Re-Evaluating Haiti, with Walensky Olicier & Jean-Ricardo Compere

On the ground in Cap-Haitien, on Haiti's north coast, talking to Walensky Olicier & Jean-Ricardo Compere, advocates for a re-evaluation of how Haiti is perceived, locally and internationally. 

For more information and to follow these narratives:

Walensky Olicier - https://www.youtube.com/@thatboylens

Jean-Ricardo Compere - https://www.instagram.com/hiddensidesofhaiti/

Recording Ludwig Elias Franz - https://www.instagram.com/ludwigeliasfranz?igsh=amZtcDJqZngydWpy and Ludwigeliasfranz.de/en

Transcript

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:00

Hi everyone and uh welcome back to Latin America Correspondent. We're in Capeshim, OCAP, on the north coast of Haiti, and we're going to get into a lot of different topics in the in the coming days. But today I'm delighted to say that I'm joined by Linz, uh real name, Walensky Olyssier, and Jean-Ricardo Compere, both are important figures in what might be termed a kind of a re-evaluation of of uh of Haiti. Haiti tends to appear in our new cycles uh surrounding particular uh topics. Uh they it they're very difficult to shift. Um Linz, maybe we can just start with you. Why do you think, or could you maybe just explain to us why you think that re-evaluating Haiti and what it means is important?

Walensky Olisier: 0:43

The idea of starting with uh showcasing Haiti uh in another way to the world is that uh nowadays all the images that is putting out uh of Haiti always be the bad side. Like uh one of the things was if you go to Google, you type Haiti, like you'll see the images that come first are gang stuff, no things that happened after the earthquake, all those are the images that will pop up first. And otherwise, like Hawaii and the other country in the Caribbean, uh which is close to us, like when you type them, you see the beautiful beaches they have, and also the culture, the food, and that that's what you got. But that doesn't mean they don't have bad stuff happening, but it's the way that they blending, like the way that they show their country to the world. And then one thing that I believe is that uh what you show, this is what people know about you. What people sell about you, what people see about you, when how they see you, this is what they know. Like, for example, someone that has never visited Haiti, and all the time you see bad things happening, you see uh gang stuff, that's what you need you you know about Haiti. Like when I start like posting content uh about like the good side of Haiti, uh one thing that kept me, like kept me going uh like that was uh a lot of people like from other countries that are not Haitian, like disconforting my channel, and then they'd be like, boy, no way this is Haiti. Yeah, the f the only thing people know about Haiti after the gang stuff was like a lot of people, like the world, they know that Haiti is the first black Republic like in the world. Otherwise, you know, they know that after this, uh it is just trash and gang stuff like misery private, and this is why we got like the media as is just portraying about Haiti. And that's why I said uh we need to uh change the narrative of Haiti, and then the only way to do that is using the same the same way like the other people are using to destroy the country. Is that like instead of showing the the people are also doing the bad thing, like let's use the same uh things they are using. Like we got the internet right now, uh, which uh make the the world become like a palm of a hand, like which is like it's easy why now to conquer like the world. No, just we with with with the content that I have been making. I said, let me use this, and then I started posting content on YouTube, like to showcase the the beautiful stuff of Haiti so people can know uh Haiti is not what they see on TV. Haiti is actually a country in the Caribbean with hardworking people, with uh welcoming people, with good food, and also the beaches, uh the mountains, the chew is the Caribbean lifestyle, like people know about the other places in the Caribbean.

Jon Bonfiglio: 3:42

So this is why we have here in Haiti to Linz, just for those for um listeners and viewers who maybe are unaware of it, I know you mentioned it, but you're you're a YouTuber, you have a big YouTube following, and it's it's interesting that you've chosen, or it might be termed kind of socially conscious and messaging as part of your your narrative. Was it always I guess two questions? One is how did you come into YouTubing? And were you clear from the start that that was the messaging you wanted to focus on, or did you come to that through time?

Walensky Olisier: 4:13

Yeah, uh like starting with uh creating content, like this is like first, like growing up, I always had a passion for filmmaking. Like from the very young age, uh 2014, I discovered the passion for photography and filmmaking. So I started like with editing photos on on phone. There are there are a couple app like Pixar, like people might know. And there was another called Aviari. I started with them, and then after this, I started making short videos, like filming stuff that I just see with my phone. I didn't I didn't I didn't at this time I did not even have a good phone. I was like just trying, trying, trying. And then days are coming, then YouTube is getting bigger. Like a lot of people are getting into content creation. And then uh I started with with YouTube. Now I think it was about 2016. I had my first YouTube channel, but I was just posting like whatever I have, just filming stuff, and then just throw the phone, just put like directly on YouTube. I didn't I did not care about views or anything, like or audience. But after I've been watching a lot of content creators like another side of the world, like from Africa, like one of my inspiration was Wodi Maya, which is an African like traveling across Africa and like showcasing the beautiful side of Africa. And I said, man, this is something that we can do here too. And I matched this with the fact that a lot of YouTubers are coming here in Haiti, and every time they come, they go straight to Portal Point and trying to get trying to try to meet with the gang. And like if you go on YouTube, for example, right now, uh you type Haiti, you probably see a video like with millions of views, say 24 hours in the most dangerous country in the world. About Haiti. You see, like every time they come, that's what they try to do. Some of them say, uh, meeting the most dangerous gang and the world. It's like clickbait. Yeah, clickbait, clickbait, like a video.

Jon Bonfiglio: 6:18

And that's interesting because always with that, it's it's look at me, the filmmaker, it's not look at men. Like it's not a real look, it's about views, as you say. Yes, it's about presenting yourself in a particular context. It's not a genuine look at what is happening. I mean, I'm not pretending that's not happening, right? Yeah, for sure. But the focus and the honesty, there's no honesty with that because it's not an actual look at a place. You're taking yourself to that place in order to make yourself at the center of the story, which I think if you're we're telling real stories, then the story has to be has to follow the real people in the real place.

Walensky Olisier: 6:50

Yeah, yeah, the world in the world place. Yeah, I'm not saying that bad things are not happening here, but Haiti is 10 different departments. Haiti is a really huge country. Uh and most of the thing, like most of the time that they come, they go straight to Port Banch, which is one of like part of one of the visions. Portowance is the worst department of of Haiti. Like in the capital city, just this is just a part of the vision. Like, I know it's it's bad there, but Haiti is huge and we have a lot more to offer. Like from from beaches, from life, lifestyle, like the people, the food, uh, the waterfall, like rivers, like a lot of things that the culture that we have here, you know, so this is I was like, this is what to show or to the world instead of like let's let's show the world what they they don't want to show them.

Jon Bonfiglio: 7:48

And and just to clarify, you're from the south of the team. I'm not from the south, actually. But you live in the south. Yeah, I live in the south. Okay, but you travel all around Haiti, all around Haiti, generating content. So the storytelling that you do is kind of national.

Walensky Olisier: 8:00

Yeah, national, like showing the showing what we have, what people don't know. What like this is one thing about my content. You know, Haitian, like in Haiti, like most of the time they don't travel. Like, if you were born in this area and at the other age you travel, like you go to one other country, you left Haiti, and that probably the only place they know about Haiti. Like that that was not in uh in our culture, like traveling across the country, like visiting places or places. You like even the time that it was easy to do that, you know, so there was a lot of places here, even Haitian, they don't know about them. Because they don't visit, they don't travel around. Like until why now some young men are trying to do some young people are trying to like visit places, but they just want to learn the culture, trying to learn more about the country. And you know one thing, like the more I travel through Haiti, the more I love Haiti myself. Like this is why I said like you can't love something that you don't know. Like, if you know your country, that's how you're gonna love it. If you know places, like if you travel at the very young age, in in your area, something bad happens to you, this is what you have in your mind about Haiti. Even though you are Haitian. You know, like I wanted to show the other side, like travel all around the country and then show people what Haiti has to offer. Thanks, thanks for this.

Jon Bonfiglio: 9:32

And um, again, just the listeners and viewers in the in the sort of contents of the of the podcast will link to your YouTube pages and stuff so can follow you and get a sense of your journeys through Haiti too. Uh Jean-Ricardo, in how do you come to that narrative? How do you come to this kind of the re-evaluation? Was it was it social, was it school-based, or was it like personal questions that you asked yourself that led you to this point?

Jean-Ricardo: 9:57

Yeah, my story is so I was studying tourism and hospitality and being uh a student of tourism, so I always had the trends to visit some places in love. My teachers always take us to some beautiful spot. And from there I start realizing that, okay, that is not the Haiti I used to see on social media myself, because Linz has just said that. Unfortunately, Haitians don't really like travel, even locally. So if I'm from a place, I just stay at my place. Or if I'm moving, I just move to a to a digger tower nearby and never really experienced the real Haiti. And from those times, uh I start like visiting and discovering the nature. So and I've said that too, when I go on social media, I only mostly see bad things about Haiti. As it says I'm I'm I'm studying, I was I'm studying like tourism, and I see there is a problem. So and I'm Haitian. So and I'm questioning, okay, why this, why this, why all these bad things on social media? And since I'm Haitian and I see the problem, so I was questioning the solution, who gonna bring the solution? And I said to myself, okay, I gotta be one of those people that should take part of the solution me. I'm asking myself. So and from that time when COVID hit, so those years was in 20, 20, 2017, 2018, so traveling in 2019, and then COVID hit, so every everything stopped. So I was in two universities at the time. I was studying economic science and tourism in hospitals. So I didn't really have free time like to start the movement, but I've seen the problem. So, but I had a solution in mind too. And COVID hit, so everything loved down, so I had a chance to start thinking about that again. And I was sitting in my house and say, why not study right now? And I created an Instagram account. And I didn't post anything, and I didn't have any knowledge about photography, so I didn't know nothing. I just wanted to do something for my country. And from that time, after eight days, I got back to my Instagram account, to the Instagram account that I created. And without posting anything, I've seen 15 followers or so. And I said, okay, why people start following without having anything on it? So I went on Google, so I like I've told you, I did have a knowledge about photography. I went on Google, probably look for beautiful spots of Haiti, and look for a description about those places so people can have an idea about them. And I got them and post them on my account and give credit. And about like a couple weeks or so, somebody reached out, told me, yo, you are the only guy that is selling Haiti positively. That motivated me. And I had a friend of mine who had an iPhone and I used it. We went to visit the place and I took a picture of a landscape and posted. And somebody reached out again, what came are you using? So I told him, I'm just using a phone of my of my one of my friends. He says, Okay, I'm gonna, I got I'm going to Sandry King, well. So I got a camera, I think, for a couple of weeks, a couple months after when I got the camera, I started creating pictures myself. So start taking pictures. At the time, Instagram was mainly made for photography, like photos. And I start creating good content, take photos. I had a T7, kind of T7. So all the pictures I was taking, so many people always ask me, what camera are you using? They think I'm using a very expensive camera. Whereas it's it's a low-budget camera. And I started this way, start posting, start posting, start, start posting, and I start booming. And I see, I remember I post something about Haiti, somebody reach out, somebody commented, no, that can't be Haiti. So I was surprised. So everybody thinks Haiti got to be trash. If I'm not posting trash about the Haiti, this that he. If I'm posting beautiful spots, so that can't be Haiti. And I remember the other day, I told you that I posted a race of a coastline, beautiful shot, join shot, and somebody said this is AI. I mean anything beautiful can't be Haiti. So basically, this is how I started. And and after one year or so, I created Facebook. Then I I I created on the YouTube chat channel too, but I didn't I didn't really post on it. I started creating longish for him content this year. So yeah.

Jon Bonfiglio: 14:44

So basically, this is how I started, and yeah, so I I always think that um people who make like personal cultural changes, like firstly, I always think it's a brave thing to do, right? Because it's kind of countercultural. Yeah. You you're not just you're not just making a decision about what you see and making that happen. You're also going against the standard messaging that oftentimes is friends and family. So you're really pushing the boat out and and isolating yourself with a but with a very clear vision of what it is that you want to to do, which is often socially complex. Yeah. So I which you guys have pushed through. The other thing is I always think that anybody who really wants to make this kind of personal social cultural change happen, and nobody can ever tell them to do that. They decide it for themselves and they have their own personal set of questions, and then they go, No, this doesn't feel right to me. And I step forward. And I think both of you are really clear examples of that. It's like you're self-talk, you just took it's incremental steps. It was never a grand master plat. It was I quite like doing this, and then it's another step, and it's another step, and it's another step. And it's great to see you both with the courage of your convictions and sort of standing up and saying that there is another narrative possible and another life path possible. And in terms of the, I guess you've got two, you know, if I'm being really basic about it, you've got two markets, right? You've got an international market, people looking from outside, which of course is slightly complicated because you've got the Haitian diaspora as well that fit into fit into that, but also, and then you've got uh sort of a Haitian audience too. Is there a difference between how your your storytelling, um, your narrative making is received across those spaces? Maybe you can just you mentioned a few stories, Rick, about people saying I can't be possibly be yeah be Haiti, but just some of the yeah, how how people react to your to your content?

Walensky Olisier: 16:40

Yeah, uh I can say uh the my dream was not to just make content but also having an impact, also serving for a cause, like helping, and this is what my content is doing right now. Uh nowadays a lot of people in the dayswall are moving back to Haiti because of my content. And what I've if I spent a couple of days without posting, like you can go on machine and see before like company and so you are, it's been so long. We need you to post like more often. Because a lot of them, like some of them too wanna come, but they can't so far, but they still wanna see their country. And one of the things is like even even though a lot of people leave Haiti, like their blood, like their minds are still in Haiti. They all their dream is to come back, to come back here. And that's how our content help them to live like Haiti, their time here, and also bring them back here, like show them that there is life here, show them that there is opportunity here. And right now, the Haitian diaspora are doing really great now, which is different from like five years ago. Like, very time, like the Haitian diaspora, they believed in buying houses in the states. They like a lot of them like thought that it was impossible to come back. It was impossible to invest here in Haiti. But right now they start like learning that, they start like seeing that people coming, people like doing stuff, people building. Like they still there, and now they have their mansion here in Haiti. Like there were a lot of places. If you go now, you'll see like big houses like empty, like no people living in and deal for the dice. Well, they still live there, like working, and then like get them and then come back here and wait waiting for that time to without it. Like the challenge is they can't like you can't just leave the state and then move here in Haiti because you gotta need earning. You need to be to be earning, you know, so they still need to work. And that's the biggest challenge for them to to come back. Uh other eye so hold I I I believe that most of the Haitian diaspora, they will already be here in Haiti.

Jon Bonfiglio: 19:11

It's interesting what you say, because uh undoubtedly there is a a pretty significant, wide-ranging Haitian diaspora, not just because of the recent troubles with the gangs in Port of Prince. Like it goes back a long way. I mean, it you know, it's a it's a regional thing as well. But it's really clear to me, obviously, we were we passed through Miami on the way here, and it's really clear to me exactly what you say that that even if people, even people from the if people from the Haitian diaspora live somewhere else, that actually their mind, their heart is here. And hey, it's in a particular, almost imaginary version of of Haiti, the Haiti that they want to create. And it struck me today, Rick, you were kind enough to take us to the artisan to the artists among today. And it struck me that a lot of those paintings that are in there that are done by these artists, uh amazingly done, brilliantly done, skillfully done, they kind of conceive this a kind of pastoral notion of Haiti. There's like a clean bay, there's fishing vessels, there's various housewives washing in a in a river. There's cibs one. Yeah, it's like it's almost like a mythologizing of Haiti. And it's a Haiti that everybody wants to reach at some point in the future. And I and I've it just struck me that I think that there is a real strength to this need, I think, this Haitian need both at home and abroad, to the possibilities of Haiti, what Haiti could be. And I think that you're tapping into that.

Walensky Olisier: 20:37

Yeah, because all the potentials are here. So we will let go that outside to for the potential. There are countries in the world, so if they had what we have to now, there would be like more and more and more, they'll generally more and more and more money. So whereas we have pretty much everywhere you go in Haiti, you'll find something that that will amaze you. So our nature, our waterfalls, our beaches. So it's just incredible. And like you've said, so all those people creating those paintings, and most of them have live and have lived in a Haiti that was not this wart. So they try to create something that brings back their memory, or some of them creating something based on what they want. They hate the Haiti they're dreaming of dreaming about. So yeah. It's how it was. I mean, this is how it is. So I mean, we we all I mean, quaying or raking for another Haiti. But sometimes we say we we want another Haiti, but we don't, we we're not raking toward this this bull. Sometimes we say it mostly our our leaders, our politics leaders, they always come with some with some with some great like philosophy and then we're gonna read things like they they they well words that are well structured. If they you if you stop listening to what they're saying, you will believe them. Whereas the reality is way different from from what they they say. So they say they want something they will be, they don't work toward this goal or toward this dream. They they they always tell about, they always see.

Jon Bonfiglio: 22:14

So I was interviewing somebody yesterday for a different topic and they kept talking about trench work, the importance of trench work, the importance of trench work. And it seems to me that you guys are absolutely involved in.

Jean-Ricardo: 22:24

Yeah, definitely. And there's there's there's one thing. So when I started the MOOC Vic, so I didn't see the money. I I think I've I've started making money about one and a half year ago. Like I've been doing that for five years. So imagine I was at school, I gotta go around some places to take preachers. So money my parents were giving me or money I had, I had to use them to travel because I wanted something to happen. So so supposing that if somebody's talking bad about Haiti, it is not talking bad about the land, actually. It's talking about us as Haitian. So it's the lane. So it's uh something that that that can this can't speak or the devil can't speak. Talk about it, they they there's not gonna be effects on it. So the effect is gonna be on us as Haitians. We don't go out and they talk bad about us, so they're gonna pay that on us, okay. These Haitians, because alright, they kill their president, so they they flew refresh on their streets. They don't take care of their country. It's how they, for me, if I can do something for my country to make it look better, to make it have a better tomorrow, I gotta do it. I am not, I'm not going to wait for government on what I can do for for my community, for for my country. So I gotta start for myself. And this is the message I want to send to every Haitians. So here in Haiti or in the diaspora, you always ask for a change. Start yourself. So I'm sorry, from your side. We know that there are things that government is the only one that can do it. Or there's the there's a couple of different differences you can do too. Start doing the small steps and put all the steps together, for sure. We're gonna have a big steps, you know.

Jon Bonfiglio: 24:09

Yeah, for sure. I'm sure we're gonna hear from you over the course of the next few uh programs, uh, Linz and Rick. But for the moment, a pleasure to meet you both and thank you so much for for the time. And look forward to hearing your perspective on different things as we go through through the week. And just to reiterate to viewers and listeners, um, we're gonna be linking to both Lynn's and Rick's uh content in the notes of the show so people can call it you. Thank you so much.