Toronto Star
By Jennifer Wells
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“A tourist got off a plane in Port-au-Prince, told immigration officials he was Miles Graham, 35, a dentist from Omaha. The Haitians looked right past his white cap, tight woolen shirt, dark glasses and absurd phony mustache and said: ‘Welcome, Marlon Brando.’” The Time magazine People item that ran Sept. 28, 1959, was light on intimate details. Brando was in the company of ingénue actress France Nguyen — “lush” was Time’s description of the just-turned-20 Nguyen — who was starring on Broadway in The World of Suzie Wong. A Volkswagen Beetle was rented for getting around. (That will be an eyebrow raiser for those familiar with travelling throughout Haiti.) And the couple danced to the voodoo drums at the Bacoulou nightclub. Perhaps the tumescent atmosphere didn’t need underscoring then, back in the day when Haiti was a tourist hot spot, a rum-soaked island getaway for romantics and sun-seekers, when lovers swam naked at Kyona Beach and dined at La Picardie in Port-au-Prince, as Brando and Nguyen did. The journalist and author Bernard Diederich added those details in his book 1959: The Year that Inflamed the Caribbean. The arrival of Cuba’s Castro had caused the U.S. administration to look more favourably upon the murderous little man leading Haiti who conjured the voodoo gods sitting in his bath wearing a black top hat: Papa Doc Duvalier, that bulwark against Communism, as the rationalizing Americans saw it. Thus began a time, Diederich wrote, “of collective denial and frozen expressions . . . as if Medusa had magically turned us all, foreigners and Haitians alike, into stone.” Still we stare.
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Is it too obvious to state, all these years later, that this curiosity of a country is unnervingly destabilizing? What you see in Haiti, an observer told me, depends on where you’re standing. As incongruous as it sounds, a main plank of the country’s economic rehabilitation platform is tourism, which thrives next door in the Dominican Republic and is all but dead in Haiti, and that was before the earthquake, and before the cholera. Where can one possibly stand to get a clear-eyed view of that? The Royal Caribbean ocean liner is sounding the retreat from its berth at Labadie on Haiti’s north coast. I cannot determine whether the ship is Freedom of the Seas or Liberty of the Seas or Independence of the Seas, but it sure is big, a multi-storied floating city that can accommodate more than 3,500 passengers. The Oasis of the Seas holds 6,000. Could that be she? Some of the passengers are waving from their state-room balconies, which is nice. Abandoned in their wake is the zip line for the adventurers, the aqua park for kids and the beach chairs from which the indolent can order the Labaduzee, the Royal Caribbean’s signature frozen rum punch.
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No, I can’t tell you what the Labaduzee tastes like. The beach is off limits to regular folk, cordoned off by sky-high wire fences. When the cruise line states in its tourism literature “Only Royal Caribbean can take you there,” they mean it quite literally. The promotional materials persist in locating Labadie “on the north coast of Hispaniola” —the land mass shared with the Dominican Republic — as if the word “Haiti” would give foreigners the jim-jams. On this side of the fence, beguilingly decrepit tin-topped water taxis are humped up on the beach. They are painted in reds and blues and yellows, a welcoming sight for wanderers open more to adventure and less to private enclaves.
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We are headed to Norm’s Place, one of those guest house names that gets tipped from traveler to traveler as a place you would rather be. There is no road to Norm’s Place. To get to Norm’s Place you have to walk up the two-step gangplank of one of these twee boats and putt-putt into the Atlantic Ocean, heading westward, momentarily dwarfed by the Royal Caribbean behemoth and those waving stick figures. As with the city tap-taps — the converted pickups that serve as private buses — the water taxis are emblazoned with comforting affirmations. In our case, La Main du Sauver. Norm’s Place comes into view as an ancient, low stone guest house tucked in a cove. The grounds are flowered and treed. The bedrooms are scattered in outbuildings behind the main house. Four-poster beds are dressed in mosquito netting. The doors from the main house stand open to the ocean. The sunset is blushing in shades of apricot and goes exceptionally well with a Prestige beer in its stubby brown bottle with its cheery red label. So this is Haiti. A pretty narrative at last, thank God. Snap out of it. “I used to sleep here the whole night when I was 18 years old. We would go swimming at four o’clock in the morning.” Franck Madiou is rather mournfully tipping his head toward the western reaches of the beach. One doesn’t have to look far to note that what was a stretch of virgin sand — Madiou is holding up an ’80s-era photograph against the horizon — is defiled now by concrete buildings mere steps from the water’s edge. “For me this is a paradise,” he says, staring at the snapshot. He raises his eyes to the newer reality: “That is very ugly.”
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There’s the usual tale of corruption and short-term thinking and serial local politicians with pocket-fattening agendas that don’t include, say, shoreline preservation. When he was a young lad Madiou remembers holiday trips to Port-au-Prince. It was a 2 ½-hour drive from nearby Cap-Haïtien to the capital. Today the trip takes at least six, possibly seven, hours. We flew Salsa Air, an experience that involved extended delays on the way up and, eventually, the absence of our names on the return flight manifest. Photographer Lucas Oleniuk proposed a spirited branding line for the airline: “Why fly when you can dance?” Back to Norm. “Norm” was Norman Zarchin, an American businessman who travelled through Haiti in the ’70s. Stayed. Started dealing in mahogany masks and sculptures. Fell in love, married Franck’s mother, Angelique. Norm’s Place is Norm and Angelique’s joint labour of love. Norm died last year. Angelique is temporarily in the U.S., so Madiou is managing the joint. Madiou’s story-telling takes a sharp corner and goes to what anywhere else would seem an inconceivably dark place. “I was born in Cap-Haïtien . . . 1965,” he says. The time of Papa Doc. His father’s name was Captain Serge Madiou. In the spring of 1967, Captain Madiou was found by the Haitian military’s Grand Tribunal in Port-au-Prince to have conspired with 18 other officers “with the intention of creating a climate of disorder and anarchy with the ultimate goal of a criminal attempt against the life of the Constitutional Chief-for-Life.” Each in the group was found guilty on two counts, mutiny and high treason, and ordered executed at Fort-Dimanche, the dungeon of death where more than 3,000 Haitians were disappeared in the Duvalier years.
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The mind snaps and zaps as Madiou recounts the stories he has heard. The prisoners were given food too hot to eat with only 30 seconds to get the gruel down. So they threw their plates against the jail cell walls — “plat,” he says, trying to verbalize what that might sound like — and ate their dinner as it ran in rivers to the stone floor. He believes his father spent no more than two weeks in Fort-Dimanche. He was told his father instructed his fellow officers: “Do not bend your knee before Duvalier.” He believes his father spat in the face of the bespectacled Chief-for-Life. He believes — and there is some documented support for this — that his father was executed by Duvalier personally. Madiou was 2. His father’s photo is on his cellphone. This was meant to be a story about tourism. One gets used to the curlicues of the Haitian reality. Just as I’m expecting a buildup to a thunderous indictment of the Duvalier years, Madiou weaves. “I can tell you the dictatorship of Duvalier was very hard. But under Duvalier’s system we live better. . . . The only thing you have to do is, don’t interfere with political affairs. That way you can send your children to school. You can eat. You have a house or a home. It was better.” What you see depends on where you’re standing.
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I see young laughing, naked boys splish-splashing in the warm ocean waters, hanging off the bows of the water taxis. I go swimming too, with an American backpacker we have picked up on our travels. A fisherman poles slowly alongside and asks if we would like him to bring us conch for dinner. Tip: if you come here and would like to have lobster for dinner, you need to order it early in the day. Visiting Cap Haïtien in October, 2009, Bill Clinton, then the newly appointed UN special envoy to Haiti, enthused about the prospects for tourism. “I love this place,” he said. “It’s wonderful. I see the potential.” There is potential. There’s Jacmel with its cultural vibrancy, even if it isn’t the St.-Tropez of the Caribbean as once hoped. More promising is the area further west on the south coast: Les Cayes, Ile-a-Vache. Port-Salut with its beaches. Port-a-Piment with its caves. But if a tourism plan is to work, it has to work in Cap-Haitien. The cicadas are singing so loudly in unison, one can barely hear the clopping of the horses as they head up the stone path to the Citadelle La Ferrière. Wusses ride horses. Better to walk up the steep incline and pledge not to stop for little rests. It’s harder than it looks.
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Situated just south of the Cap, the Citadelle is a UN world heritage site, the landscape is green and glorious, and the experience is as historically gratifying as a trip to any of those French chateaux. The French. Henri Christophe, who fought in the revolutionary battle under Toussaint L’Ouverture, built the fort so he could put down the French, should they ever return. He declared himself King Henri I, ruler of Haiti’s northern region, and he had bronze and iron cannon hauled up here by human chain to help reinforce the point. The French never came. Cannonballs remain stacked on site, the breeze drifts languorously across the grounds, and toilets installed prior to completion of the fort in 1813 still do the job: lift the wooden lid and observe the 40-metre open-air descent to the ground. Children would love it. There are no children. A half-dozen visitors drift about the great stony stairs sucking in the vistas that never end. The grounds of Christophe’s Sans Souci Palace are similarly barren. There are no buyers for the straw hats that blanket the little market area just outside the palace grounds. There’s no one to listen to the tale of an ailing and embattled Christophe killing himself by means of a silver bullet to the heart.
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Wait. A tiny gathering of horse-backed tourists approaches. A boozy-looking fellow is teetering side to side, managing to hold a cigarette and a beer in one hand, a sandwich in the other. The little pageant quickly passes. Twenty years ago, visitors would come by the carload from the DR, says Eduardo Almeida, country manager for the Inter-American Development Bank. For the IADB, tourism is a small, but fundamental, part of its plan for development in the country’s north. “If we focus here we will be able to make a tremendous difference,” he says. “Every week Royal Caribbean stops at Labadie with 6,000 people. . . . So let’s say that 10 per cent of these people would be willing to spend $100. $60,000 a week, $3 million a year. Three million dollars in a region that is totally poor. That’s a lot.”
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There are no visitors poised on the underwater sapphire blue bar stools at the Karibe Hotel. It is too cool at this time of year for in-pool drinking. But the hotel is full. “We mostly have reconstruction wheelers and dealers coming in,” says Richard Buteau, whose family owns the Karibe and the Kinam and the Ritz apartment hotel, all in Port-au-Prince. The Buteaus have been in the hotel business in Haiti for 80 years, starting with Aux Cosaques, an auberge that Buteau’s grandfather built above the capital in Kenscoff as a cooling getaway. As a young boy Buteau’s father was given the task of priming the oil lamps every Sunday. That boy would go on to create Le Rond Point, a restaurant near the port, where tourism in the capital really started. “It was the place to be,” says Buteau. On Tuesday, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission will once again descend on the Karibe to outline more go-forward plans for the country.
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Tourism isn’t the kind of story that draws much press. Buteau, not surprisingly, sees it as a linchpin. “But you need to have people with a vision who believe tourism is an alternative to poverty,” he says. “Even Fidel Castro, one of the biggest leaders in the Caribbean, who threw away capitalism and the tourism industry with his revolution, has realized that if he wants his people to get out of poverty he has to consider tourism as an option.” Tourism is complicated. “It’s easier to have a textile industry,” Buteau continues. Tourism demands non-stop electricity, water, roads, hospitals, security. But rather than seeing those gaping inadequacies as impediments, Buteau sees tourism as a driver to help force change. Environmental protectionism is in there, too. “Once you bring an economic value to something the people start protecting it rather than destroying it.” Unquestionably, a strong tourism sector is a cultural boost, something that Haiti deserves to benefit from. Funny, but as we sit behind the hotel on the enormous grounds I realize how quiet it is. Where’s the music? “You put Haitian music next to them, they get annoyed.” He’s talking about the wheeler dealers.
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He champions developing the industry in hubs, like the north. “You cannot solve all the problems of Haiti but you can decide, well, we’re going to take that region and we’re going to do a success story there and we’re going to make it happen.” Other hubs would ignite, he believes, if just one success could be proved. At the end of our conversation we walk through the Karibe lobby. There are photos of Aux Cosaques and Le Rond Point hanging on a wall by the bar. “The good old days,” he says, breezing away to his next appointment.

Six months after the earthquake, some of the city’s most damaged hotels – most notably, the historic Hotel Florita – have opened their doors again, bringing life to the hobbled heritage district just off the shores of Jacmel The gates of the heavily damaged Jacmelienne Beach Hotel have remain locked though little has changed on the legendary property aside from the colour of the stagnant water in the old pool, which has deepened to a mossy green. For several years the hotel has been the subject of a difficult estate-settling dispute and the earthquake has not helped the situation, which seems to have wound down to a standstill in spite of some signs early on that the building might be repurposed into a church or educational facility. “We have had some “interested” people, but up to now, nothing has materialized,” said Marlene Danies, a part-owner of the property who once ran the hotel. Offers to purchase the property, she said, are welcome.
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(Photos below by Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail)
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/project-jacmel/the-hotel/updat...

4/25/2010
Earth Times
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Cap Haitien, Haiti - The site is symbolically charged: The Cap Haitien citadel is visible from far away, with hundreds of cannons aimed at the sea.
In the mid-20th century, Haiti was a popular tourist destination. The country that shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic had beautiful beaches, a vibrant culture and delectable food. At the time, Haiti also offered something unique, a sort of "Africa in the Caribbean."
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Today, as the country seeks to rebuild after the devastating January 12 earthquake, tourism is likely to take on a key role. Cap Haitien, in the north, and Jacmel, in the south, are to be billed as major attractions. And yet the necessary infrastructure is currently missing.
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In 1804, Haiti became the first independent country in the Americas. Cannons at the Cap Haitien citadel, with its metre-thick walls atop the 910-metre-high Bonnet-a-L'Eveque hill, were intended to prevent French forces from returning to take back their former colony in the 19th century. The French never returned, and not one of these decorated pieces of artillery was ever fired.
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Over weekends, hundreds of descendants of slaves brought in from Africa visit the site, and the ruins of the Sans-Souci palace on their way up the mountain. Over a picnic, many enjoy the great views, and particularly a green scenery of mango fields and banana and sugarcane plantations that is rare in Haiti. The large fort and the impressive palace were both built under the self-proclaimed King Henri Christophe I (1811-20). Since 1982 they have been a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.
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Former US president Bill Clinton - now a UN special envoy to Haiti - visited the area in December last year, with a view to promoting tourism there with US businesses. "Tourism must provide the initial spark for northern Haiti's development," said Broder Schuett, a businessman who is also the sixth-generation German general consul in Cap Haitien.
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There, far from the earthquake-ravaged capital Port-au-Prince, an increasing number of business people show up with an interest in developing the area's potential for tourism. But almost everything is missing. The road to Cap Haitien from Port-au-Prince is in a sorry state along most stretches. In several places it has been washed away by flooding. Travellers have to take detours over the hills or across pools of water.
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In Cap Haitien there are a few small hotels, which date back to better days. And there is a boardwalk with restaurants. To talk of port facilities would be an exaggeration, in the light of the slums and the crumbling buildings they hold. Nearby, cruise ships regularly stop in the walled beach resort of Labadee.
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"We want to do more to bring passengers up to the fort," said Schuett, the local representative of the cruise company Royal Caribbean. There is an easier way to reach northern Haiti, other than from the Haitian capital. The Dominican border is only 40 minutes away, because the European Union built a modern road to Cap Haitien. It is one of only a few roads in Haiti that have road signs that alert drivers when the road is about to get narrower and tell them to respect certain speed limits.
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Jacmel, in Haiti's southern coast, can be reached from Port-au- Prince on a paved road. Currently, however, mudslides caused by the January earthquake and its many aftershocks are an obstacle to the trip.
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Jacmel, with its French colonial-style houses overlooking the sea, was seriously affected by the earthquake. But it too wants to become a success story. "Jacmel can become a picturesque, small French town in the Caribbean," said Haitian Central Bank governor Charles Castel. "We will promote tourism's return here." In Jacmel, people are busy trying to free themselves from a history of disaster. School lessons have started again, sometimes in makeshift wooden buildings in the outskirts of the town. And small hotels and seafood restaurants are opening on the beautiful beaches east and west of the centre.
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Thomas Oriental's mask shop on the heavily damaged beach walk was also devastated by the earthquake, as a side wall and portions of the roof collapsed. Now, young artists are painting more pictures and fixing the damaged masks. This Haitian store owner, for one, is not very hopeful that tourists from around the world will soon start pouring into Haiti. The task at hand is massive. "I need a loan in order to be able to survive with my shop," Oriental noted.
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And he expects no help from the authorities: "They were themselves victims of the earthquake."
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www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/320325,sans-souci-in-the-caribbeanhaiti-wants-tourists-back--feature.html#

Norman Zarchin of Norm's Place in Labadie, the most wonderful guesthouse, died quietly in Fort Lauderdale surrounded by his lovely wife Angelique and his family. He had suffered for many years from lung cancer and I am surprised he lasted as long as he did.
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For those of you who had ever visited or stayed there, Norman was the most wonderful host and his lovely guesthouse was a little oasis up in the busy area of Labadie. I shall miss him as it was a favorite place for my clients and my friends to stay. He was a real "gentleman". I organised 2 weddings up there, and sadly, the groom from the first wedding in 2002, Emmanuel Rejouis, died in the quake along with 2 out of 3 of his lovely young daughters.
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I hope that the guesthouse will still continue under the supervision of Kiki, Norm's stepson.
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Jacqui Labrom

Washington Post
By William Booth
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JACMEL, HAITI -- Behind the peeling facades and louvered shutters of its faded mansions and crumbling warehouses, this little beach town was a happening place before the earthquake -- and if Haiti is to ever revive its shattered economy, planners say Jacmel needs to draw some tourists again.
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"Tourism will not be the cure for all that ails Haiti," said Eduardo Marques Almeida, head of the Haitian office of the Inter-American Development Bank, "but Haiti has a lot to offer a foreign visitor, and Jacmel is one of places where the country should put its resources."
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Three hours south over the mountains from Port-au-Prince, Jacmel was starting to revive after years of coups, violence, despair. A few foreigners were moving in, with money from places such as New York and Paris, investing in properties that look like a Haitian version of New Orleans, with high ceilings and wrought-iron balconies alongside the old wharf.
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Jacmel was funky, with a bit of a bad-boy reputation as a drug-transshipment nexus, but mostly it was famous for its Carnival, the lively weekend beach scene and the vitality of its voodoo. Here is Haiti's only film school, a respected art institute and a movement to preserve the town's historic Creole architecture. It is the center of Haitian arts and especially handicrafts. But what hurricanes and years of neglect could not destroy, the earthquake tried to snatch away.
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There is severe damage, especially in the downtown, which was short-listed as a possible Unesco World Heritage site. Now the 19th-century Victorian structures are tilting and cracked, the filigree detailing down in the rubble piles and wrought-iron railings bent and broken. Engineers from city hall swept through recently, tagging buildings with spray-painted circles and dots. Red for danger, for destroy. Gold for good, fix, repair. There is a lot of red.
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"Our old buildings have big problems," said Jean Ruid Senatus, manager of the Hotel Florita, an 1888 townhouse built by the Vital merchant family. Before the quake, there were 15 guests at the Florita, decent WiFi and beer so cold there was ice inside the bottles. Now Senatus and a crew are shoveling plaster out of the stairwells and propping up the roof. He vowed to reopen next month. Before the earthquake struck, the locals say the sea suddenly withdrew and the beach was covered with flopping fish. The French clock on the cathedral stopped at 5:37 p.m. when a big aftershock hit.
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Dieusone Denejour is a fisherman who was knitting a net the other day in his yard. In the months before Carnival, Denejour, like many residents here, spent his days making the papier-mache masks that the town is known for. In a tin-roofed shed, he shows off his work -- puffer fish, mermaids, sea horses.
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"No Carnival, just three days of prayer," he said, so no sales. Richard Morse, the proprietor of the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince and the leader of the voodoo rock band Ram, walked around Denejour's neighborhood as residents came out to greet him ("Papa Richard!") and kiss him on the cheek.
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"That's where I was initiated," Morse said, pointing to the voodoo peristyle, or temple, where he was formally brought into the religion. The place is now in ruins. Morse bought an old historic house in Jacmel a few months ago and was relieved to see that it was still standing. When his friend the musician Jimmy Buffett visited Haiti a couple weeks ago, flying in his plane to deliver a load of tents, he said he was looking for a place to help and maybe invest in -- and he thought that Jacmel, with its Key West Caribbean vibe, might be the town. "I like it," Buffett said.
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They need the help. At the empty Hotel la Jacmelienne, the guard dog is sad and won't get up. The Samba Shop dance club is closed. The Sleep Late bar is shuttered. Giant pigs are snuffling around on the beach. In front of one of the handicraft galleries, Wilson Sanon was painting tap-tap buses onto wooden trays. Asked how it is going, Sanon said, "The tourists are not coming, and my home fell down." Before the quake, "things were getting better for Jacmel. Now the city is not the same city."
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At the Cine Institute, where Haitians are being trained to make movies, documentaries and commercials, there are cracks in the building, but it is still standing. At the edge of Jacmel, one of the film students, Marjorie Lefleur, lives among the banana trees in a one-room dollhouse, without electricity or running water, that she built with her mother. This is where she writes her scripts. "Since I was young I always wanted to make a movie. I always said I wanted to be an actor and work in film," said Lefleur, who is 25.
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In the quake's aftermath, the aspiring filmmakers were tasked with interviewing survivors of Jacmel. Lefleur found "a young man who knew the earthquake was coming, who said he had a dream that the earth would shake and buildings fall down. His parents thought he was acting crazy. He said someone in his family would die, that he will be trapped between two walls, and he drew a picture of this."
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Next to the film school, there is a big dance hall. When some visitors stopped by, the bar staff began to play the new version of "We Are the World," a song recorded to raise money for Haiti. They also turned on the disco ball, which spun around a couple of turns and then got stuck.

manoir alexandre was ruined by vandals a while ago-
even before the earthquake it was falling down. after looting someone even cut down all the trees and shrubs in the garden to make charcoal. I went on a very sad tour of it in 2008- Jacmel COULD be a nice town but right now it is not. Maybe on a sunday when its quiet. It is becoming totally overcrowded and the mayor is an evil thief who never finished high school. here are some photos you may enjoy- the yellow cars belong to the mayor- he has a hummer and a mercedes suv too-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38200467@N07/

Agree with everything you wrote! There are many more cities and locations that are even more interesting...people just have to travel to Haiti to discover them for themselves...
Or they can wait for "A week in the life of - Haiti Cherie" which is a project to have a photographs and essays book completed and published about Haiti. Using a select number of photographers from around the world to document the various aspects of haitian life for a specific "one week" period. One of our major goals is to capture the often-missed beauty and splendor of Haiti along with the unavoidable squalor. A wide diversity of background and experience is envisioned. All this will produce a volume worthy of adorning your coffee table…and every public library and private collection in the world, finally!

I was in Cap this past week that was in Haiti. I have been in Jacmel, and found them similar, with Cap larger and with a slum problem, but better for hotels and overall organization. Both have a more laid back atmosphere and populace. Demonstrations there were brief and nonviolent and did not affect my visit. There are several very hard working and effective aid organizations, notably and pertinently, Food for the Poor, along with a number of other missionary groups providing education and health services, and AIDG recently joining to work on sanitation issues in the slums. We also visited the incredible Citadel, and Labadee, which is one of the most beautiful places we have seen anywhere, and where the community works well for itself. (note: unfortunatley, Habitation Haiti is closed) It is sad to think about the effects of this past week's events on the prospects of tourists discovering any of this; we were the closest thing to tourists there, and we go due to our commitment to humanitarian work in Haiti. The potential is there, but there is no way it will happen with these kinds of problems and reports coming from Haiti and with a State Department travel warning and/or ban in effect.