With 35 euros and a plane ticket to Haiti, one can buy a slave. This was just one of the difficult lesson’s writer Benjamin Skinner learned while researching his book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery.

 

By the time the international media began to broadcast the news about the telluric event that raged with all its fury against the Haitian people, many hours had passed since the event. That powerful blow, which chose as its epicenter, the heart of Haiti, seems to have been felt differently by every inhabitant of Hispaniola in either of the two countries that share it. I could not have been the exception.

I spend most of my time on the 23rd floor of the tallest building in Santo Domingo, in the eastern half of the island. I had a doctor's appointment at 4:30 p.m. on that fateful day; It takes no more than ten minutes to get from the building that houses the office where I work to the clinic where I had my appointment. That is, of course, unless there is one of those traffic jams that only happen in this capital city, and it can take up to an hour to travel a few blocks.

I was already at my doctor's clinic by four o'clock in the afternoon. Once again, I had to repeat some tests whose results had been consistently wrong. My family doctor was away. So, a colleague of him was instructed to attend to me. At 43 minutes past four the nurse showed me into one of the consulting rooms.

-Please take off your shirt," he asked me politely, although the politeness did not completely overshadow the feeling of strangeness caused by request.

As I was taking off my shirt, the nurse came out. Alone in that consulting room, I noticed that time passed longer than usual, and the doctor did not enter the small room. The waiting began to make me impatient.

And why isn't the doctor coming, I thought, sitting on the stretcher? What's going on? Suddenly I began to feel the petite frame I was resting on the move. I paid no attention. The stretcher moved again, but I didn't pay much attention to it either. Then came an even stronger jolt. From outside, into the consulting room where I was alone, came the voices of the doctors and nurses.

-He's shaking! -I heard a female voice say in alarm.

The West Indian part of the planet does not know the ferocity of this volcanic anger. I thought to myself: how is this building constructed? The answer I received was a feeling of distrust. Through the screams and the corridor, I felt the uneasiness growing in the corridor as the earth swaying grew louder and louder.

-It sounds like an earthquake," I heard someone say in a frightened voice.

-Yes, it seems so," said another.

Gradually the earth began to give way in its discomfort.

-Oh, we forgot Don Victor Manuel in the consulting room," exclaimed the nurse who asked me to take off my shirt. At that moment, she opened the door and came in.

-Yes, indeed," I said, "They forgot about me.

It was barely after five o'clock in the afternoon. It was Tuesday, 12 January 2010. Six minutes earlier, an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale had struck. The epicentre was in the western half of the island of Hispaniola, specifically in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, the poorest country in the world.

It was on the morning of the 11th that the world began to learn of the impact of the earthquake. On 13 January, the third day after the events, the face of the great disaster was unmistakable in Haiti. The Dominican Republic, where I live, although it shares the island with Haiti, was not as badly affected. This neighboring country immediately activated all possible mechanisms to help the Haitian people.

At four o'clock in the morning on 14 January, we were on our way to the Haitian-Dominican border, located more than 200 kilometers west of Santo Domingo. The journey by road takes about three and a half hours.

We were among the first organizations to arrive with aid for the earthquake victims three days ago. In recent years, the foundation I work for has been working with a US-based non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to health issues in the Dominican Republic.

The day before, we contacted their representative in the country. He informed us that volunteers from the agency, mainly doctors, the morning after the earthquake left for Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. They were working in a Haitian community hospital in Pétion-Ville.

The hospital was overwhelmed by the significant number of wounded needing emergency care. The hospital was precarious. The doctors could not cope. Nor were there enough medicines or replacement materials. Even amputations and other operations were being performed without morphine. This was one of the first orders we received, along with antibiotics, water, and an electric generator.

At around 8 a.m., we arrived in Jimaní, a Dominican town located on the southern border between the two countries. That place, the border that divides the Dominican Republic from Haiti, is a world that corresponds to another life and other infamous times present there miserably. Everything that happens along that line is degrading.

The two countries, astonishingly, are separated by barbed wire. There are two fortifications, one on the Dominican and the Haitian sides. Both are set up with the same carelessness that imprisons, between the two, a stretch that has been given the very particular name of "No Man's Land".

Enigmatic faces look out from "No Man's Land" on the Haitian side of the border towards the other half of the island. Holding on to the barbed wire were lost their eyes in who knows what orbit. One does not know what suffering is pressing on them or where they find the strength to keep going on the rugged and endless road of subsistence. They are prisoners of extreme poverty in the hope of crossing the line to escape the impoverished situation that overwhelms them daily.

Intending to cross, on the other side of the palisade, you can see their faces weather-beaten by the harsh sun. Faces tanned by hunger. Faces tanned by pain. Faces tanned by disease. Faces tanned by misery. Faces weathered by despair. Faces weathered by the perverse work that is their lot. Faces weathered by neo-slavery. Yes, that's what you can call the 35-euro slavery that Benjamin Skinners describes so vividly in an article in the magazine "Foreign Policy". The text, published in the Spanish edition of April/May 2008, states that:

"New York is five hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of a healthy boy or girl. Prostitution and domestic work are their common destinations". (...) "A slave is a human being forced to work by deception or under threat of violence only in exchange for just enough to subsist on." Such bargaining can be done in Port-au-Prince, according to Skinners, in front of the barbershop Le Réseau, located on Rue de Delmas, one of the busiest streets in the capital.

The line of barbed wire reminds us of Nazi concentration camps. On one side and the other, one feels that corruption, human trafficking, illegal adoption business, informal trade, drug trafficking, and extreme poverty dwell there. All these plagues make up this lawless space with no options for any vestige of a dignified life. They are the owners of "No Man's Land".

Adding to all this misfortune that day were the wounded Haitians trying to cross the line in search of medical help. They came because their country, one of the poorest in the world, had now been reduced to nothing by the destructive force of nature.

Our contact was waiting for us at the border on the Dominican side. From there, we would take the aid we were carrying to the Haitian capital. We had a long wait while permits were obtained so that the truck and the security forces escorting the cargo could continue their way to the hospital in Pétion-Ville.

The accounts of the friendly NGO representative were heartbreaking. The doctors rom the minute they arrived at the center, had not stopped treating and operating on those affected by the quake. They did so in rudimentary conditions. They had no electricity or water. The antibiotics, sedatives, and painkillers they carried were barely enough for the first few hours of care. The doctors had set up tents on the roof of the building. They slept there for the few moments they took to rest.

When we arrived at the medical center in Pétion-Ville, we saw that the reality was even more severe. Thousands of injured people were sheltering outside the medical center, waiting to be treated. It was almost impossible to walk because of the number of injured people lying on the ground. It was a terrifying picture that hit our feelings hard.

According to the doctors, a cholera outbreak could break out at any time, given the conditions in the country. Without wasting time, we prepared a long list of needs at the hospital. On behalf of the foundation with which I share work responsibilities, I undertook to collect as many supplies as possible and return to Haiti in about four days.

I returned to the Dominican Republic with a broken soul. In two days, we collected the medicines and materials requested for replenishment. We packed everything into three trucks and left them ready to be taken to Pétion-Ville, a hill town on the eastern side of the Haitian capital. We would take a helicopter to Port-au-Prince to receive the cargo at the hospital itself.

We left again for Haiti on 28 January. About forty minutes into the flight, as we crossed the border, we lands could see a drastic change from the helicopter. It is something you notice immediately. The atmosphere suddenly goes from green to arid. For centuries Haiti has been preyed to the depredation of its forests. In 1697, when the island's western side was ceded to France by the Treaty of Ryswik in Europe, French settlers had begun the plantation system more than fifty years earlier. This form of intensive cultivation of agricultural products began a period of wealth for France and was also the beginning of the conversion of Haitian soil into a desert. Since then, this process has not stopped to this day.

Approaching Port-au-Prince by air, we began to see the destruction caused by the earthquake that we had not seen before when traveling by land. The number of buildings and houses on the ground, in rubble, was simply uncountable. The fledgling constructions, of dubious quality, were easy prey to the fury of the earth's movement.

In the morning, we landed at the heliport of the Dominican Embassy in the Haitian capital. Although we had meticulously coordinated with our contacts, they were not waiting for us at the diplomatic headquarters. We wanted to leave immediately for the Pétion-Ville hospital. But it was impossible to set off through the city's streets without the protection of the authorities of Minustha (United Nations Mission for the Stabilisation of Haiti), the only military force in Haiti since the local army was disbanded in 2004 with the US intervention.

It was only after midday that we managed to leave the embassy for the hospital. After leaving the Dominican embassy, you go up a hill on a narrow road and reach a busy street. You immediately see a sign with the name Pétion-Ville indicating the direction of the road. You can see the damage everywhere. There are frequent cases of cars crushed by the slabs of houses falling on them. Carabinieri carrying the Chilean flag on their shoulders stood guard at some corners.

A spontaneous market had formed where the sign showing the route to follow was located. The poverty and the hygienic conditions that make up this micro market are astonishing. An old woman, leaning her back against the wall, half seated in the air and with her long skirt hanging down, washes a bunch of parsley with the filthy water that runs down the street in the absence of sewage. At that time, Port-au-Prince was characterized by an unbearable stench that forced the permanent use of handkerchiefs over noses and mouths.

We were moving slowly on our way to the hospital. The road is steep, narrow, winding, and usually congested with vehicle traffic; in addition to all that, because of the earthquake damage, there were power poles twisted into the road every few meters, fallen trees, and debris. At some point along the stretch, passers-by tried to intercept the vans in a criminal action. But the undeterred military fired shots into the air and scared them off. The drivers drive defensively. Despite the difficulties, they tried to pick up speed like someone was following us.

We were finally approaching the medical center. Suddenly I saw hundreds of multi-colored tents set up around the clinic. The wounded were living there with their families and displaced people, crammed into fragile, small spaces no more than two or three meters wide by two meters long and less than the height of an average person standing upright. Among the tents, almost all of which were made of plastic, where the floor was made of earth, there was an infernal heat, especially during the day. In these conditions, they ate, slept, and relieved themselves.

The driver parked at what appeared to be the hospital from doors. Dozens of people rushed towards us. It was an action that created moments of danger. We persistently asked for our contact, but no one knew him. We entered the hospital building, which had become a space of chaos. People were running from one side to the other. We could hear screams and cries of pain. The wounded were everywhere. You could even see them in the hospital courtyard, out in the open.

Pain is in the air. The importance of anesthetics was not to be assumed. Morphine, by chance, was the first thing we handed over to a doctor who was rushing out of an operating theatre and bumped into us. After chatting with him for a moment and seeing the look of relief on his face at the information we gave him, the doctor ushered us into the operating theatre to show us the conditions under which the surgeries were being performed. I saw a wounded woman on the floor, tormented by suffering. It was too shocking to see that face trapped by despondency. A badly beaten child, alone, lay on the floor, helpless on a stretcher. A whole legion of sick people, lying in the corridors, waited to be treated.

The doctors were not in a state of full lucidity. They had far exceeded the continuous hours of work in the face of the adversity of reality. Instinct and self-sacrifice led them to continue their humanitarian work amid that Dantesque scene of death and pain. The pictures that were staged there were impressive because of the bleakness of the reality. But among the medical staff and the people, even during the apparent disorder, there was an intuitive order that overcame the dramatic situation.

In different corners of the hospital, other volunteers were trying to restore administrative order to the place. They were sorting medicines, sorting food, and checking the water supply. Others were talking to patients to register their identity.

A volunteer took us to the roof of the building. As we walked up, I noticed a detail I did not see on my first trip. Many of the walls of the hospital were cracked. Upstairs he showed us the small camp where the volunteer doctors were resting for very brief moments.

We had done our job. But instead of satisfaction, we left that hospital with a range of feelings on the verge of spasm. We were consoled by the commitment we had made to continue to make a collaborative effort during the desperate emergency period Haiti was going through. And we delivered.

On the flight back to Santo Domingo, my thoughts were more confused than ever. The deteriorating situation in which this small Caribbean country found itself in the twenty-first century was constantly throbbing in my mind. The truth and the honest thing are, and it must be said, it was very difficult to find any hope that would help to change the unimaginable condition of the misfortune of that former French colony. The most active members of the international community were seen to be trying to pay outstanding debts to this unfortunate state. At the time of the tragedy, they were loudly promising a Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of the country. Paradoxically, and not surprisingly, this attempt at cooperation was not echoed by France.

Newspapers worldwide commented on the unique possibility in Haiti's history of bringing the country out of its failed state. An International Commission chaired by former President Bill Clinton was set up to achieve these ideals. International summits were held to identify ways to make cooperation more effective. Contrary to common sense, the first summit in one of the poorest countries was held in one of the most expensive and luxurious hotels in the Caribbean. The truth is that cooperation has not reached Haiti. The little assistance received has been utterly insignificant compared to what was promised. Fifty thousand excuses have been sought to justify why it has not been possible to make the reconstruction of this small nation viable. Some are explained; others are less so. Meanwhile, Haiti, sadly, is still that place on the planet where, after a five-hour drive from Manhattan to Port-au-Prince, you can buy a slave for 35 euros.