I hope the rainy season is not very intense, not only for the obvious reasons, but I didn’t really pack for rain. I only have one pair of pants and a pair of tennis shoes. Usually I’ve been wearing skirts and flip-flops. Many foreigners who are here wear pants and closed shoes, but I can also tell I am more comfortable because it is very hot. Oh well.. like everything else, I see how it I’ll manage as it comes.
Today was a significant day because it was the first day I got to do what I really love- photograph. There were no time constrains, no worries, no looking through car windows, no pressure, just me, my camera and many worth-capturing scenes in front of me. The one thing that I can tell limited me a bit and stopped me from walking away from those who I was with was security. It might all be in my head (probably not, but to a certain extent, yes), but I didn’t feel fully comfortable walking around nicely dressed (for standards here) with an expensive camera in hand in a place where I could never fit in. I could only smile, look confident and pretend that nothing was going through my head except that these people were beautiful, they were different but it wasn’t a big deal, it was nothing for me, I’ve seen it all, nothing was going to happen to me, I was OK.
Really, thousands of thoughts were running through my mind, I felt scared, I was in shock, I thought about how different my life is from theirs, I couldn’t believe that people actually live day after day in the conditions I was faced with. But I smiled and said “bonjour” and “bonsoir” as if I was just walking through a neighborhood very close to my home.
I had the great opportunity to join well-known journalist and photographer on an afternoon trip. The journalist here, whom I am now sharing a room with, invited me to come along with her and her photojournalist friend who is in Haiti for the second time after the earthquake.
Of course leaving the village like that is something I am not really allowed to do but the story is long about how this afternoon I couldn’t really advance in my work, I was waiting to hear replies and I am waiting for our new emergency team head to arrive tomorrow from Costa Rica.
Plus, a true photographer could never let go a chance like that. And there is something about going with two people who have been around the world, seen/written and photographed different catastrophes and who give the feeling that they are immortal and invincible (at least to me) that made it feel like a safe way to go. I’ve been thinking about ways to go to the city (really- for a photographer, I haven’t had a lot of courage here, many others would have already gotten out of the car in the city, but so far , I’m taking precautions) and I’ve been struggling, feeling really “weak” for not having taking good photos yet, for being scared. At the same time knowing that I just can’t risk my life for photography (as I write this I know that I am not sounding like a photojournalist because they risk their life daily, but I guess that is how I am right now and it’s not a priority). So anyways, even though at many points it was just the three of us (at others the chauffer was with us), I felt safer than I could possibly feel right now with other alternatives I would have to accompany me.
Today is the three-month anniversary of the earthquake. They thought there might be something going on at the massive graveyard, where thousands of bodies were thrown in right after the earthquake. We arrived to the sound of absolutely nothing and to the sight of no one- just the three of us, the scent of the dead (a little bit), the flies, the trash and the dead feeling because we knew what was underneath us. Fortunately, I had the experience of having worked at a newspaper where I had had to cover various accidents and had even gone to the morgue at one point. These encounters made me stronger for where I had to stand on today. I got to see parts of a dead body, at first it was so camouflaged amongst all the trash that I couldn’t make anything out of it, but then it was clear. Someone who once had a life, who might have been a mother, who was probably a sister, who might have worked very hard to be successful in life, who might not have been ambitious, who might have had very little and didn’t mind, who might have changed the life of others or have contributed to rise of this country, who probably taught someone something valuable... this someone, this woman or adolescent or older person…. they were right there in front of me.. and they were dead. I just stared at was in front of me and I felt very strange and confused. All the trash, all those shoes, all the cartons from food boxes, all those tin cans, all those pieces of clothes.. one day they had a life and it wasn’t too long ago. Those shoes were put on every morning by a little girl before she went out and played, those boxes were opened inside of a house and the beans inside were cooked for dinner, that blouse was worn by a woman to go the city, those wigs covered someone’s hair for some time, making them feel even more alive. And this and a million other things and a thousand other individuals were laying here dead, without life, burnt, decomposed, underneath some rubble.. all in a scenery that would have been considered beautiful if it weren’t for the circumstances…. In front of the ocean, next to the mountains, on the dry lands. But everything about it the flies flying around, their little zzz noise and the feeling of the dead made it a very, very, very sad, melancholic and nostalgic place… a place where your thoughts could be profound and where you just want to mourn, even for people that you never once met in your life.
Going there was a shocking, difficult and meaningful.
--warning about a specific photo--- i'm sorry to post this, but don't look if you don't want to----
( this is a voodoo cross )
Our next stop was Obama tent camp, probably the poorest place I have experienced so closely during my whole entire life, although for some reason I wasn’t so in shock- probably because I’ve always been exposed to poverty and because I’ve been seeing it from far away ever since I arrived in Haiti. At some points I got a little scared, like when I saw a man with a machete and I lost the journalist and the photographer for a minute (later on I also saw a woman with a machete) and when a group of twenty-year-olds passed by, looked at me with a very mean look and asked me in creole what I was doing there. I was with a group of children at the time and just walked back to the journalist and photographer.
People’s homes consisted of sticks tied up pieces of bags, trash bags, pieces of fabric sewed together.. some wanted me to photograph inside of their “door’-I’m not sure why, but I couldn’t stare/observe because like I mentioned earlier, I had to pretend I wasn’t in shock. The children were absolutely beautiful, not even aware of their circumstances/bad living conditions, many barefoot, most with clothes full of holes, full of dirt.. one little boy was wearing a black satin dress (someone’s pajamas at one point) and the others were making fun of him. They make toys here out of everything, kites with pieces of papers, cars with bottles, spinning things with leaves and sticks. It seems as if the children have nice and memorable afternoons, with many friends around. They asked me for food at different times. Even if I had wanted to give them some of the clothes/things that I have inside of a suitcase right now, it might have been a bit chaotic. There’s just too many children and too many people.
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