Haiti is not a single story. There are many stories, that overlap, that intersect, that relentlessly advance towards violent and heartbreaking ends.
The rich and the desperately poor. The violent and the violated. In an awkward and sometimes lethal way, they share half an island that is a magnet for natural disasters.
Photographer Roberto Abd, in collaboration with reporter Alberto Arce, spent four weeks in Haiti and came across a kaleidoscopic collection of images, fragments of life in a tumultuous land.
From the beginning, they spent days riding their motorcycles through the dirty, trash-strewn streets of the violent coastal neighborhoods of Cité Soleil, La Saline, Bel Air and Martissant.
One Saturday night, after a shootout between the police and a gang, Abd saw a corpse lying face down in a street as passersby looked away in a common form of self-defense: not seeing evil to save oneself.
Pedestrians also covered their faces in the presence of a photographer. Abd quickly learned that most Haitians, especially the poor, did not want to be photographed – not by a white man and certainly not for free.
“No pictures. There is no money. I don’t want photos. I do not want to see it. I do not want to talk to you”. These are phrases that Abd heard over and over again.
The measures that had served him well for two decades of photojournalism – asking permission, showing respect and empathy – were not going to be enough in Haiti. Abd encountered constant hostility, even violence, towards a white man with a camera.
On the other hand, Abd had exceptional access to the houses of the well-to-do in Pétion-Ville, a hilltop community overlooking the Bay of Port-au-Prince.
In the past they were reluctant to show their faces and their lifestyle to the media, but now they want to be seen. They feel they have something to say.
Following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last summer, many members of that elite lost hope and left the island. Some have stayed and are still doing business.
“Once you have invested in a place and a hundred workers depend on you, how do you leave? There is no going back, ”said one of those who stayed.
In the dense gardens of the La Reserve restaurant, the participants in a beauty pageant also want to be seen.
They aspire to the title of Miss Haiti to represent their country in Miss World. They rehearse on a catwalk, practice elegance protected from gangs by armed guards who control the perimeter.
The contrasts are shocking.
On one of his last days in Haiti, Abd traveled past Port-au-Prince’s last slums to a previously agreed location north of the airport, where three gang members emerged from behind a grove of trees.
With their faces covered by rolled-up T-shirts, his distrust was such that they asked him to lift his shirt: they were not looking for weapons but a hidden camera.
The gang members wanted to send a message: it is not a pride to be a gunman. There is no work, there are no opportunities. If there were, they wouldn’t do what they do.
For these young people, the last in line, gangs are the only way to work in Haiti, a country ravaged by poverty.
During his stay in Haiti, Abd moved with his hand on the camera, but before he could even lift it he heard a chorus of “No photos!”
It came from the people he spoke to and from those who just passed by. Many did not want to give their names either. They would consider having a photo taken for money, but without cash, there is no photo.
The message was clear. Why would they help a foreign journalist to earn money from their image when they have little to eat? They had nothing else to sell.
The phrase was accompanied by a gesture: a finger that crossed the neck from left to right, like a lethal cut. Abd saw it many times. And he understood.
It can be a death threat, but also a statement of need, an indication that while the photographer seeks to capture the moment, the person looking through the viewfinder has more basic needs.
And, for the moment, that person controls their own story.
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