He admits he’s not your ordinary Haitian. Christian Craan, founder and bass player for the local reggae group Milele Roots since 1998, is a son of privilege — to a degree.
His family owned a business and a commercial school back home, but even this edge didn’t stop them from suffering in the West’s poorest country.
“Even in the best of times, things were hard for Haiti,” Mr. Crann said. “Even the middle class had a difficult time. You lack the conveniences of the U.S. Electricity may be completely shut off for hours during the night. We had to use kerosene lanterns even in the school our family ran.”
Most Americans can’t conceive of paying their power bill, then turning on the lights in their homes to find that the there’s no electricity because the entire country is in a blackout. We’d be shocked to arrive at a hospital and be told they’d run out of supplies. These were common occurrences in the island nation before the earthquake.
Mr. Craan remembers, “The government didn’t provide certain things, but (people such as) my parents could afford a generator when the electricity was out. If you had money, you could go and buy your own supplies and bring them with you to the hospital.”