many internally displaced people (IDPs).
These next three photos show the makeshift storefronts that people are using for their businesses. The damage from the earthquake is ever-present.
Note that you can see the cinder block wall of the next building through what should be the front wall of the yellow hardware building. Much of downtown looked to be in similar conditions: basically the arcade structures covering the sidewalk survived the quake, and people use them as shelters for business.
Here's a series I would like to respectfully call "Why driving is difficult in Port-au-Prince." Commerce is in the streets, on the sidewalks, everywhere.
Haitians -- mostly women -- carry enormous loads on their heads as a matter of course. Often we see them balancing crazy amounts of fragile things (eggs!) without their hands, walking over rough ground as if it were nothing in the world.
Port-au-Prince's buses are called tap-taps, and they are strictly off limits to us. They are often brightly painted and have messages on the windows, like this one. I've seen some that say, "Mesi Manman" - thanks Mom! Lots of them also have funky metal hands -- a bit like Mickey Mouse gloves -- sticking out around the wheel wells. It's best to not be anywhere near a tap-tap when you're on the road, and all the savvy drivers (like Ian!) honk every time they start to pass one to make sure the tap-tap driver doesn't broadside the private vehicle. Lots of tap-taps in other parts of town are light pick-ups (think old Toyotas) with a raised canopy and wooden benches. People hang out the backs of them at rush hour. Ian and I agree that we don't miss those days at all!
Here's another tap-tap. That's the front window you're looking at with the frosted windshield and the bat. The top says "Free Night" (in English). Like I said, it's best to give tap-taps a wide berth.
This is looking across from the Marche de Fer. If Digicell had not rebuilt the market structure, business would go on, but it would be much more vulnerable.
The National Cathedral was totally destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, and lots of people died in the collapse. The building is closed because it's dangerous, but someone has spraypainted the Stations of the Cross around the outside so that worshipers can continue to use the area. You can see Stations V and VI in this photo. The Episcopalian Church was also destroyed in the earthquake.
Another view of the Cathedral with some remnants of stained glass still in the window.
In front of the National Palace is the "Marron Inconnu," the statue of an idealized escaped slave who used the conch shell to signal activities during Haiti's revolution at the turn of the 18th century (ca. 1794 - 1804). The Marron Inconnu shares a small plaza with an eternal flame to the victims of the Duvalier dynasty.
Haiti's magnificent National Palace was destroyed in the 2010 earthquake. The government is disassembling the Palace for reconstruction. Haiti built the National Palace during and after the U.S. occupation from 1915 through 1934, and the Palace symbolized freedom and sovereignty as well as being architecturally delightful. I include a photo of the palace before the earthquake taken from a google source with "before" photos.
The National Palace, north wing.
The National Palace, south wing in profile.
You can buy anything on the streets of Port-au-Prince, but buyer beware!
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