Vodou Damballa, East Flatbush Brooklyn

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Vodou ceremony in East Flatbush apartment. People were wearing green in honor of Damballa that can also be represented by St. Patrick or Moses. The space was too small for live drummers. Many young kids that were born in the USA. The only time I could use available lights was when candles were lit

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Lay over in Port au Prince, Haiti. Sept 2008

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I just stopped a few hours and one night as a layover on my way to Jacmel to Santo Domingo. The Caribe Tour bus was comfortable, clean and food and drinks were available.

I took a tap tap "bus" to Delmas 33 - where I spent a night in a private home . The electricity was off for a few hours. I had been told in Port au Prince they have power for about 16 hours daily. seemed inconvenient but nothing compared to the situation I would face in Jacmel the following days.

People like to hang out on the rooftops at sunset and watch the sky at dusk. below the hill there is what they call the "bidonville" that can be translated into "trashtown".

The next day I walked down the street. I took photos of an upper class mom with her 2 daughters walking home from the baptist church.

There was a barber shop with a photo studio in the back. The photographer hand painted different backgrounds and used an old manual camera - I think could have been a Pentax K1000 or a Ricoh.

The camera had some problems and it was hard to have parts to get it fixed -
I thought a such an old manual SLR camera would be worth nothing in the USA but provided a mean of support to this guy.

There are a lot of kids with buckets that go to public fountains to get water. Very few households have plumbing. some have their own well and you can get water whenever you want, but for many a private well is a luxury.

2 locals showed me the view from a rooftop. They were really concerned about the illiteracy of the kids that lived in the bidonville. Elementary schools in Haiti are not free and some people have to choose between giving their kids food or education.
There are some volunteer programs to teach learn and write but it is never enough.

I went to the bus station to get the Tap Tap to Jacmel about 3 hours away.
An old school bus was not to full and i sat in the back.
It was about 1 PM and had to wait 45 minutes in it until it was filled to capacity.

I could buy some soda from vendors from the window -
it was hot under the midday sun.

When I came back from Jacmel, less than 2 weeks later it was almost 6 am.
after a 2 hour trip in a shared minivan.

I had 2 hours to kill waiting for the daily bus to Santo Domingo that I could not miss.
I asked 2 local kids to take me to the market -
wanted to buy a traditional straw hat.
we walked 20 minutes the busy streets. Got some street coffee and found a market that was already open.

They seemed to have a lot more stuff than in Jacmel.

Got what I wanted. Just wished I had more time to look around - explore more.

But I had to run back get on the comfortable bus.

Passed by what looked like an army fort or some outpost. It was the US embassy.

bushwick murder press conference

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a suspect in the killing of a ecuadorenean immigrant has been arrested. press conference in bushwick on the crime scene location. the family and authorities.

The victim died by injuries provoked by a beating with a baseball bat and beer bottles.Location: Bushwick avenue and Kossuth place, brooklyn ny

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NYPD 67th precinct + NYPD gala

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67 pct. east flatbush - lots of guns in the streets and club shootings. one female officer received an award. earlier in the month 2 teens held up a laundromat at gun point - she arrested them without shooting nor drawing her fire arm. Someone got shot 8 times outside a club after a fight. the captain talked about the drug dealing that happens in clubs. he did not want to name the clubs in question but with a grin he gave out the location's intersection. He said that the club smelled like you were in kingston. everyone laughed and he said "hey! i can't wait to retire and move to kingston jamaica! but here it is not legal" A kid on his way to school found a wallet with 500 dollar cash in it. he called his mom and gave it to the NYPD. he received an award and a cash prize. Senior auxiliary cop was wearing old style jacket. different fabric and more fitted than the current uniforms. more photos from ElCaribe in Mills basin. Police commissioner Kelly gave awards.

Operation Clean Bay. From Sheepshead Bay to Jamaica Bay. Brooklyn NY

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On the day i felt was the windiest and coldest of this winter I went to
shoot a boat salvaging operation in Sheepshead Bay.
It was too cold for the divers to go underwater as some of their equipment could freeze. So instead of lifting a wreck an old abandoned boat was
towed to Jamaica Bay. There it would be taken apart as part of a program to keep the
bay clean from the pollution created by such wrecks.

People that could afford keeping and maintaining boats would just abandon them in the Bay facing no consequences nor fines
Fuel and hazardous materials would leak in the Federal park waterways.
William Dunphy is a 55 year old retired NY Fireman. He retired aster September 11 2001.
He says he knows all the waterways between Jamaica Bay and Montauk.
He told me He'd take me fishing sometimes.

It was about 18°F | -8°C without considering the 30 MPH | 48 km/h wind

Obama Inauguration Day, Brooklyn NY

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January 20 2009,
Obama Inauguration day.

photos from the courtroom at Brooklyn Borough Hall.
Then biked to 966 Fulton street to a seniors' center in Bed Stuy.
people felt proud and were dressed up.

Virgin of Guadalupe 14th st NYC

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Virgin of Guadalupe
people spent the night in the church crowded over capacity
it was so rainy and humid that was hard to keep the lens clear

wish i was less busy and had more time -
did it in a rush

ate 3 tamales and had chocolate with corn
been swamped had to run to something from something

pix from HAITI to JAMAICA queens

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photos from the last day

came thru immigration last night at JFK.

the officer asked me where i went i said santo domingo and haiti
he asked me what i was doing in haiti with some sort of absent bored
expression in his face.

i told him i went to photograph the situation there
he asked what is there to photograph.
"they have some problems down there" I replied -
"problems? what problems do they have in haiti?" he asked me.

---

the policeman i knew in Jacmel - he would come over to the stoop we
would all drink Clairin and Rum. Half a bottle for a US dollar.

He would tell me about Simon Bolivar and gen Pétion, the history of the
independence Latin America.

---
4500 photos - just imported 7 hours of video footage.
I need to edit organize.
I wish I had some solar panel to charge my Macbook.
if only Apple wasn't so greedy and would license the power adapter to
3rd parties - I wonder how I could plug my Macbook to a solar panel.

---

I felt respected in Haiti. No one tried to grab my money, no one tried
to put their hands in my pocket, no one tried to grab my camera.
they would ask me money to take their photo because they have this idea
that i would make a million dollars with that.

I told this woman that was selling food in the square that a million
dollar was her imagination. so she told me it was not a million dollar
US but a million of haitian dollars.

I asked if she really believed that.

everyone was OK - my french got more fluent and made it easier.

the kids that the hurricane rendered homeless started calling me monsié
stefan instead of "hey blanc!".

you walk the streets and the kids tell me "hey blanc!" and they are
happy when i look at them.

if i take a photo and i show it on the camera display they get really
happy. many probably dont see often photos of themselves.

----

many people like soccer - I am sure if i came with some AC Milan bootleg
jerseys many would be happy

---
At the hotel in santo domingo the guy at the reception was wearing a
Inter of Milan jersey.
I told him I like Milan AC.

the next day i found out he was from Jacmel himself and had been in the
Dom rep 10 years

---
I left jacmel at 4 am with the Tap Tap bus 150 Gourdes for me and 150
for my bag because it had to be on a seat. 7 dollars US total for 2.5
hours trip thru the steep mountain roads

I arrived in Port au Prince -
lot of slums
i got into a cab to the Petion-Ville section on the hill
I was early and I asked some kids to take to the market to buy a straw
hat and bag.

we ran because it was 15 min away - got a street coffee -
the marked looked like somewhere out of Africa.
but they had a lot of great craft for cheap -
a lot more stuff than in Jacmel.
wished I could stay longer

----

the border between Haiti and Santo Domingo is surreal.

a swampy lake flooded the road which is also filled with rocks.

they are digging and cutting the mountains to get rocks -
I saw that in Italy in Carrara where they cut the mountain to get marble.

---
going thru the dominican immigration and customs is a lot slower than
going thru the Haitian.

you have to get off go to a small building and go thru passport control
you then go back to the bus and get all your bags go back to the same
building for customs.
there are lines of people that overlap and cross and an old man tries to
manage them.

all the bags are opened and throughly searched.
when i reach the table the dominican female officer smiles at me and
just tell me to go -
i was the only white person on the bus and i was the only one not searched -
I was unshaven and had a dirty t short it did not matter.
the elegant upper class haitian-american mom and daughter befor e me had
all their bags searched

---

in santo domingo it felt strange to see store / restaurant chains -
electricity and so on -

i saw tourists
but when i was there 2 weeks earlier i was in a hotel by the bus station -
it was not much different than haiti.

in santo domingo the tourist part is really nice and clean - could be
miami or a fancy habana

after all it is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the americas.

but outside the that area the roads are crappy - there are latrines -
some beaches are filled with bottles.

people try to take money from you - they have less boundaries than in haiti.
they triple the prices if you are a foreigner.
I became friends with an italian that lives there and own a pharmacy
after a life managing/ owning night clubs in spain. he helped me a lot
with prices and finding me a nice cheap hotel.

the taxi driver tells me 800 pesos to the airport -
seems fair - when we are almost there he tells me mil-800 pesos 1800 pesos
i tell him he told me 800 i can give him 1000 because he waited for me 5
min.

he asks me 50 pesos for the toll
and i tell him the sign says 30 pesos

at the airport i then give him 900 pesos and he is fine with it.

in santo domingo there are all these armed guards with shotguns and M16s
in front of large stores and hotels everywhere.
in Jacmel I never seen anything like that.

some people asked me money for food
or the rasta guy at the beach that watched my bag while i went swimming
just asked me to buy a couple of beers for a dollar each while he told
me stories.

I wish i made it more to the mountains and to the Baissin Bleu waterfalls.
I wish I ate another lobster bouillabaisse for 5 US$ at the Cyvadier
Plage hotel

maybe next time.

I gave 20 $ to a woman that lost her house in the river and now had nothing
I helped the family I stayed at buy a generator.

I swam half a mile from the beach a couple of times to go to the bathroom


i met intellectuals - the former mayor jailed and exiled by papa doc
duvalier
and formerly exiled professor that loves his adoptive city of montreal

i met analphabets that showed me their ravaged homes filled with hungry
yet joyful kids -

I have met 23 year olds running shelters - I met people that ran art
studios and galleries -
i met vodou priestess and atheist people.

i saw no journalists no gov't officials , little help

---
in Santo Domingo apart the people hustling for money - I ran in 2
journalists with a black ribbon on their mouths.

The press is not free there they told me.

I bought a couple of haitian paintings on the street for $20 -
one reminded me of california artist Thomas Campbell