It was my first visit to Haiti last week, but there was a striking familiarity. All I had read and heard about our easterly neighbour converged in the contradictory reality before me.

Jean Lowrie-Chin

There were the images we had seen in the media - the mountainside densely covered with the unpainted concrete houses of squatters, the numerous street vendors, the well-armed security guards and UN peacekeepers.

But also, there was the touching gentility among even the poorest that I met lining up, waiting without a murmur for up to five hours to finally own a cell phone. And there was the art - fine carving, enchanting pottery, vivid paintings.

We enjoyed the splendour of Tara's, a mountainside setting where over a thousand of Haiti's power brokers were hosted for the official Digicel launch, by Denis O'Brien and his local partner Gilbert Bigio, chairman of the GB Group. I could picture the country's liberator Toussaint L'Ouverture beaming over this hopeful evening of gracious conversations enlivened by the Afro-Latin "compas" beat.

Radio Metropole's Frantz Ulysse said there is a new energy in Haiti, following the election of René Préval in February and his inauguration earlier this month, though he warned that only time will tell if Haiti had finally turned the corner. Another journalist noted that the incidence of kidnapping has decreased dramatically since the election, leading him to believe that the spate of abductions late last year may have been politically motivated.

Jamaicans Jackie James and Sasha Menzies who are helping to set up mobile telecom operations in Haiti, remarked on the well-educated, young Haitians who are fluent in English and easy to train. They have had such positive experiences with the Haitians that they are glad that they came despite initial trepidation.

René Préval. making astute moves while asserting Haiti's sovereignty.

At our hotel, the porters remained courteous even after we explained that we had no change, so we would tip them later. The restaurant staff was brisk and accommodating, and the grounds beautifully kept. Hey, I thought, Jamaica is not the only place that suffers from one-sided reports.

On the other hand, there is Alan Maximilian's kidnapping experience. A dozen used sneakers, a portable used CD player, a little over US$1,000 - that was the ransom that made him a free man on New Year's Day of this year. Educated in the US, son of an Irish mother and Haitian father, Maximilian is a radio talk-show host and freelance video producer in Haiti. Here is his account of what he humorously calls "probably one of the best kidnapping experiences" in history.

"It was December 28, eight o'clock in the evening. I was with my friend Frankie. Kidnappings had slowed down so I drove with my car windows open. When I stopped at an apartment block in Petionville to drop off Frankie, two gunmen appeared on his side, one on my side. They pushed us in the back of the car and told us to keep our heads down.

"After three days, Frankie's ransom came and he was released. During that time, I had a problem with 'mato', which means 'hammer' in Creole. This is the term they use when someone intercepts ransom money on its way to being delivered. The first two ransoms sent for me were stolen by other gangs.

"Now it was New Year's Eve and they got to like me so much, they actually got me fresh clothes to celebrate with them. I was like a panda having a baby. They had people, other gang leaders, coming to see me.

"The ransom at the end was a very, very small amount - a low four figures, a dozen used sneakers, used portable CD player. Because it was New Year's Eve, they wanted new sneakers, but the people who were negotiating didn't take the request seriously. That's why they kept me one more day. The low-level people in the gang don't get money. It's a trickle-down system. Only the leaders get cash. They released me as soon as they finally got the ransom."

The Haitians have an incredible forbearance and resourcefulness. A young businessman, the third generation of his family-owned concern, continues to soldier on, though he must hire 30 well-armed security guards to watch his modest complex. "My children are still young, so they are not made aware of the security challenges," he says. "I will give myself five years more, then if things are not better, we may have to go elsewhere."

He is just a few minutes away from the slums of Cité Soleil, the same location where Alan was taken, where the gang leaders reign and their young charges hunger for used tennis shoes. "I don't have a bodyguard, but I am armed and I have a bullet-proof car. I vary the routes I drive, and I avoid certain areas."

There is courage and sadness in his expression, old eyes in a young face. I had seen these eyes so many times, the sadness overtaking the courage in one family after the next, waving goodbye at Norman Manley Airport in the '70s.

We who have been there and done that, we who now enjoy 24/7 electricity (there are no streetlights in Haiti and about two hours of electricity per day), should stand fast by Haiti. Those who stuck by Jamaica in the tough years, depending not on connections but on competence, have eventually been able to reap the benefits.

President Préval has been making astute moves while US President asserting his sovereignty, meeting both George W Bush at the White House and Cuba's Fidel Castro in Havana, buying oil from Venezuela and welcoming foreign investors. The Jamaicans in Haiti have scouted out the beaches and declared them beautiful. Their craftsmen could teach ours a thing or two - not one vulgar carving did we see on the sidewalks.

Having established a solid partnership with WAMS in Trinidad, Bernard Henry (of FIMI) has now joined with a group of Haitians to launch ALO. Their 29 stores throughout Haiti are sold out daily and they plan to open five others.

Haiti is a member of Caricom with a market of over 8.5 million. Already, Digicel's projected investment of US$130 million is being revised upwards. Western Union, on the brink of pulling out, took one look and decided to stay. To Jamaica's and the region's entrepreneurs I say, follow the money. Il faut bien profiter.

lowriechin@netscape.net

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