{"id":2424,"date":"2018-08-10T04:29:34","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T08:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/?p=2424"},"modified":"2018-08-10T04:29:34","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T08:29:34","slug":"rediscovering-haiti-cheri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/?p=2424","title":{"rendered":"Rediscovering Haiti Ch\u00e9ri"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rediscovering Haiti Ch\u00e9ri<\/strong> by Jim Hutley<\/em><\/p>\n

The one thing that has suffered\u00a0the most in Haiti\u2019s economy over\u00a0the last six decades of dictatorships, hurricanes, and a massive\u00a0earthquake in 2010 is the lack of\u00a0a vibrant tourist industry. Prior to\u00a0the Duvalier regimes, beginning\u00a0in 1957, Haiti had a relatively\u00a0strong tourist business with fashionable hotels in Port-au-Prince\u00a0and some small beach resorts\u00a0between the capital and Petit\u00a0Go\u00e2ve and north on Route\u00a0Nationale # One towards St. Marc.<\/p>\n

Tourism picked up a fair\u00a0amount after Jean-Claude Duvalier took over in 1971 but it has\u00a0never risen to the levels of Jamaica or Haiti\u2019s next door neighbor, the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

Today, Haiti\u2019s largest tourism\u00a0is made up of mission groups that\u00a0come for a week to ten days and\u00a0usually travel to a local area far\u00a0from cities where they will concentrate their efforts helping and\u00a0encouraging local churches, particularly evangelical ones.<\/p>\n

This is good and better than\u00a0nothing, but Haiti has so much\u00a0potential when it comes to making use of its historical sites and\u00a0beautiful beaches that it is losing\u00a0out on a wealth of prosperity\u00a0which would inevitably trickle\u00a0down to the poorest local residents.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite places is avacation spot along the lower\u00a0coast of Haiti\u2019s southern peninsula called Zanglais. A small cove\u00a0located 31 miles (50.6 kilometers) from Les Cayes. It lies\u00a0between the Morne Saint George\u00a0and the Plain of Aquin \u2014 a stretch\u00a0of about eight miles. There along\u00a0a beachfront, there was this beach\u00a0house on a hill above the beach. The original beach house no\u00a0longer exists but there is now\u00a0another Guest House there today\u00a0run by another mission whose\u00a0ministry centers around shortterm mission groups.<\/p>\n

Every summer, between 1945\u00a0and 1960s, this original beach\u00a0house was where we and most all\u00a0the other missionaries from the\u00a0West Indies Mission vacationed, each taking turns orsigning up to\u00a0share the house for a month. The\u00a0place was so popular that we had\u00a0to book our vacations early in\u00a0order to get a spot.<\/p>\n

During one year, my family\u00a0spent a year living at this awesome place. Every morning and\u00a0afternoon, we would spend at the\u00a0beach \u2014 the whole family. My\u00a0dad and mom and I used to build\u00a0sandcastles or large holes in the\u00a0sand to catch seawater \u2014 to see\u00a0how long we could hold the\u00a0water.<\/p>\n

A favorite pastime was taking\u00a0an innertube from a tractor wheel\u00a0out into the deep and float for\u00a0what seemed like hours. This\u00a0was something we could only do\u00a0with one of our parents with us. Occasionally we\u2019d all get on \u2014 Dad, Mom, my sister and me. When our baby sister was old\u00a0enough, she\u2019d come out with us\u00a0too.<\/p>\n

It was thrilling to ride the\u00a0waves, yet also the terror of being\u00a0thrust under a monstrous wave. We always tried to get as far out\u00a0past the breaking waves as possible, but at times a big one would\u00a0sneak up on us. Ocean waves are\u00a0incredible to watch. The monsters usually begin to form way\u00a0out \u2014 sometimes a thousand feet\u00a0or more from shore. They appear\u00a0as nothing more than a smooth\u00a0hump aboutfifty yards out. Arising and falling. Ebb and flow. But then, they just seem to sneak\u00a0up on you.<\/p>\n

Waves also have a reverse effect. Instead of throwing you into\u00a0the shore, they have a tendency to\u00a0pull you out \u2014 if you\u2019re at just the\u00a0wrong place at the wrong time.<\/p>\n

This one time, Dad and Mom\u00a0got us out past the breakers and\u00a0out to where the water turns from\u00a0a turquoise to a deeper blue, a\u00a0royal hue. We thought we had\u00a0gotten past the spot where there\u2019s\u00a0this \u201cpulling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fun was what this was all\u00a0about. Family fun. Thisis one of\u00a0many times that stick out in my\u00a0mind when our family really had\u00a0fun.<\/p>\n

Until that day. After floating\u00a0for twenty minutes or so, we\u00a0noticed that we were much further from shore than usual. It\u00a0seemed that try as we could, we\u00a0couldn\u2019t change direction. The\u00a0undertow wasstrong and we kept\u00a0going out \u2014 deeper and deeper, further and further away from\u00a0shore.<\/p>\n

Dad began to pray. His prayer\u00a0turned to song. We began singing. Singing asloud as we could. But this time there was desperation in our voices. We were stuck\u00a0in whatfelt like the middle of this\u00a0big ocean and couldn\u2019t go anywhere.<\/p>\n

I thought of the stories Eliani, our house girl, used to tell us of\u00a0dolphins coming to the rescue of\u00a0stranded sailors at sea. I prayed\u00a0God would send us dolphins to\u00a0take ussafely to shore.<\/p>\n

As we continued to cry, sing, and pray we continued to hope\u00a0that God,the One who created the\u00a0sea and us, would do a miracle \u2014 send a dolphin or a fisherman to\u00a0our rescue.<\/p>\n

Then, as if in a moment, my\u00a0dad yelled, \u201cI can touch bottom!\u201d Mom agreed. She could do the\u00a0same.<\/p>\n

We made it! We were saved !\u00a0We never saw a dolphin, but one\u00a0thing I knew, Someone had\u00a0pushed us to shore. We couldn\u2019t\u00a0have done that ourselves. Not\u00a0even my Dad.<\/p>\n

Just like we were rescued that\u00a0day, I believe tourism can rescue\u00a0Haiti\u2019s economy. Progress has\u00a0been made especially in the Cap\u00a0Haitian area and between Port- au-Prince and Gonaives, also on\u00a0\u00eele \u00e0 Vache (Cow Island) across\u00a0from Les Cayes. But there is so\u00a0much more that could be done.<\/p>\n

The previous administration\u00a0had big plans for the C\u00f4te de Fer\u00a0area, but notmuch has become of\u00a0that under the current presidency.<\/p>\n

The airlines \u2014 American,Delta, Air France, jet Blue, Spirit and\u00a0others \u2014 need to do more to promote Haiti as a resort destination. North American media need to do\u00a0so much more to promote travel\u00a0to this Pearl of the Caribbean. It\u2019s time to rediscover the\u00a0jewel that is Haiti Ch\u00e9ri.<\/p>\n

\n

this article is belong to the Haiti-Observateur newspaper weekly, edition of august 08 2018 and will be found at :\u00a0P. 12<\/strong>)\u00a0http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/H-O-08-Aout-2018-2.pdf \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rediscovering Haiti Ch\u00e9ri by Jim Hutley The one thing that has suffered\u00a0the most in Haiti\u2019s economy over\u00a0the last six decades of dictatorships, hurricanes, and a massive\u00a0earthquake in 2010 is the lack of\u00a0a vibrant tourist industry. Prior to\u00a0the Duvalier regimes, beginning\u00a0in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,25,49],"tags":[533,828,1109,1408,1495,1607,1721,2605,2719,3097],"class_list":["post-2424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglais","category-chronique","category-haiti","category-societe","tag-cap-haitian","tag-dad","tag-eliani-store","tag-gonaives","tag-haiti-observateur","tag-ile-a-vache","tag-jim-hutley","tag-prayer","tag-rediscovering","tag-touris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}