(because today I made a friend and there is nothing more precious in the world)
Dear readers,
I just wanted to share with you that I made my first Haitian friend today. Outside work. Chances are that I will maybe add at least one more from the office, but not just yet. And of course a superficial friendship but hey, that's always the start!
I braved myself into a new part of town after work as there was a movie screening in the French Institute. Upon arrival... slight panic: I was the only white person in the room. After 7 days of overprotection I didn't know whether that could be an issue. I decided to stop thinking bullshit and sit down.
In the middle of a movie about Rwanda, mixing football and memories of the genocide, there was a scene that looked like it could be a street in Port-au-Prince, where the narrator said how one can never be completely safe. That at the sight of a group of people, dressed in a certain way, walking in a certain way, in a certain part of town... the fear comes back again. A guy sitting next to me whispers 'it could be Haiti' and as much as I wanted to say 'yeah, i thought the same', I felt it would have been rude and what do I know yet. So I just said 'I wouldn't know'.
Casimir was there because of a photo exhibition he was participating in and to which he so proudly invited and guided me through. The photos were the output of a workshop where they each created their own homemade photo camera out of an empty box (eg. a milk container or a shoebox). You make a small hole in one of the sides to let the light in and from the opposite side you will get a reversed image of reality outside. So you get black and white photos, positive and negative sets of pics.
Like this. It's called sténopé or pinhole camera (I think) in English.
PS: Casimir actually had a really good, semi-professional camera. The sténopé was just for fun. And an iphone. Technology seems to be a very democratic trend :)
Dear readers,
I just wanted to share with you that I made my first Haitian friend today. Outside work. Chances are that I will maybe add at least one more from the office, but not just yet. And of course a superficial friendship but hey, that's always the start!
I braved myself into a new part of town after work as there was a movie screening in the French Institute. Upon arrival... slight panic: I was the only white person in the room. After 7 days of overprotection I didn't know whether that could be an issue. I decided to stop thinking bullshit and sit down.
In the middle of a movie about Rwanda, mixing football and memories of the genocide, there was a scene that looked like it could be a street in Port-au-Prince, where the narrator said how one can never be completely safe. That at the sight of a group of people, dressed in a certain way, walking in a certain way, in a certain part of town... the fear comes back again. A guy sitting next to me whispers 'it could be Haiti' and as much as I wanted to say 'yeah, i thought the same', I felt it would have been rude and what do I know yet. So I just said 'I wouldn't know'.
Casimir was there because of a photo exhibition he was participating in and to which he so proudly invited and guided me through. The photos were the output of a workshop where they each created their own homemade photo camera out of an empty box (eg. a milk container or a shoebox). You make a small hole in one of the sides to let the light in and from the opposite side you will get a reversed image of reality outside. So you get black and white photos, positive and negative sets of pics.
Like this. It's called sténopé or pinhole camera (I think) in English.
PS: Casimir actually had a really good, semi-professional camera. The sténopé was just for fun. And an iphone. Technology seems to be a very democratic trend :)
O título parece saído de uma canção do Sérgio Godinho... :)
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