Manchester man's trip 'back home' turns to Haitian nightmare

Apr. 21—MANCHESTER — After being away eight years, Frantzy Saintelus, a 56-year-old Manchester truck driver, wanted to return to his native Haiti last February to visit family and check on his rental property and other possessions including a car and a motorcycle.

Saintelus picked the worst possible time to make the trip, however, setting in motion a harrowing multiweek ordeal hoping to safely escape a country that had exploded with violence and political unrest.

"At night I heard the shooting, people partying a lot, I don't know what it was, but those guns were loud. The first night I thought, 'I'm never going to get to sleep with this going on,' but after a while it becomes like music to your ears, background noise," Saintelus said during an interview.

Saintelus credits his son, Alex, a 31-year-old civics teacher in Richmond, Virginia, for pulling out all the stops to get him out.

Alex said the entire experience for him became a lesson in getting government help in a time of crisis.

This included enlisting the aid of New Hampshire's two U.S. senators, Democrats Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, and the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs, which arranged to get Frantzy a rescue helicopter ride out from the American embassy in violence-wracked Port-au-Prince.

The chopper took Frantzy and other Americans out of harm's way to Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic, where Saintelus could catch a commercial flight back to the states.

"My son did all the hard work to get me back home," Saintelus said.

"When I finally left the country, I was sad because I didn't know when I will be able to make it back home again. Yesterday my family called me, they said where I stayed is no longer safe right now, it's even worse."

Criminal gangs took over Haiti's capital in late February, seizing the city's international airport, freeing inmates from the country's two biggest prisons and blocking the delivery of food and humanitarian aid.

More than 1,550 people were killed across Haiti and more than 820 injured as of March 22, which was four days before Saintelus was rescued, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office.

Another 4,400 were killed in gang-related violence last year.

Had plans to head home days before airport seized

Initially, Frantzy had arranged a commercial flight to bring him home three days before the airport was seized, but that was canceled.

When Alex called to check on the status of his second flight and it too was called off, both became concerned.

"If we hadn't gotten him out a few weeks ago, he is probably still there," Alex Saintelus said during a telephone interview.

"For a while there I was really worried, there were so many people trapped near to where he was."

Friends kept telling Saintelus he was a lot better off because he was staying in Carrefour, about 7 miles away from the capital.

Saintelus said he took their advice and didn't travel much, spending much of the time indoors.

"When I did go out, it felt like I was in a cowboy movie; everybody standing around had guns," Frantzy Saintelus said.

"When they shut everything down, you just stayed where you were and hoped you had enough food, water and other stuff to ride it out. When they decided to open the country then nobody was in charge but the guys with the guns. I didn't see a lot of shooting where I was, but it was hard to feel comfortable not knowing where it was coming from when you would hear the shots ring out."

Ironically his greatest danger came after a federal consulate official told Saintelus on March 25 that he was on the list to board a helicopter from the Port-au-Prince embassy at 7 a.m. the following morning.

"I got up at 5 a.m. but it wasn't easy to get to the embassy," he recalled.

Saintelus had to pay bribes totaling $150 — about $4,000 in Haitian cash — to get his way through three checkpoints.

"I remember thinking, 'What if they send me back home and it doesn't come off? How am I going to pay a second time?'" he asked himself.

Then the Americans in line to be rescued were left standing outside the embassy building for a time, all feeling like "sitting ducks," Saintelus recalled.

"Finally, we got inside, and it was all good," he said.

Alex said he had many anxious moments until getting the text message that his father was on the helicopter.

The State Department and the offices of both senators were of critical assistance, said Alex Saintelus, singling out Chelsea Christiansen, Hassan's senior constituent services coordinator.

"She was an absolute angel," Alex said.

Hassan said she's pleased the story had a happy ending.

"One of my key responsibilities is to help constituents navigate any challenges that they have with the federal government or with access to federal resources. My office stayed in contact with the State Department and Mr. Saintelus's son until we were able to find a flight option home that Mr. Saintelus could safely get to," Hassan said in a statement.

Alex said the experience reaffirmed his faith that people working in government are there to help.

"You can get answers if you use the system correctly and you know who to call. I got so much help in that regard," said Alex, who teaches middle school.

"The role of the media is also important in bringing to light issues like this. My goal is to bring an awareness that there are many others back in Haiti who need assistance."

Frantzy Saintelus said it's mystifying to him how the gangs have such extensive arsenals in a country that doesn't allow the public to legally possess weapons.

"We hear all the guns come from Miami. Isn't there something this country could do to stop the flow of all those guns to the gangs?" the elder Saintelus asked.

Frantzy Saintelus grew up in Haiti and, at 14, he joined his mother in America.

He lived in many places including Miami and New York City before visiting New Hampshire in 1990.

"I've been here ever since," said Saintelus, who started his own small and local trucking firm seven years ago.

He said he still wants to bring his kids to Haiti. Alex and his 4-year-old half brother have never been there. Frantzy's 14-year-old daughter was born in Haiti and came here when she was 5 months old.

"I don't know if it is going to get any better. You have to have hope. But in my lifetime? I don't know," he said. "I sure hope so."

klandrigan@unionleader.com