“Once you have invested in a place and a hundred workers depend on you, how can you leave? There is no way back,” said one who remained behind. Some are still here and still doing business. Following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse last summer, many among the elite have given up hope and abandoned the island. In the past, they have been reluctant to show their faces and lifestyles to the media, but now they want to be seen. On the other hand, Abd won rare access to the homes of the well-to-do who live in Pétion-Ville, on the top of a mountain overlooking the bay of Port-au-Prince. Abd encountered constant hostility, even violence, toward a white man with a camera. The measures that had served him well during two decades of photojournalism - seeking permission, demonstrating respect and empathy - were not going to be enough in Haiti. I don’t want to talk to you.” These were the phrases Abd heard over and over. Abd quickly learned that most Haitians, but particularly the poor, didn’t want to be photographed - not by a white man and certainly not for free.
The pedestrians also covered their faces in the presence of a photographer. One Saturday evening, after a shootout between policemen and a gang, Abd saw a corpse laying face-down in the street with passersby averting their gazes in a common form of self-defense: See no evil to save yourself. This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.įrom the beginning, they spent days riding a motorbike around garbage-strewn, dirt streets of the violent, coastal neighborhoods of Cité Soleil, La Saline, Bel Air, and Martissant.
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