PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — This teeming Caribbean capital, with its hair-raising traffic, army of sidewalk vendors and once vibrant nightlife, is now a metropolis that lives only by daylight.
People leave home only after sunrise and hurry back before sundown. They lumber along traffic-clogged main roads rather than take shortcuts, and zip through empty streets at top speeds. Instead of driving to the beach, they go to hotel pools — preferably one close to home.
“Even in the daylight, there’s still a high risk,” said Cédrice Joseph, 18, attending his high school graduation from Lycée Alexandre Dumas at the Karibe Hotel in Petionville in late June. “I won’t say it’s safer at day than at night; really, it’s anytime you go out or are at home.”
