- We are scheduled to interview President Martelly on Wednesday (October 5) but his PR person says he will be too tired and instead gives us the opportunity to ride in a presidential car as part of his motorcade. The interview is rescheduled for the next day.
As soon as my cameraman Mike Burke and I settle into the back seat of the white SUV, we know we are in for the ride of our lives. As we greet our driver, it is obvious he is only expecting one person. So he whisks about 20 backpacks out of the back seat and puts them in the trunk. (Remember these backpacks, because they play a role later).
We were in a race to get to the president's house to join the motorcade. It feels like we're going 90 MPH down alleys and narrow streets of Port-au-Prince - dodging pedestrians, animals, trucks, bicycles and more. The radio is blaring Haitian music - the driver takes his hands off the wheel, clapping to the radio. Then he flips a switch and a siren starts blaring,
with flashing lights on the roof. He drives on the left side of the road and honks when someone arrives head-on and makes THEM move to the wrong side of the street so he can get by (on the wrong side) where there are fewer potholes - more like craters in Haiti.
Another time, the driver forces a truck to back up into a sidestreet, so he can pass. At another intersection, he hangs out the window and starts berating a motorcycle driver who won't move over far enough. We are a motorcade of one. All of a sudden, he screeches to a stop and picks up the "real driver." Then he yells, "Seatbelts everyone!" (Ummmm you mean we didn't need them before?) These are the only words of English spoken to us because neither driver speaks much English and they don't seem to like my French.
This new driver continues with the siren blaring, but also adds honking - at the poor woman with a huge wheelbarrow of ice cubes. At top speed, we pass a United Nations truck, a Red Cross truck and several police cars. And we never miss a pothole on this gravel and dirt road. People start to stare, mostly out of disgust that this one car is making so much noise with no consideration for others. We pass four more U.N. cars, a U.N. tank and a police car. We are entering Peguyville, where the houses are painted pink and white in support of President Martelly (the official colors of his organization even before becoming president.) He lives here.
We go through two security checkpoints before we reach the official steel gate painted .....you guessed it.....pink. His house is behind that gate. We park outside of the gate and join about 50 police: MINUSTAH (the U.N. police) the national Haitian police UNITY security guards, and Martelly's personal bodyguards. One of the men we're with starts to go through
the first gate into the presidential residence, and I start to follow. But he turns around and says, "No." Apparently President Martelly has invited me to join his motorcade, but not his breakfast coffee.
Abruptly, Martelly's personal secretary Eman opens my door and is shocked to see me there. She climbs in. We are now three in the back, along with a big TV camera. Someone yells, "Hurry, hurry, hurry." Everyone runs to their cars. But we don't move. We sit and wait 20 minutes. (what are we waiting for? who knows?) I later discover the President's black land cruiser still needed to be washed.
The driver looks at Mike's two bottles of water and points at one. Mike says "Well, that's really all I have for the whole day as my food." The driver stares at Mike in disbelief so Mike gives him one. Minutes later, Mike looks outside the car window and sees the driver downing orange juice and a muffin.
We leave 90 minutes late. We've already been in the car three hours and we're still in the same city. There are 27 cars in the motorcade and they act like teenagers. They each jockey ahead to guard the president, their lights flashing, sirens blaring. The motorcade careens past everyone and everything - huge semis are forced to pull over as we speed/zoom/fly by.
After an hour, all hell breaks loose. The "teenagers" start yelling out the windows. We brake. The secretary gets out and jumps into another car. The two in the front seat yell at us "Get out!" But the other car screeches away. Suddenly our driver does a U turn and we start heading back to downtown Port au Prince. Hello? Um - The motorcade is going the other way.