In 2010 I visited Port au Prince, Haiti, with the Irish charity Haven. Branding for Denis O’Brien’s Digicel towered over UN refugee camps, cluttered market stalls, and even coated roadside shacks (I had never before seen the developing country ‘fashion’ of having your house painted for free by an advertising company… I’m amazed it’s never taken off in Ireland).
This picture shows the juxtaposition of ubiquitous mobile phones and wifi with absolute, grinding poverty. I’d never seen it before, although it’s been similar in other developing countries I have visited since then (none of them as poor as Haiti).
The day we left the camp we were staying in at Gonaives, local women employed on the campsite jostled each other to beg for the clothes we’d been wearing all week on a building site in 35 degree heat. I left the shower block carrying a bunch of dirty clothes, a comb and some almost-empty toiletries, and arrived back at our tent empty handed. In a place where nobody has anything, everything has a value.