Friday was a good day ...
Haiti, Day XXI, Friday, 26 March 10
Friday was a good day, far above most good days thus far spent in Haiti. It was indeed a very good day in Bolosse, a hilltop neighborhood built into the slopes overlooking Port au Prince, its people, its slums, its desperate streets and waterfront below.
After an immersion in utter human misery and squallier, the afternoon at Bolosse was brief relief from scenes of complete destruction, cries of hunger, as well as the ever-present stench of death and decay. Found in Bolosse, was a lesser middle class neighborhood of neat two and three story homes surprisingly unscathed by the 12 January earthquake. Now, middle class by Haitian standards fall well below that expected in the United States. Middle class Haitian means having a home built of brick and concrete rather than a tent or tarp, heeding nature’s call in an in-home pit rather than a bucket, cooking indoors not outdoors, sitting on a porch not a sidewalk.
Not unlike other parts of Port au Prince, the steep narrow street of Rue Bolosse #3, was filled with busted up vehicles, trash and open sewers running down hill. However this 95-degree hot and humid day saw babies rolling butt naked on dusty front yard dirt, children impishly playing peek-a-boo with visitors from a foreign land, teens contesting an animated game of sidewalk checkers under a shade tarp, men fixing busted vehicles beneath an mango tree, women working their road-side stands.
It was a neighborhood where etched among the pained expressions of daily life, the air was just a bit cleaner; the laughter a little bit louder; the cooked aroma of yesterday’s pet goat and chicken tantalizing. It was a magical place among desperate places for a brief moment in time.
Friday 26 March pictures
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=416531469308:717234688
Friday was a good day, far above most good days thus far spent in Haiti. It was indeed a very good day in Bolosse, a hilltop neighborhood built into the slopes overlooking Port au Prince, its people, its slums, its desperate streets and waterfront below.
After an immersion in utter human misery and squallier, the afternoon at Bolosse was brief relief from scenes of complete destruction, cries of hunger, as well as the ever-present stench of death and decay. Found in Bolosse, was a lesser middle class neighborhood of neat two and three story homes surprisingly unscathed by the 12 January earthquake. Now, middle class by Haitian standards fall well below that expected in the United States. Middle class Haitian means having a home built of brick and concrete rather than a tent or tarp, heeding nature’s call in an in-home pit rather than a bucket, cooking indoors not outdoors, sitting on a porch not a sidewalk.
Not unlike other parts of Port au Prince, the steep narrow street of Rue Bolosse #3, was filled with busted up vehicles, trash and open sewers running down hill. However this 95-degree hot and humid day saw babies rolling butt naked on dusty front yard dirt, children impishly playing peek-a-boo with visitors from a foreign land, teens contesting an animated game of sidewalk checkers under a shade tarp, men fixing busted vehicles beneath an mango tree, women working their road-side stands.
It was a neighborhood where etched among the pained expressions of daily life, the air was just a bit cleaner; the laughter a little bit louder; the cooked aroma of yesterday’s pet goat and chicken tantalizing. It was a magical place among desperate places for a brief moment in time.
Friday 26 March pictures
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=416531469308:717234688
Labels: 26 March 10, Day XXI, Friday, Haiti
posted by Diveshack at 5:18 PM
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