Between 2022 and 2024, Jean Marseille, an experienced fixer for foreign journalists covering turbulent events in Haiti, sent audio dispatches to two friends in the United States: writers Peter Orner and Laura Lampton Scott.
He met them more than a decade ago when they worked together on a book about the aftermath of Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. When the book was completed (“Lavil: Life, Love, and Death in Port-au-Prince”, Verso 2017), they remained in contact through emails, phone calls, and audio messages that Marseille recorded on his phone.
Marseille started sending his audio recordings in late 2022, as it became evident that the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in his home in July 2021 had triggered Haiti’s descent into unprecedented violence and a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
Gangs had long been present in Haiti, but now they were progressively taking control of most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and of large swathes of the rest of the country. Today, nearly half of Haiti's population of 11.5 million are grappling with food insecurity, and more than 700,000 people have been displaced by violence, including Marseille and his family.
Over time, it became clear to Orner and Lampton Scott that their friend’s voice recordings not only gave intimate accounts of Marseille’s uprooting, hardship, and resilience, but they also provided rare and important insights into broader contemporary life in Haiti.
Before moving to the Dominican Republic – where he works in a call centre to support his family, which is split between the DR and Haiti – Marseille was displaced and living in the dangerous streets of Port-au-Prince. He lost his bike rental business, one of his sons was kidnapped, and gangs took his house. To survive, he sold water, candy, cigarettes, or whatever would provide him enough money to buy some food. He has been forced to live separately from his wife and several of his seven children for years.
For Marseille, displacement started when he was a child.
Born in the Bahamas to Haitian parents, he was sent back to Haiti as a baby and lived with his grandparents near the northern city of Cap-Haïtien. At the age of 12, his mother, who had migrated to the United States, managed to smuggle him into Florida, where he felt like an outsider. Like many young people, he dabbled in drugs and, in his twenties, he was detained and deported to Port-au-Prince.
In his recordings, Marseille expresses his fears, confesses some hard-learned mistakes, and gives a painful account of loss, discrimination, and a life that seems to swing like a continuous pendulum between desperation and resignation.
Marseille’s insightful dispatches are now part of a new book, “The Four Deportations of Jean Marseille”, which will be launched on 1 October by non-profit publisher McSweeney’s. Co-edited by Orner and Lampton Scott, it provides a unique look into the neverending hurdles so many Haitians are confronted with, and the emotional toll it takes on them.
The following are exclusive excerpts from “The Four Deportations of Jean Marseille”, edited by Orner and Lampton Scott.
Dispatch: 18 October 2022
This morning the sun came up, like every other day, and the violence came along with it. A lot of gunshots. You have people mostly staying inside. There’s an old person that was in a house close by. Maybe he got shot, because I heard screaming. An ambulance came and took away a body. Must have been him. Right now, I’m staying in Delmas 75 [a neighborhood in Port-au-Prince]. I was supposed to leave today to go to another ghetto, but I wasn’t able to, because of two things. One, I don’t have money. Two, I owe money. I have to pay my debts before I leave. There was a big rain today, and we had to run away from the shooting through the water in the streets. When it rains in Port-au-Prince, the roads flood. When President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, whatever work they were doing to fix up the roads, it all stopped. The roads are unpaved in this area. We have to wait a couple of days for the water to go down.
As I sit, my heart is beating really fast. I’m panicking. I just want to get out of here. The roads out of the city are still blocked and there’s some war going on in Cité Soleil [a notoriously violent part of the capital] about the gas that’s being sold on the streets for G550 ($3.77) a gallon.
There was a lot of shooting going on just now. Another group of people came through this area, just shooting.
Dispatch: 19 October 2022
I was deported to Haiti in 1994 for some things I did back in the day in the United States. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve talked about it enough.
It’s always been hard for me in Haiti as a deportee. Hard to get work. People don’t always trust deportees. They wonder what you did to get kicked out of the United States. Ever since I came to Port-au-Prince, the only way I’ve been staying alive is through the international community. When reporters or people who work for NGOs come to Haiti, I get some work, as a driver, fixer, translator – I help out in all kinds of ways. Even after they leave, a lot of these internationals keep me in mind and help me and my family out a little. I used to do a lot of work with a woman from the Miami Herald. Lately I got in contact with her and she’s been saving me. Otherwise, I might already be dead.
Money is always a problem. Everything costs too much. Haiti doesn’t have free schools. There isn’t any soup kitchen you go to for food. There aren’t any government food stamps either. Food, gas, education – it’s all very hard to come by.
About six months ago, things were really hard. My small business renting out bikes didn’t bring in much money. I just didn’t have enough funds to get the business going. Then my mom died in Florida. We hadn’t been in touch for a while. I only heard about it because a friend saw a post on Facebook and hit me up. (…)
I’ve got three brothers in Florida: William, Howard, and Wilgems. (…) Wilgems, he’s my mom and my dad’s first son. He was with me on my voyages from Haiti to the Bahamas and back to Haiti. The day after my mom died, he called and told me that my mom had left me $7,800. I knew she had a life insurance policy. She said that when she died, she’d leave me money. But I thought it was going to be more. Wilgems sent me the papers, but it was so complicated. That money was hard for me to get. After a few months, after a lot of struggle, with the help of my friend Joe Mozingo, who works for the Los Angeles Times, they finally gave me the money.
So things were starting to lighten up with the help of the money from my mother. I was able to do some things I’d been waiting on, like fixing up my house. I was preparing to send my kids to better schools. My wife needed a surgery. Now we had the money to pay for that. Things were looking up for us.
Word got around the neighborhood. They see you’re not working but you’re eating. They see a truck drop off fresh water at your house. They see you rent a car for a couple of days. They see you bring home a pizza. They see you start gaining weight. In Port-au-Prince, you can’t get fat, because then people start to think you have money. And you don’t talk to anybody about money, either.
Somebody must have gone and told the gangsters.There’s a guy around here with some money. It could have been anybody.
Dispatch: 20 October 2022
One day my eight-year-old son, Diego, was out riding around on his bike with his friend, the two of them together on the bike. Some guys came and knocked the boys off the bike. They took Diego. Gangsters, they kidnapped my son. I was just down the block. I saw it happen, but I didn’t get a good look at them. They had on those Scarface bandannas that hid their faces. About six or seven guys.
A couple of days later they called me and asked for $150,000 US. I said I didn’t have that kind of money. They hung up. About a week later one of the kidnappers called me up and asked me how much I had. I told them, and we made a deal. I went to the bank and took out most of the money I had left, $7,000. They held Diego for seventeen days. And if I hadn’t been smart, they would have killed him.
The day we arranged for me to hand over the ransom money, I met one of the kidnappers in an area called Tokyo, near Cité Soleil. This guy recognized me from when I used to take journalists into Cité Soleil. I’m pretty well known for my work with international journalists. Some people think I can make them famous or something. This guy says, “Listen, they’re going to take your money but they aren’t going to give back your son.” “Why?” I said. “Because they want more money.” Then he says, “Listen, it’s not fair. I’m going to help you out.” So I gave him the money and together we went into Cité Soleil, into a real shady-ass neighborhood. Total slum. And he points to the house where they’re holding Diego and says, “I’m going to go talk to the big boss. Go get your kid.” Then he told me another route to get out of that neighborhood.
And so that’s what I did. I started walking toward the house. I could hear these guys arguing. The guy who took my money said, “It’s not fair, man. The guy paid.” The house was raggedy. A country house, like made of mud and cow leather. The door was falling off. Normally, there would have been guards in front of it, but the guards were over by the big boss and they were all arguing about the money. So I took my chances and went inside. Lots of people, prisoners, were stuffed in there. I found Diego lying on the floor like he was dying. When he saw me he was happy, his eyes lit up, but he couldn’t talk. You ever seen someone in shock? He couldn’t walk, either. I picked him up and carried him out of there. He was so light from not eating. I carried him home. To this day, he doesn’t remember what happened. But often at night he wakes up screaming and yelling. What can I do? I stay up with him until he calms down.
Dispatch: 21 October 2022
I finally had some money, and then somebody kidnapped my son. Then the same people that did the kidnapping, they took my house. These guys took lots of houses on my side of the street. The ones they didn’t take, they burned. They are still living in my house today. All my money was taken away. I don’t have a home. I don’t have enough money to start a proper business. Would you want to stay in this place?
First, I had to get Diego out of there, or they’d probably take him again. I didn’t have any money to get him a passport. So I sent him ahead to family in Cap Haitien, and from there, our family hired a passer to take him into the Dominican Republic. You give the passer like $200 US, and he pays the bus driver to give a little money at each immigration stop. There’s seven stops. When immigration comes on the bus, they act like they don’t see you. Sometimes they take people across the border through the bushes. That’s how Diego came, through the bushes. All I know is that he arrived in the DR okay. So Diego is now with my oldest daughter, Esperanta, in the Dominican Republic. Esperanta is my wife’s daughter. The first time I met her, she was eighteen months old. So really she’s my daughter too. My daughter Medjine is also in the DR. Not legally, though.
I’m kind of worried right now because I’m not working. And the only funds that I’m able to get now come from begging my friends Joe and Peter. I know one day that’s all going to stop.
Nothing’s easy. You can’t get a passport without money. You can’t eat without money. In order to get help from people, I’m always having to ask. Whoever will help, I’ll ask. Sometimes I even get help from my wife’s sister who’s living all the way in Brazil. My final plan, someday, is to try and move us all to Brazil. But that’s going to take a lot of money. Where am I going to get it?
Dispatch: 7 November 2022
Maybe stories about this place are too much. You don’t know where to start. Like today. A flood of people came running toward the Delmas 73 section – that’s the section where I’m staying now. They were running because of the massive killing that’s been going on in Canaan and those areas. Regular people, living in their homes with their kids. A woman came to my house — she was running with her kid and a few personal belongings. Her sister is a good friend of my wife’s. Some gang members were burning houses, chopping people up with machetes. And the people, they were just running.
Let me try to explain Canaan. In 2011, Sean Penn, the Red Cross, Oxfam, and many other organizations from all over the world got together to try and help all the people who were still homeless from the earthquake of January 12, 2010. A year after, tens of thousands of people were still living in camps in the city center and Delmas. This was when President [René] Préval was still in power. So the Haitian government and all these international organizations put their heads together and decided to build big camps for these people in the north part of the city, near the sea. These camps were supposed to be temporary, five years maximum. But it’s 2022, and guess what? They’re still there.
The Haitian people gave their own names to these places: Onaville. Jerusalem. Canaan. Names from the Bible. They called the area the Promised Land. Some people even built houses. Back in the day, it was a very beautiful place because it’s by the sea, near where the boats come in. But now Canaan is no promised land. It’s the dead land. It’s the people-dying land. What’s been happening is there’s a deputy minister – some deputy minister of something, and he’s responsible for Canaan and the surrounding areas – and he decided it’s time to get rid of everybody. I guess he wants the land. There are beaches up there. Maybe he thinks one day it could be like a tourist attraction or something.
And in Canaan you’ve got this gang leader operating, Izo. I told you about Izo and his gang, 5 Segonn. What I hear is that Izo is working with the deputy minister, trying to get rid of people. Izo’s doing the deputy minister’s dirty work. That’s how it works. Suddenly there’s lots of killings. Izo sends his group led by one of his guys, Jeff, some guy they gave power to, into Canaan and other camps, and they start slaughtering people. And these poor people, they have nowhere to go. They just start running. They lost their houses in the earthquake. The government made them all sorts of promises. They tried to make a life up there. And now they’re running again.
That’s what’s going on in Canaan, the Promised Land.
Dispatch: 20 November 2022
Good afternoon. [Coughing] I’m sorry. This is going to be a short recording.
I don’t really want to leave. But things keep getting worse and worse. I don’t know if I’m going to live to see the day I get out of here, because things are taking so long. If I am going to stay here, I just want to live somewhere that is decent, so I don’t have to be on the streets.
Look, I’m sleeping on the streets. That’s how I ended up on the plaza, the one by the airport, the park that President Martelly made, where I’d lay my head to sleep. A lot of people were sleeping there.
[Coughing] I’m super sick. My mom passed away in the States. My brother Wilgems don’t give a fuck. Excuse my language. And I’m not sleeping well. I have a blanket. This woman saw me sitting on the plaza and I guess felt kind of bad for me – she gave me a blanket.
[Coughing] I didn’t want to do this recording. I didn’t want you to hear how sick I am. But I guess I have no choice. Because it’s very important that you guys hear me. I’m getting old. I’m fifty-some years old now. I can’t be going on like this. I have to get myself stabilized. And I have these kids coming up. I gotta prepare for their future. But here in Haiti, I just feel like I’m wasting time.
Tonight is different. This woman let me stay in her backyard. She’s an older woman, maybe in her fifties. She’d cook food by the side of the road. Regular Haitian plates with sauce and rice and beans and a little bit of chicken or pork. She served all the people from the factories. I came around three or four to buy food, but this time she saw I was still there around seven, and she knew it wasn’t like me to still be around the plaza. She asked what was wrong, and I told her there was some trouble around my neighborhood. She took me and let me stay in her backyard, in a log cabin thing without a door. And I’m still cold as heck. I have this fever. She made me some tea. It made me feel better. If I ever get a chance for a better life, I would come back to Haiti to sell my house. I know gangs can’t rule forever. I don’t know how long all this is going to last. I love Haiti. But the point where it’s gotten right now, it’s like a lot of love lost. You know what I mean? Like love wasted.
(…)
Dispatch: 30 November 2022
(…)
My experience in Port-au-Prince was devastating. It was like a horror movie. I don’t know how I survived. You think at any time someone is going to hurt you. All through the night. It’s not like you have a better place to go, and somebody is going to give you a place to stay. You can’t trust anybody. People come up to you late at night and wake you up just to ask you for water. Water. I thought I was doing okay, and then everything was just falling loose. You think you’re doing okay, and then somebody can come along and just take everything.
I’m thanking all the people that stayed by my side to make sure this could become a reality, to get out of this situation I’m in, the position I live in every day, risking my life, trying to stay alive.
I should be in Santiago in two days.
Dispatch: 22 October 2023
(…) I come out here [in the Dominican Republic] and find tons of other problems. Now I’m afraid I’m going to be put out on the streets because every month I have to pay rent. I have no choice but to leave the DR or get caught in the streets and get deported. I can’t get my family somewhere else.
Imagine: My wife has been complaining to me for months now that she can’t buy food to eat. She doesn’t have a stable place to live, she’s moving around. She sent me pictures of her going to the hospital. She got really skinny. I don’t talk to her often anymore, because there’s not enough money to pay for her phone. When she is around someone who has a phone, she calls me on WhatsApp from different numbers at different times. Next month will be our anniversary, twenty-seven years of being married.
I’m not going to immediately just go back to Haiti. I’m going to wait a little bit to see if I can get my house back. I don’t have any news about where I lived, because everybody left that neighbourhood, and I lost communication with the people that lived there. If I hear people are coming back in my area, I will immediately leave to go pick up my wife in Cap Haitien or wherever she may be right now, and then try to figure out how to get some work. I’m just living as the day goes.
Dispatch: 19 January 2024
I’m sorry to say that [my son] MacDonald was shot three times last night trying to protect his mother from gang rape. They were staying in Baryè Boutèy, a neighborhood in Cap Haitien, bunking with friends. Gang members rushed into the house. MacDonald had gone out to buy something, and when he returned, he rushed in to save my wife and [my daughter] Geyonce. The machine gun went off ta ta ta, and the gang members ran out. Haiti is at war big-time and my family is still there!
I’m crying in pain and I don’t know who to ask for help anymore. I failed my family in Haiti and I’m losing the battle for the ones here. I left them, and the rent has run out. I’ve not eaten. I’ve been living at my job. They let me sleep there, but that means I have to work extra hours without pay for living there. Nothing is free. I’m scared for my wife and kids to suffer more than what they are suffering now. My wife and my adopted daughter and my son are still in the crossfire.
My story’s far from over.
The New Humanitarian would like to thank Jean Marseille, McSweeney’s, and award-winning writers Peter Orner and Laura Lampton Scott for granting us permission to publish these excerpts ahead of the book’s official launch.
Edited by Andrew Gully.
