Last Saturday morning, Port-au-Prince shed, not without difficulty, its coat of dust caused by the torrential rains that have befallen the city in recent days.
The Haitian capital has for some time been paying a high price for the damage caused by the dense sprawl of homes woven in the face of bad urbanization policies.
Flooded with each downpour, dirty with each rain, the mud and dust alternate. The city coexists with its handicaps as its inhabitants live with the Covid-19.
Resigned, courageous, forced.
In the streets, the clouds of bikers, motorists and pedestrians are the vivid testimony of a city that refuses to confine itself, despite the dozens of Covid-19 cases detected daily. And probably the thousands who escape the test radars.
Champ de Mars, the largest and most legendary public square in the country, continues to welcome its visitors. Loving couples, students, the unemployed who come to kill time in the eternal political debates, sellers of CDs, ice cream or fried foods, shoe shiners, road workers who come rest (…), in short, everyone answers the call.
The coronavirus has not lost any habit in the shade of the large trees in the square.
Like the rest of the country, on the Champ de Mars, the spread of the coronavirus pandemic is the least of a concern. A forty-something man questioned by the newspaper while he was talking to his friend weighed in.
“I can’t tell you anything about this disease. I don’t listen to the news because I don’t want to stress myself any more with the statistics on the number of people infected and the number of deaths due to this disease. Besides, you see, I don’t even wear a mask. I don’t want to think about this disease, ”he says, visibly upset.Continue reading.