The inhabitants of the Port-au-Prince slum of Martissant have created a mosaic of community groups to fill in as best they can for a crying absence of public services.

Things are going from bad to worse in Martissant. It’s the same all over the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, but the situation is even more acute in this sprawling slum that stretches up the side of a hill south of the city. At the last count, in 1996, about 25,000 people lived here. And the number is growing all the time because of the high birth rate and the exodus of people from the countryside.There’s filth everywhere - puddles of dirty water in potholed streets, gutters choked with garbage, buildings erected without any planning. The inhabitants, who lack even the most basic public services, call themselves "people on the outside."

But they have laboured, since the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, to build up alternative services enabling the community to live, or rather, to survive. Today, jobless youngsters just out of school, others who have learned a trade, unemployed people and women are all involved in running a variety of community groups dedicated to different goals.

Édouard, a father of three, is an active leader of the Youth Association of Saint Bernadette and Malet Streets (AJSM). "Our first concern is the garbage," he says. AJSM members, most of whom have no job, pick up the rubbish and take it down the hill to the main road. The garbage trucks don’t pass through the teeming streets of Martissant.

The group has submitted a $900 project proposal to the Port-au-Prince city authorities to buy gloves, wheelbarrows, picks and shovels, and even megaphones to keep people informed. So far, there has been no response. "We’ve been shunted from one office to another," says Malherbe, an AJSM member. "If this goes on, we’ll call everyone together and stage a demonstration."

Garbage disposal and other sensitive problems sometimes set off bloody disputes between people who live higher up the hill and those lower down who suffer as a result of the rubbish dumped there. Calling the police doesn’t help: they refuse to get involved and advise people to deal with it themselves.

When neighbourhood quarrels erupt, people turn to the older and wiser inhabitants of the town - often natives of Martissant or homeowners - to mediate and restore peace. When this happens, two or three elders put their heads together to find a satisfactory solution rooted in common law. Recourse to the state legal system is rare. "It’s a waste of time," says one man. "Justice can be bought here, like rice and peas at the market."

Demanding that a neighbour be taken to court could also be risky. Would the bailiff dare come face to face with the chimères, the gangs of jobless youths in the pay of the ruling party? Confident of their unbridled power, these youths use intimidation to control access to the slums they hold sway over.

The young people of Martissant have also formed 'vigilance brigades' of 10 to 15 people to defend themselves against robbers and prevent crime after dark. Not a full-time force, they are mainly active after an upsurge of crime.

"We look out for trouble from the rooftops," says Charles, who belongs to one of these groups. "As soon as we see a zenglendo [Haitian Creole for a thug], we alert everyone by blowing into a lambi [a giant sea shell]." The inhabitants immediately spring into action, catch the zenglendo and take him to the police, who often let the culprits go free. "So sometimes he gets lynched by an angry crowd," says Charles.

During the day, Martissant hums with activity. Vendors wander the streets hawking their goods while others set up shop along the main road by the seashore, often spreading their wares out in the middle of the street. Sometimes the authorities send out men to force them back on to the pavements.

Most of the women in Martissant work outside the formal economy. They have no ready access to credit, so they turn to money-lenders who "stab" them with exorbitant interest rates that can reach 30 percent a month. Lenders resort to any means, including armed force and violence, to make debtors repay their loans. But there is no protection to be found: victims have little faith in the state’s capacity to address their grievances.

"We’ve set up an informal community bank," says Marie-Eramite, of the Martissant Organization of Valiant Women (OFVM). About 50 people pay one gourde (four U.S. cents) each day. After a month, the kitty is handed over as credit to two members of the group. This works better, she says, than the more traditional system in which monthly deposits are made.

"The state should do its job and build us a market here," says Guerda, a single mother with five children. Like many heads of families, her main worry is paying the rent for her 'house,' a single room for which she pays between $200 and $300 a year.

Bribes to go to high school

"The rent was due yesterday and I’m busy lying low," she says. Guerda earns less than 36 gourdes ($1.40), which is the official daily minimum wage. She knows her landlord wants to raise the rent by about $80 a year, even though she can barely manage the current amount. Guerda also points out that landlords in Martissant "don’t pay any taxes on the rent they collect."

Only a tiny number of houses or shacks are connected to the electricity grid. Many people tap into the supply illegally, using special wiring. And some sell the stolen electricity to their neighbours for about $2 a month.

When there’s a fire, "it’s up to all of us to put it out," says Marie-Eramite. "Last summer, we had to form a konbit [a Creole word designating a group of people working together] to extinguish the flames. The whole neighbourhood helped fetch water in whatever was at hand. The children helped by throwing stones at the blaze. By the time the firemen arrived, the fire had been extinguished. At first, they refused to help, saying the streets were too narrow for them to enter."

Parents in Martissant dream of being able to send their children to secondary school. But this is hard to do, says Guerda, "because they ask us for bribes of about $40 per pupil." The cost of schooling rises every year and the collèges [high schools] hardly deserve the name.

"When my kids go off to school each morning to Hermann Hereaux, one of the oldest state schools around here, I worry about the walls collapsing onto them," says Yolette. There are no toilets or drinking water at the school. The neighbourhood sometimes goes without water for three months at a stretch. The parents have decided to get together to buy the materials to build new wooden benches for the children to sit on.

"The carpenters are going to make them for free," she says. Valiant as the efforts of civil society may be, they soon come up against the obstacles of enormous needs and meagre resources. Take for example the Haitian Women’s Solidarity Organization, which opened a clinic in Martissant in 1996, the slum’s first medical facility. "We look after women and children," says Marie-Yolenne, who works there. The clinic is open three days a week and has a female gynaecologist who also acts as a general practitioner. She sees about 30 patients a day, who pay 15 gourdes ($0.60) for an appointment. But, she says, they struggle to pay for the medicine.

Like the inhabitants of other slums, the people of Martissant believed change would come with the December 1990 presidential elections, which brought the left-wing priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. But they were disappointed. Far fewer went out to vote last November 26 when he ran for re-election.

"We still hope things will change," says Guerda stoically. "Because we just can’t go on like this."