#1692: Nekita responding to Gill (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:Nlbo@aol.com

Mark,
I don't think I can tell you exactly when the deterioration started exactely. 
It seems to be a gradual phenomenon. For instance,when I was 7, or 8, or,9, 
my mother used to take me to "Theatre de Verdure, Rex Theatre, Cine Lido, 
Airport Cine. There was to be a movie theatre near Sans Fil. I forgot its 
name. By the time , I turn 16. 17. 18 and have gone back to Haiti and wanted 
to relive those times, those theaters were not there any more. If there are 
like Rex, they don't look the same.
Before I left Haiti in l973, there was a nice movie theatre,near Rex   even 
nicer than Capitol. When I went back 15 or 18 years ago, that theater was 
closed
I went North for the first time last August, I noticed that Okap is a piece 
of crap. But how come Milot is still beautiful?
I go to Haiti every year. P-au-Prince looks uglier , messier every time I go, 
except  last summer I saw less trash.
It seems to me that like most Haitians, I have a love-hate relationship with 
Haiti. There are times I have sworn that I will never go back. My cousin 
ripped her Haitian passport one day. But she went back a year after for 
carnival.

I know a 70 year old man who was born and grew up in P-au-Prince. He had a 2 
hour radio program 10  years about P-au-Prince's beauty and destruction eras. 
Maybe I should go and record this gentleman. He likes to talk.

Because of my parents'jobs, I spent my childhood in various towns in Haiti. I 
have gone back and forth to P-au-Prince depending who was working where. It 
was a good experience when I look back. Besides Petit-Goave which I adore 
because I remember the four years I spent there, I managed to go to back to 
Jeremie which I will not go again unless the roads are done. As an adult, I 
would like to go see other places that parents said I lived like Hinche, Fond 
Verettes, Belladere- but it's impossible. There is no road, no 
transportation. There is not a telephone which I can use  to find where I can 
stay if I get to those towns. It's hearbroken that I can not be a tourist in 
my own country.
Maybe some one who had lived in Haiti all his/her life can respond to you 
about various stages of Haiti's  debilitation. All I can say the physical 
degradation is a gradual process.
I hope my answer makes some sense to you, Mark
Nekita