A lot of SOS changes have been going on and in the midst of it all, my free time has been very limited. Not that I haven’t had it, but I’ve spent the little I’ve had with other people here and not writing. I don’t want to abandon this time, and that’s why I’m taking advantage that the head of the team just stepped out for a minute to sit down in the quiet (miracle) and write in this hot weather.. this fan is not doing much.
Basically, school started today. Sixth and ninth grades had begun earlier because they have national exams.. but from today on, this school, where we’ve had our improvised emergency team office and even stored donations, will be filled with children and adolescents, from first to ninth grader. It’s hard to believe that there will be around 800 students coming in and out of this two-story building, I feel I need to step out and count to see if it’s true. I know there is a morning group and an afternoon one, but 800 seems like a lot for the building. I guess that, like everything here, it will be overcrowded.
Our “operations” office was downstairs and the school had to re-occupy it, so we moved upstairs into the SOS Haiti’s national director’s office. I am sharing the office with him, the head of the team (Carlos, from Costa Rica) and Marta, a girl from Spain that arrived on Friday with three other Spanish. She was put in our group because she also speaks English. She is finishing her degree in journalism so I am excited because it’s obvious that she also wants to write stories and get out of here every chance she can get.
Today was the first day with the whole school and it’s been pretty loud. A lot of the classrooms sang for what seemed like hours, first the morning group, then the afternoon group.. we heard the same songs. I don’t really mind…anything here I enjoy (and I have been enjoying everything so much more now), but I do wonder how the neighbor classrooms are supposed to work and concentrate with so much singing.
I wish I had more time today to stop by, peek through the windows and observe the classrooms, but unfortunately my tasks here keep me running around and busy. At least I get to be around so many children who are always smiling.
Saturday was our moving day. My moving upstairs took about 2 minutes, all I had was my computer and three folders of very important papers .. as well as the hidden jelly, some cables and my camera. I helped with cleaning up a bit and sorting and organizing. We’ve had so many different kind of donations that you find all sort of things everywhere- water bottles from different countries, medicines, power bars, military meals from Brazil…
We had to move our dining area to a tent and the kitchen to … the house I am living in. Sounds crazy and it will be a bit crazy… and very different. The school’s kitchen was very big and well, we all got used to it. Most people, including me, work around here, so it’ll be a change to have to go back to our camp/tent area/houses to eat. I am basically living in the biggest house here, but it’s still pretty small. The guys got out all of the furniture and stored our “living room” with boxes and boxes of military meals, the table is full of clean plates (a little temblor and they’ll all be broken in a second), our small fridge is packed. Supposedly, this will just be a cooking area and everyone will eat in the tent. It still feels packed to have all the Haitian women who cook all crammed in the kitchen, 1 ft. away from my room.
The dining room tent is big, there’s two large tables and a small one and we had a very nice dinner there on Saturday. Since a Costa Rican nun arrived about two weeks ago, the food situation has improved… so incredibly much. This, or I’m getting used to things, not sure which. But really, the first days I was here I remember I even felt hunger at points, now she organized everything so well that she’s taking out boxes of cookies and making plantains (my favorite food in the whole world and something that reminds me so much of home). Not that it’s anything like being back home, but still, that doesn’t seem to be something I’m struggling with anymore.
I feel very used to things here, comfortable, and more productive job-wise (it took me all this time to really get used to the job I am doing here and really feel like I am contributing, now I am even training the girl from Spain)… I’m really enjoying my time here now and the people that we have now has been making it a better experience.
Yesterday I woke up to my Sunday indecisiveness…. thinking of whether to go to the beach with everyone (felt I really wanted to swim in the ocean) or overcome my fear and go take pictures of whoever, wherever. I ended up choosing going to the beach, and every chance I have to think, I think of much I want to be out there and photograph. There were times last week when I wanted to jump out of the car. Hopefully during these last five weeks, I will be doing more of this. All I am doing is talking about how much I want to photograph, and not actually doing it. I’m not so much into going to Port-au-Prince anymore; I want to find safer places.
The beach was beautiful, not as nice as the Obama beach, and it was very windy when we arrived, but still… so nice to swim in the ocean and feel disconnected. There were soldiers from the Brazilian army making a “churrasco’, they were roasting chicken and had fresh tomatoes and rice.. and they shared it with our group. They also were singing samba other Brazilian music with some drums. Really nice.
Later in the afternoon, when we came back to the village, Tomy took a group of us to an orphanage very close by. We walked there. Apparently, an Italian woman has been picking up children from the streets. It was different from the village because the children were extremely affectionate, always smiling, hugging us since we arrived, jumping on us like they were monkeys. Over 150 children all living in this house, some outside in tents, but at least they have what many don’t have here (or at least sometimes)… food and a place to sleep.
Some little girls braided my hair for about thirty minutes.
Now that school has started Port-au-Prince feels a little bit more alive, it’s nice to see kids walking around in uniforms, it really gives a sense of hope.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
April 15th, 2010
The days begin very early here- around 5am you begin to hear something- sheep, chickens, other staff/volunteers trying to find water to shower or to wash clothes or talking, dogs barking, or children playing and singing. Since we go to bed early and get enough hours of sleep, I don’t really mind.
Usually the first phrase I hear in the morning from various people is “no hay agua” meaning there is no water. I hear it from outside, I hear it from the bathroom inside of the house, I hear as it goes from mouth to mouth, while I’m in bed, half-asleep. At least this has been the case during the last few days- there hasn’t been water exactly at the time I wake up- it’s been coming later on during the day. Our alternatives during those mornings are either to not take a shower (I have never chosen this, some people do because they shower the night before), take a shower with some buckets of water that we have in the shower (I have done this a few times but the problem is that you don’t know how long this water has been there for and how clean it really is) or walk about five minutes, across the village, to a big field where platforms are set up for some temporary houses we are waiting for, and shower in these temporary showers (I have usually done this). During the past few days I have walked to the field and as soon as I have returned the water has come. So, this morning, around 6am, I decided that I would not walk to the field but instead I would wait for the water to come. Everyone was finishing getting ready and I was still waiting…. then.. most people were gone to breakfast and I was still waiting… by the time it was a little past seven, I gave up. I walked to the showers. What I had forgotten/didn’t exactly know was that classes began at seven. As I walked by, about 40 ft. away from me, the 6th and 9th graders (the only grades that have started school already) were singing the national anthem with hand on their chest. I walked by with my pajamas on, towel and soap in hand and I thought, this is so embarrassing, I shouldn’t have waited for the water. I looked straight forward and pretended it was no big deal. Hopefully not a lot of people noticed.
I feel lucky to be the one in the group to go to the United Nations base here. I go at least three times a week to pick up staff/volunteers, drop off a flight request or talk about/settle/ask for different kind of issues regarding logistics and food distribution. While I’m there, I get a feeling that I’m really important. You see people walk and drive around with cars and logos of different NGO’s like World Vision, UNICEF, Save the Children, among many others. You also get to see many of the thousands of UN vehicles (all sizes, all kinds, mostly white with a big UN logo on the side or front of them) that seem to controlling the country right now. The other day/two days ago (I think) Michelle Obama was at the base exactly at the same time that I went to pick up a form- of course the traffic was very chaotic. For some minutes I stood outside with many others who had their camera out and were just waiting for her to come out of an office. Unfortunately, we had to park outside and couldn’t make the chauffer wait too long, otherwise, I would have stayed there until she came out.
Last Friday I had to wait about forty minutes at the base so I went to the little supermarket that they have there and walked through the two/three aisles slowly, paying attention to every little product that they had, trying to memorize each one in case I ever craved it/needed it. I saw a lot of canned food, little or no fruit or vegetables. I was a little frustrated to see some things that I had packed all the way from Costa Rica and didn’t know would be available here- like some granola bars and Off repellent. Really- there is not much in this supermarket, but since there is even less at the Haitian supermarket I’ve been ( and well.. in general)then it does feel kind of special to go to it, to see products from the U.S. That day I bought some oatmeal, a snack mix and something I had wanted to get for a while: jelly. The only jelly they had was blueberry jelly. I would have preferred strawberry, but oh well.
I left the supermarket very happy with my jelly, but at the same time I got a feeling of spoiling my whole experience in Haiti… like I’m supposed to stay away from things that are really good, that remind me of my home and not enjoy those things until I’m back home because I’m in Haiti and to live the whole experience you have to eat what other volunteers/workers in Haiti are eating (then again, the people at the UN sleep on a boat and I heard they have a buffet every night.. but their perspective is different, I guess).
But, to continue with my jelly story… I had wanted to get jelly for many days before. A lot of times it was depressing to go have breakfast when all there was to eat was cereal (which I stopped eating) and bread, but, no butter or anything. Ever since I had first been to the UN supermarket, I had decided that one day, when I brought money, I would buy the jelly. Since this is something I had been planning on buying for some days, there was also something very important that I knew I had to plan…. a way to keep the jelly to myself. I knew if I brought the jelly in our “dining room” for breakfast, then it would be gone in one day- for sure.
I stored the jelly in the little pantry at our house (which has canned food left by journalists, etc), telling only a few of my closest friends about it. Actually, I told them about it, but never shared details like where I put it or anything. I figured that if someone was really craving it, they would let me know.. and in that case, then of course I’d share.
On Monday I walked to breakfast and put a piece of bread on the toast and then put butter on it (so things have improved, we got a toaster, which we can use whenever we have electricity, and then butter appeared at the supermarkets, finally…).
I walked the four minute walk to my house, with my toast on my hand, impatiently waiting to reach the pantry so I could open the can of jelly and finally spread it on the toast. I didn’t want any kid to stop me to talk or anyone to ask me why I was carrying a piece of toast. I just wanted to eat it with the jelly.
I told the Costa Rican nun who is now in charge of the kitchen about it and she suggested that every morning I just bring a little cup with a little bit of jelly. I considered this too, but then thought it would be easier to just have the jelly close to the kitchen, like at our office. So, I transported it five minutes away, to the office. But doing this was risky too, I had to find a way to hide it. There were no kind of bags at the house and I thought of something brilliant – to use the little bag in which our ponchos came. I put the jelly in this red, elastic, bag, one that it’s obvious it’s supposed to be used to carry a poncho/rain jacket, and I transported the jelly away from the house, into the office.
For the past two days, I have been eating some bread with everyone at breakfast, and then, when most start to leave, I go downstairs and grab the little red bag, go into the other side of the kitchen and put the jelly on the bread as discreetly as possible. No one has discovered this yet. I fold the bread in half so that the few people left at the table can’t tell there is jelly on my bread.
Usually the first phrase I hear in the morning from various people is “no hay agua” meaning there is no water. I hear it from outside, I hear it from the bathroom inside of the house, I hear as it goes from mouth to mouth, while I’m in bed, half-asleep. At least this has been the case during the last few days- there hasn’t been water exactly at the time I wake up- it’s been coming later on during the day. Our alternatives during those mornings are either to not take a shower (I have never chosen this, some people do because they shower the night before), take a shower with some buckets of water that we have in the shower (I have done this a few times but the problem is that you don’t know how long this water has been there for and how clean it really is) or walk about five minutes, across the village, to a big field where platforms are set up for some temporary houses we are waiting for, and shower in these temporary showers (I have usually done this). During the past few days I have walked to the field and as soon as I have returned the water has come. So, this morning, around 6am, I decided that I would not walk to the field but instead I would wait for the water to come. Everyone was finishing getting ready and I was still waiting…. then.. most people were gone to breakfast and I was still waiting… by the time it was a little past seven, I gave up. I walked to the showers. What I had forgotten/didn’t exactly know was that classes began at seven. As I walked by, about 40 ft. away from me, the 6th and 9th graders (the only grades that have started school already) were singing the national anthem with hand on their chest. I walked by with my pajamas on, towel and soap in hand and I thought, this is so embarrassing, I shouldn’t have waited for the water. I looked straight forward and pretended it was no big deal. Hopefully not a lot of people noticed.
I feel lucky to be the one in the group to go to the United Nations base here. I go at least three times a week to pick up staff/volunteers, drop off a flight request or talk about/settle/ask for different kind of issues regarding logistics and food distribution. While I’m there, I get a feeling that I’m really important. You see people walk and drive around with cars and logos of different NGO’s like World Vision, UNICEF, Save the Children, among many others. You also get to see many of the thousands of UN vehicles (all sizes, all kinds, mostly white with a big UN logo on the side or front of them) that seem to controlling the country right now. The other day/two days ago (I think) Michelle Obama was at the base exactly at the same time that I went to pick up a form- of course the traffic was very chaotic. For some minutes I stood outside with many others who had their camera out and were just waiting for her to come out of an office. Unfortunately, we had to park outside and couldn’t make the chauffer wait too long, otherwise, I would have stayed there until she came out.
Last Friday I had to wait about forty minutes at the base so I went to the little supermarket that they have there and walked through the two/three aisles slowly, paying attention to every little product that they had, trying to memorize each one in case I ever craved it/needed it. I saw a lot of canned food, little or no fruit or vegetables. I was a little frustrated to see some things that I had packed all the way from Costa Rica and didn’t know would be available here- like some granola bars and Off repellent. Really- there is not much in this supermarket, but since there is even less at the Haitian supermarket I’ve been ( and well.. in general)then it does feel kind of special to go to it, to see products from the U.S. That day I bought some oatmeal, a snack mix and something I had wanted to get for a while: jelly. The only jelly they had was blueberry jelly. I would have preferred strawberry, but oh well.
I left the supermarket very happy with my jelly, but at the same time I got a feeling of spoiling my whole experience in Haiti… like I’m supposed to stay away from things that are really good, that remind me of my home and not enjoy those things until I’m back home because I’m in Haiti and to live the whole experience you have to eat what other volunteers/workers in Haiti are eating (then again, the people at the UN sleep on a boat and I heard they have a buffet every night.. but their perspective is different, I guess).
But, to continue with my jelly story… I had wanted to get jelly for many days before. A lot of times it was depressing to go have breakfast when all there was to eat was cereal (which I stopped eating) and bread, but, no butter or anything. Ever since I had first been to the UN supermarket, I had decided that one day, when I brought money, I would buy the jelly. Since this is something I had been planning on buying for some days, there was also something very important that I knew I had to plan…. a way to keep the jelly to myself. I knew if I brought the jelly in our “dining room” for breakfast, then it would be gone in one day- for sure.
I stored the jelly in the little pantry at our house (which has canned food left by journalists, etc), telling only a few of my closest friends about it. Actually, I told them about it, but never shared details like where I put it or anything. I figured that if someone was really craving it, they would let me know.. and in that case, then of course I’d share.
On Monday I walked to breakfast and put a piece of bread on the toast and then put butter on it (so things have improved, we got a toaster, which we can use whenever we have electricity, and then butter appeared at the supermarkets, finally…).
I walked the four minute walk to my house, with my toast on my hand, impatiently waiting to reach the pantry so I could open the can of jelly and finally spread it on the toast. I didn’t want any kid to stop me to talk or anyone to ask me why I was carrying a piece of toast. I just wanted to eat it with the jelly.
I told the Costa Rican nun who is now in charge of the kitchen about it and she suggested that every morning I just bring a little cup with a little bit of jelly. I considered this too, but then thought it would be easier to just have the jelly close to the kitchen, like at our office. So, I transported it five minutes away, to the office. But doing this was risky too, I had to find a way to hide it. There were no kind of bags at the house and I thought of something brilliant – to use the little bag in which our ponchos came. I put the jelly in this red, elastic, bag, one that it’s obvious it’s supposed to be used to carry a poncho/rain jacket, and I transported the jelly away from the house, into the office.
For the past two days, I have been eating some bread with everyone at breakfast, and then, when most start to leave, I go downstairs and grab the little red bag, go into the other side of the kitchen and put the jelly on the bread as discreetly as possible. No one has discovered this yet. I fold the bread in half so that the few people left at the table can’t tell there is jelly on my bread.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12th during nighttime..
It doesn’t rain here during the day- it gets hot and a bit humid. Then the night begins to come and a little bit of thunder and a few rain drops warn and begin to worry everyone. There is nothing anyone here can do about the people sleeping on the streets. Just be conscious and pray.
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.
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.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Monday, April 12th
I wrote about the rain last night. Many times I’ve started to write but I’ve been interrupted. I haven’t been interrupted in a bad way- just something has come up which seems like a better alternative to writing. I’ve had to decide on whether to write or to experience/live something here. Last night, for example, I was so excited about writing in the house, but then two of the Spanish volunteers, Tomy and Maribel, who are among my closest friends here, came over. I decided to leave the computer in the room and go talk to them because I am in Haiti and even just talking to people is a valuable experience. I might never get to see some of these other volunteers/staff again and we have to take advantage of the fact that we have each other now. We sat outside with another friend, Sammy, a translator, and talked until around 1030pm. On Saturday night the 24 of us watched a movie in the house I am living now, we had a projector, and it was very nice. I really felt what many have said before, that these people have become like a family. Many of the people here are quiet and I don’t know very well, but the ones that I have gotten to know I’ve liked very much and they have really added to the experience of being here. Right now I am the youngest here.
Another example when I’ve had the chance to write but didn’t was yesterday during the day. As you know Sundays are our free days. I had actually decided not to go to the beach with the rest because I wanted to write and relax and I was also thinking about going to Port au Prince to photograph for some hours (at the same time, I have been struggling with this idea because of security).
As soon as everyone drove away I actually felt a peace being able to spend some time alone. I wondered how these people manage to pass the days without time like that.
The time didn’t last very long though because they had some problems with the bus and thirty minutes later they were back in the village. A little after they got a hold of another car: a very old mini-bus which belongs to some Haitian here and decided to change the destination and head to the city (I don’t think this car could make it to the beach, plus it was too late).
I decided to leave writing for later and got in the car very quickly, taking advantage that I wanted to go to the city and my options to go with a chauffer were getting a little expensive. Seeing Port au Prince sounded like a better alternative to writing (the beach didn’t).
On my way there I called Susan, a Costa Rican woman who helped me find a way to come to Haiti, someone who lives here and who I was definitely interested in seeing at some point. She was around the city so I took advantage the fact I was already there (I had considered meeting up with her with a chauffer driving me but it is really expensive) and met up with her in the city. I ate lunch with her and some others from the NGO she works with here in Haiti. We went to a restaurant in Petionville, the nice part around here. My mom and others had told me Petionville was another world, very high-class, a lot of beautiful houses... I partly agree now. I had the best meal I’ve had since I arrived (still, I can’t compare it to meals back home), but the best part was the company. Susan took me to her house and I got to see some of these mansions on the way (all on a hill, you get to see the city from here) and then we drove around Port au Prince showing some of the staff from her NGO who had just arrived. I really enjoyed meeting up with her and being with someone from my country.
Basically, I spent a lot of time looking at the city from car windows. Yesterday we went to parts which I don’t think I had been before- pretty terrible parts- you could feel the danger in the air. I observed everything and I thought about how the person sitting on the other side of the car got to look at the same city but noticed very different, interesting and horrible things. I saw people bathing right on the side walk and wondered if I could find people barefoot on the streets. Soon after I began to look at people’s feet and I confirmed my thoughts: many people walk around the city without shoes, stepping on every piece of dirt and risking getting broken pieces of glass in their skin. I saw a man and later on a woman, washing their feet with water from the drain. There were puddles of extremely dirty water (as you can see from one of the photos the water was green). Many slept besides doors, some half naked, even with the sun on their face. A lot of were sitting around waiting for customers to buy all sorts of food or clothes for them. They were watching over their little business surrounded by poverty, trash and destruction like it wasn’t a big deal. Children were collecting dirty nails and counting them (I haven’t seen many toys here, not even in the village). Some of the parts we passed yesterday, which I think were the most destroyed, gave me a feeling that once some of these buildings were very beautiful (the colors and the vintage look).
Two days ago I had also gone to Port au Prince and I hadn’t thought it was that horrible. Yesterday I did. I am still amazed at the amount of trash that is laying around or piled up on absolutely every corner that your eyes turn to. I thought about the story about God asking to count the grains of sand. If someone asked to count the pieces of trash, they would never ever stop counting.
At one point we got out of the car to look at the presidential palace, which, by the way, is getting demolished during these days. One Haitian man began to question me because I was taking a photo of a child and he was thinking it was for the news. I told him that I was here in Haiti to help. He asked me if I was giving people food and I said yes. He said no one is doing anything around the city (if he only knew how hard NGOs are working). He told me he had lived in Boston for over 20 years and that’s why he spoke English. He asked me if Haiti was ever going to rise as a country. I told him it depended on him and the Haitians. He said, “then it’s never going to”. I asked him why people were not at least piling up the trash in one spot, and cleaning up. He told me that these people were not going to pick it up unless someone paid them. I told him that he, who has seen a “better” world, should inspire people to clean and unite them in some way. He said he has given up.
That story is depressing.
This country is lacking unity and leadership, that is clear. It needs some words of inspiration, some sign of hope, it needs to focus on what has been positive (I find the work that SOS is doing positive for example).
Another example when I’ve had the chance to write but didn’t was yesterday during the day. As you know Sundays are our free days. I had actually decided not to go to the beach with the rest because I wanted to write and relax and I was also thinking about going to Port au Prince to photograph for some hours (at the same time, I have been struggling with this idea because of security).
As soon as everyone drove away I actually felt a peace being able to spend some time alone. I wondered how these people manage to pass the days without time like that.
The time didn’t last very long though because they had some problems with the bus and thirty minutes later they were back in the village. A little after they got a hold of another car: a very old mini-bus which belongs to some Haitian here and decided to change the destination and head to the city (I don’t think this car could make it to the beach, plus it was too late).
I decided to leave writing for later and got in the car very quickly, taking advantage that I wanted to go to the city and my options to go with a chauffer were getting a little expensive. Seeing Port au Prince sounded like a better alternative to writing (the beach didn’t).
On my way there I called Susan, a Costa Rican woman who helped me find a way to come to Haiti, someone who lives here and who I was definitely interested in seeing at some point. She was around the city so I took advantage the fact I was already there (I had considered meeting up with her with a chauffer driving me but it is really expensive) and met up with her in the city. I ate lunch with her and some others from the NGO she works with here in Haiti. We went to a restaurant in Petionville, the nice part around here. My mom and others had told me Petionville was another world, very high-class, a lot of beautiful houses... I partly agree now. I had the best meal I’ve had since I arrived (still, I can’t compare it to meals back home), but the best part was the company. Susan took me to her house and I got to see some of these mansions on the way (all on a hill, you get to see the city from here) and then we drove around Port au Prince showing some of the staff from her NGO who had just arrived. I really enjoyed meeting up with her and being with someone from my country.
Basically, I spent a lot of time looking at the city from car windows. Yesterday we went to parts which I don’t think I had been before- pretty terrible parts- you could feel the danger in the air. I observed everything and I thought about how the person sitting on the other side of the car got to look at the same city but noticed very different, interesting and horrible things. I saw people bathing right on the side walk and wondered if I could find people barefoot on the streets. Soon after I began to look at people’s feet and I confirmed my thoughts: many people walk around the city without shoes, stepping on every piece of dirt and risking getting broken pieces of glass in their skin. I saw a man and later on a woman, washing their feet with water from the drain. There were puddles of extremely dirty water (as you can see from one of the photos the water was green). Many slept besides doors, some half naked, even with the sun on their face. A lot of were sitting around waiting for customers to buy all sorts of food or clothes for them. They were watching over their little business surrounded by poverty, trash and destruction like it wasn’t a big deal. Children were collecting dirty nails and counting them (I haven’t seen many toys here, not even in the village). Some of the parts we passed yesterday, which I think were the most destroyed, gave me a feeling that once some of these buildings were very beautiful (the colors and the vintage look).
Two days ago I had also gone to Port au Prince and I hadn’t thought it was that horrible. Yesterday I did. I am still amazed at the amount of trash that is laying around or piled up on absolutely every corner that your eyes turn to. I thought about the story about God asking to count the grains of sand. If someone asked to count the pieces of trash, they would never ever stop counting.
At one point we got out of the car to look at the presidential palace, which, by the way, is getting demolished during these days. One Haitian man began to question me because I was taking a photo of a child and he was thinking it was for the news. I told him that I was here in Haiti to help. He asked me if I was giving people food and I said yes. He said no one is doing anything around the city (if he only knew how hard NGOs are working). He told me he had lived in Boston for over 20 years and that’s why he spoke English. He asked me if Haiti was ever going to rise as a country. I told him it depended on him and the Haitians. He said, “then it’s never going to”. I asked him why people were not at least piling up the trash in one spot, and cleaning up. He told me that these people were not going to pick it up unless someone paid them. I told him that he, who has seen a “better” world, should inspire people to clean and unite them in some way. He said he has given up.
That story is depressing.
This country is lacking unity and leadership, that is clear. It needs some words of inspiration, some sign of hope, it needs to focus on what has been positive (I find the work that SOS is doing positive for example).
Sunday, April 11th, 2010. 8:00pm
The scent of repellent is reminding me of beach trips-usually I don’t put it on unless I’m on vacation. Now it’s part of my night routine, or at least it has been for the past few days- the rainy season is starting and there are more mosquitoes. I thought I had heard thunder a little bit ago and I began to get worried. I definitely just heard it again about two minutes ago so that confirmed that a thunderstorm might be on the way. On this Sunday night, inside of this house and on this bed it would be nice to sleep to the sound of rain- if the circumstances were ideal. But, how can they be considering that a single rain drop only makes me think of the thousands of people on the street, sleeping under tents, under pieces of “tent material”, under sheets and clothes tied up, under whatever is available as a roof. Many of these people, I’m sure, don’t have this gravel or any kind of floor and, I’m sure the water gets in their tents. If these rainy nights keep on occurring, how are people sleeping? How can I sleep knowing I’m so close to all of it?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
April 6th, 2010. 8:00pm
Nothing seems that interesting to write right now. Things are beginning to be easier for me and today and yesterday have been kind of…. plain. A lot of work, everything is getting better and easier in general- and I am happy about this. Actually, in two days it will be two weeks since I have left Costa Rica and although it has been very hard at times, I am thinking that it’s gone fast. Two months should feel this way after they’re over (like it was yesterday). I still have to begin accomplishing my own personal goal which has to do with photography. I don’t think I will spend any more weekends on beaches with volunteers. Sunday was great and and it’s nice to get to know everyone (staff and volunteers) here better, but.. I want to photograph. I want to go to the city (as depressing as it is) and I want to talk to Haitians. Everything I am doing here is impersonal, I go to the UN base, I see people from different countries, I talk mostly to people in English, I look out the window but that’s all. I interact with other Latin Americans, I smile at kids at least 30 times a day, I tell them my name but wish we spoke the same language.
I don’t go in the houses in the villages that are now crowded with thirty kids, most of them who have lost parents at the earthquake- they have either really lost their parents or whose parents are out there- just not with them. And I know that my job is really important. If it weren’t for me volunteers and staff wouldn’t arrive and there wouldn’t be a lot of communication with the UN (this is a very important relationship) however, my job does not really deal with getting to know Haitians. I know I am helping and this is what matters the most to me, it feels good to know that I was given this job basically because I speak English and Spanish (and now I am even using my Portuguese), but this job deals a lot with writing e-mails and being at the office.
This is why I hope to spend my next Sundays, our free days, trying to accomplish my personal goals. I want to get to know Haitians better. I’d also love to get to know the beaches, but I’m not here on vacation.
I don’t go in the houses in the villages that are now crowded with thirty kids, most of them who have lost parents at the earthquake- they have either really lost their parents or whose parents are out there- just not with them. And I know that my job is really important. If it weren’t for me volunteers and staff wouldn’t arrive and there wouldn’t be a lot of communication with the UN (this is a very important relationship) however, my job does not really deal with getting to know Haitians. I know I am helping and this is what matters the most to me, it feels good to know that I was given this job basically because I speak English and Spanish (and now I am even using my Portuguese), but this job deals a lot with writing e-mails and being at the office.
This is why I hope to spend my next Sundays, our free days, trying to accomplish my personal goals. I want to get to know Haitians better. I’d also love to get to know the beaches, but I’m not here on vacation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)