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What new visitors find most compelling about Haiti, however, are the Haitians themselves. Their culture, deeply rooted in the African past and leavened by 18th century French colonial rule, is unique in the Western Hemisphere. From the faces of its people to the unofficial national religion of voodoo, from the ox-drawn carts and brightly painted buses to the folk arts and cacophonous marketplaces, Haiti is reminiscent of West Africa, the former slave coast that is the ancestral homeland of most of its inhabitants.
The Haitian way of life has persisted almost unchanged since the slaves revolted, expelled the French and founded the New World's first black independent nation in 1804. Few countries in the colonial era were willing to deal with a country established on the dead bodies of former slave masters; in recent years the unsavory nature of the Haitian government has tended to keep that isolation intact. As a result, Haiti is a country that has turned in on itself and had little commerce with other nations, one reason for its dismal economic status (annual per capita income: $80).
Laughter. From the moment visitors step off the plane and pass through the customs checkpoint in the new expanded Port-au-Prince airport, they are assaulted by the sights and sounds of Haiti. Driving toward the city, they pass dilapidated thatched-roof shacks. Peasants crowd the roads, balancing on their heads the flowers or fruit, tin cans or huge straw baskets they hope to sell in the marketplace.
There is also a sound on the city streets that to most urban Americans is unfamiliar: laughter. For although Haitians have lived for almost two centuries with poverty, political turmoil, tyranny and foreign occupation (by the U.S. Marines from 1915 to 1934), they seem to have come through it all with their cheerfulness and self-respect almost miraculously intact.
Whatever the reason, Haiti's 5,000,000 people-unlike those in some of the other Caribbean isles-demonstrate no hostility or arrogance, but only a friendly curiosity toward visitors. Certainly they are not in awe of blancs.
The hospitality of Haitians has apparently rubbed off on some of the expatriate innkeepers who have settled in Port-au-Prince. At the gingerbreadstyle Grand Hotel Oloffson, for example, owner Al Seitz, a native of Connecticut, is reluctant to add more rooms to his charming anachronism because "if it got too big I would lose personal contact with the guests." But the stay at the Oloffson is worth it if only to meet Columnist Aubelin Jolicoeur, Haiti's unofficial ambassador of good will, who drops by with a diverting account of the past week's goings on. Equally solicitous are Proprietors Georges and Gerty Heraux of the Sans Souci, who sometimes put up last-minute guests in their own home if no room is available at the hotel. Despite the construction noise, the same hospitality is evident at Habitation Leclerc, a new $1.5 million resort complex being built on a Port-au-Prince hillside by Olivier Coquelin, owner of Manhattan's Hippopotamus discotheque. Hans von Meiss-Teuffen, manager of the resort, will often meet guests at the airport, take them on tours of the capital and order up special meals from his kitchen.