Haiti

This morning I returned to the place where Rosena stays. I don’t say house because by now I know that it’s more like a job. She can stay there but she has to get up at 6 am everyday, wash all the kids, dress them, feed them and get them ready for school. Five kids. Then it’s cleaning the whole house before, finally, at 9 am she can start her homework for school that afternoon. At night the same thing apparently happens again. By now I would call her a modern day Cinderella. Considering her hand and legs it’s far from a good solution, but it’s the only thing she’s got right now. My goal was to make a 24-hour portrait of her life. In photos but also with a short film. I think it will be an inspiring story. I’ll also try to start up a small private foundation to get her money for the rent of her own place. Where she doesn’t have to take care of someone else’s massive family and can work on her own development. That will be hard enough. A year’s rent costs 200 Euros. Let’s see how far I get with family and friends.

 

After three days in the field it was time to return to Port-au-Prince. Because I still had to work on my Streets photo of this capital. Sadly enough I got a communiqué from the International Red Cross Security Officer, strongly advising against going to the downtown area during carnival, due to expected heavy violence. I argued about it but the Red Cross didn’t want to jeopardize my safety on their watch. So I decided to leave as soon as possible to save as much time as possible and return to Haiti at the end of this trip in April. It will be the last shot of the Americas then. Kind of a fitting end I think.

 

When we entered Port-au-Prince it was already starting to get busy for carnival. One and a half million people are expected to come down to Port-au-Prince to celebrate. It took us two hours to get from one side of the city to the other. We drove into a street where a huge pile of tires was burning in the middle of the road, blocking our way. Because of this other route we actually had to drive past the Presidential Palace at Champ de Mars, which is the place where I had planned to take my photo, but wasn’t allowed to go. So I did get to see it after all.

 

From the car I took this photo. I could imagine this place filled with cheering carnival people, which I think would make it a hopeful and good shot. I asked my driver if it would really be such a problem. He just nodded yes. We drove on and I felt somewhat bereft, thinking it was all a little over-exaggerated. This was half an hour ago. I just got another communiqué saying that there was a shooting in that exact place just after we left. Two people died. I guess carnival has started. I’ll be back in April.