{"id":221756,"date":"2010-01-24T09:14:23","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T14:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/?p=9467"},"modified":"2010-01-24T09:14:23","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T14:14:23","slug":"haiti%e2%80%a6-crossing-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/221756","title":{"rendered":"Haiti\u2026.Crossing Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOLLOW ADAM ON TWITTER<\/a><\/p>\n

There are few rougher rides in the world, I am confident of it, and it begins about an hour or so outside the border of Haiti. If you survive this trek, you get a very clear understanding why trucking in supplies to this earthquake-ravaged region remains nearly impossible and wont likely change anytime soon.<\/p>\n

The road from the Capital of Santo Domingo begins prosperously. Four lanes divided highway with a surface smoother than most roads I traverse in California. However, as you move towards the border and further away from the city, the road gradually becomes more similar to a U.S. farm road, with no centerline or shoulder. Small towns begin to be split by the \u201chighway\u201d and you get a real look at the heart and soul of the Dominican Republic. Colorful small homes, many people who live very modestly. At times it looks to be a tough life, but people seem welcoming and generally happy.<\/p>\n

About an hour and a half outside of Haiti the road begins to beat you and your vehicle of choice. Potholes and speed bumps appear seemingly every few feet and the road goes from paved to unpaved and then back and forth all the way to the border. The roadway also seems narrower at this point and cars fight for space with a few larger trucks and of course smaller motorcycles with people sometimes sitting three to a seat. Military checkpoints begin to appear, fourteen of them at last count and each time you have to stop, only slowing our trip that much more.<\/p>\n

As we arrive at the gate to Haiti, and that\u2019s exactly how it is, there is only one way to explain the chalky, white, rigid road that connects \u201cLa Dominica\u201d with its Hispanola neighbor and that is deplorable. If your back and backside has made it this far, it may not be too happy with the coming two hours that now lies ahead into this earthquake ravaged country.<\/p>\n

The crossing itself is only two gates side by side. They are wrought iron twin gates controlled and opened manually by Dominican troops, one for cars and the the other for vehicles of all standards\u2026some barely moving. This area has burgeoned in the last week and a half since the disaster and now relief supplies flow, are loaded and unloaded, all while volunteers on busses and in cars of every type cram through such a small crossing. You can also find all sorts of media, changing cars sometimes as Dominican drivers hand off to their neighbors who have come from the Haitian capital.<\/p>\n

There are people of all colors and means scattering and moving in every direction and Dominican soldiers armed with machine guns. A couple of Haitian personnel are seen on their side of the border, but they neither control the gate, nor check people coming and going. There is an urgency for so many different reasons. People working to get in, people fighting to get out and aid workers, volunteers and media loaded down in with intentions of both.<\/p>\n

The drive from this border into Port-au-Prince used to take an hour, but you can triple that now. Once inside the border gate, a small village of metal shanties now sells food that is sanitarily challenged. Refugees wait in line to cross and relatives meet and head in both directions. I have to say, the Dominican Republic has done a great job in handling this situation so far, especially since the two nations have had their diplomatic issues over the years. One man I meet from New York (you can see him in my Kyte video on my main page) has come here to get his son. For several days the boy was missing after the quake as he was spending time with relatives. Now his father has made the rough journey to thankfully and gratefully reunite and bring his son back home to the states.<\/p>\n

Once through the shanty village on the Haitian side of the border, the chalky road weaves around mountains with massive chunks missing like misshapen slices out of a cake, as workers from Port-au-Prince come steal the rocks and soil for construction. Bordering the other side of the road is a lake that looks stunning, but smells like it has become somewhat of a cesspool. Trucks and cars bounce in all directions and dodge massive potholes the size of VW bugs, easily a foot deep in some places and most filled with water. In amazement I see busses and cars with little clearance and ragged conditions barely make the drive, their slow pace causing a flurry of horns and cars darting into the opposite rocky lane of traffic to pass.<\/p>\n

Eventually the chalky road becomes a paved and narrow farm road on the Haitian side. Again no shoulder and mostly lined all the way into the city with rundown masonite block buildings and metal shacks. People are walking riding and standing everywhere and animals also get in the way. I would call it controlled chaos, if it was controlled, but with cars driving in all directions and in all lanes and even on makeshift sidewalks in the wrong direction, this could be the most dangerous journey I have ever taken.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, when a bus or large truck decides to stop, everything joins-in because there is no room to pass and again no shoulder and the horns begin to blare. That\u2019s unless a driver gets impatient and figures he\u2019ll just drive against traffic and hope people get out of the way, cars and pedestrians included. When that doesn\u2019t work and there is no place to swerve, everything halts and with so many roads damaged, partially blocked, or people clogged with no place to go, coming to a standstill has become the norm in much of the city.<\/p>\n

Especially on the only supply road into town from the Dominican. It help explains why the port is so important and why the helicopters are essential in helping to save and sustain so many people in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOLLOW ADAM ON TWITTER There are few rougher rides in the world, I am confident of it, and it begins about an hour or so outside the border of Haiti. If you survive this trek, you get a very clear understanding why trucking in supplies to this earthquake-ravaged region remains nearly impossible and wont likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}