Mountains to climb behind Haiti's mountains

HAITI: There’s an old Haitian proverb that says behind the mountains there are more mountains, but it’s not just geographically.

It seems for every mountain Haitians metaphorically have to climb another rises up. And we’re about to see that proverb tested more than ever before.

The steep partially denuded hillsides are one of the first things you notice when you cross the border into Haiti. We drive west towards the capital, past lakes and peaks that appear eerie in the morning mist.

Then it is through pasture, where men herd cattle and women carry heavy containers on their heads, passing a quiet rural poverty.

That soon changes. Within an hour we are seeing the first signs of the devastation caused by the earthquake.

I remember from the last time I was in Haiti six years ago the uncomfortable disparity between the azure Caribbean and the piles of rubbish and sewage in the slums that skirt the water.

Haiti is no stranger to grinding poverty, the searing heritage of a country blighted by the failure over decades of its political and economic institutions.

But the site of the homes partly or wholly collapsed and the piles of rubble provide images that are almost too epic to grasp.

We are forced to take a difficult diversion through a steep sided riverbed, as one road has been blocked by debris from the earthquake.

Our 4×4 comes into its own, but a truck gets stuck half way up the hill as Haitians get on with life in their shacks above the river, displaying a resilience that must come from living a life as tough as this.

As we near the capital the destruction becomes more frequent and more fearsome. Whole houses collapsed, buildings left looking like badly preserved remains from Ancient Greece or Rome; the evidence of lives halted and worlds turned upside down from one moment to the next.

Here and there the fronts of buildings have disappeared; people’s private lives – the inside of their homes – on display as if on the set of a theatre.

We have been advised to head for the airport, which we do and it’s then that I get another reminder of the sheer scale of what has happened to Haiti.

There are TV cameras lined up along the length of one roof and we struggle to convince a rather officious guard to let us in to unload. The tents where the journalists are camping are lined up under the trees by the runway, near trucks full of broadcast equipment.

Journalists lie or crouch on the thin patches of grass with their laptops, others talk on comically large looking satellite phones, nearly all look tired, dirty and sunburnt, dressed in combats, t-shirts and boots, their uniform outfits and uniform expression speak volumes about how they are coming to terms with the mountains behind Haiti’s mountains.