On my first port visit to Haiti I was stunned when it was announced that we were not allowed to take any pictures of extreme poverty or the presidential palace.

The word extreme was the stunner, and once ashore my shipmates and I discovered what that entailed. It was pitiful and I mean pitiful.

Two weird things standout in my mind from that visit, with the first being a KFC near the Presidential Palace and some hotel near there.

The other was the Ton-ton Mautes which were a bunch of thugs pretending to be cops. These asshats basically went around and beat people up for bribes.

I was also part of a humanitarian relief effort, mostly on the Dominican Republic side of that island, after a pair of hurricanes slammed, David and Frederic, into the place. I lost one of my team members there after she went over to the Haitian side to help with contaminated water supplies. She died of anthrax.

Things must be looking up down there though I heard the average life expectancy is up to 46 or so now. It was 39 when I visited the first time.