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High Tide Low Tide
3 novembre 2011

A question mark

A question mark
Touching ground in Haiti, I felt joy. Setting foot in Petionville, I felt tired. Walking in Laboule, I felt disoriented. Hiking in Kenskoff, I felt happy. Passing through Le Portail, I felt bewildered. Going out of Port-au-Prince, I felt unsettled. Arriving...
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27 octobre 2011

A Home Made Door Wedge

A Home Made Door Wedge
From Cartagena, Colombia, to Pensarn, Wales bordering the same ocean, closing a chapter and opening a new one. A chapter filled with doubts, train rides, long walks, new faces that would soon become lovely friends, cakes of all sorts, messed up emotions,...
28 septembre 2011

Images, September 23rd 2011

Images, September 23rd 2011
Jetlagged, overdosing on homebaked apple pie, listening to your music, Colombia I’m missing you. All my clothes are on the washing line and with every piece I took out to hang, I remembered when I was last wearing it. Going to La Boquilla, San Diego,...
27 octobre 2011

3 lies

3 lies
To be a good humanitarian you have to be flexible… I am being flexible, so flexible I feel like a rubber band ready to snap because it’s been stretched far too many times for too many different purposes, reasons, circumstances…Maybe I got into this humanitarian...
28 septembre 2011

Mi Boquilla, September 14th 2011

Mi Boquilla, September 14th 2011
Mi Boquilla La Boquilla, from my comfy homemade king size bed in France I thought of you, dreamt of you, imagined you. Listening to Bomba Estereo, I heard your voice, watching video clips I saw your face and reading Boca Azul’s newsletter I learned about...
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28 septembre 2011

Tuned Into The Night, August 24th 2010

Tuned Into The Night, August 24th 2010
Sipping on my oversweet herbal tea bought outside my door, I'm thinking...I'm feeling, I'm hearing, I'm tasting, I'm smelling, I'm touching...Cartagena. Full moon and insomnia, I'm restless... Cartagena, where I learned not to trust others and learned...
28 septembre 2011

Moment of Truce, May 9th 2010

Moment of Truce, May 9th 2010
Lying on the terrasse, gazing at the stars, watching the clouds moving in slow motion in the frame of the mirador, feeling the breeze on my legs, my hair twirling in the wind and caressing my face I felt happy again in Cartagena. Truce... My lover of...
28 septembre 2011

Sound and Vision, June 3rd 2010

Sound and Vision, June 3rd 2010
Some years ago, I crashed the apple of my dad’s eyes in a curve…shiny, silver, sporty…Hadn’t it been for the multiple airbags and safety gadgets, I’d have been very badly hurt…or…I stopped wondering. The shock was so violent that I couldn’t hold onto...
28 septembre 2011

Marmite or Arequipe? July 26th 2009

Marmite or Arequipe ? Bogotà to me is a bit of a marmite of a city…when I take a bite I like it, when I take a second bite, I still like it but the bitter taste could easily put me off it. The city hasn’t really grown on me, it’s immensity tires me out...
28 septembre 2011

Date in Cartagena, Dating Cartagena, November 2nd 2009

Asphyxia, I felt asphyxiated before I left the house, no offense to any of my housemates. I needed to be away from the thesis, internet, any source of friendly living being. Tonight, I’m going out, I’m going on that date in Cartagena that I’ve been rejecting...
28 septembre 2011

Colombia My New Home, June 12th 2009

Yep, really there and really overwhelmed by the very warm welcome I am getting...One day and I found a superb place to live, a great landlord who is willing to take us on little tours, a fab host who is spoiling me...argh, if only i could speak better...
28 septembre 2011

Bogotà, Microclimate, My Cold Climate, June 16th 2009

When you think Colombia, you think South America, warm climate, sun, long evenings outdoors and summer all year round. Wrong. When you think Northern France, you think Europe, temperamental climate, clouds, long evenings indoors and seasons. Wrong. Night...
28 septembre 2011

Bogotan Traffic, June 26th 2009

Roaring, this town is roaring, the cars, the buses, the motorcycles, the coaches, the trucks, whizzing, here and there, full speed…engines revving up, honking and beeping in shambles. Amongst the dark clouds of smoke a horse with a wooden carriage, loaded...
28 septembre 2011

Cartagena, Two Faced City, October 9th 2009

Today was my first day working in the slums of the town I fell in love with. I fell in love with Cartagena in the Summer, when I visited it one weekend, a bit of ‘a spur of the moment thing’ because I thought I was leaving Colombia and everyone told me...
28 septembre 2011

Hold on Tighter, October 23rd 2009

Villa Hermosa, on the other side of the old dump of Cartagena, between shantytown and green paradise. The area is no more than a squat of wasteland, sheds and houses built out of planks, plastics of all kinds, milk cartons, milk bags, egg cartons, foam...
10 novembre 2011

Tangible duality

Duality is what shapes Haiti. Duality of the rich and the poor, of the white expat community and the black local community, found in what’s public and private, in the plains and the mountains, in people who are suffering and people who are providing relief.,...
23 décembre 2011

Almost

I don’t seem to be able to write lately, overwhelmed by the last weeks of intense digging into my box of resilience. Once as strong as the old leather and wooden trunk kept by my mother in her bedroom my box recently felt as fragile and small as a worn...
23 décembre 2011

Hope

Motionless, I stayed overwhelmed, wearing his face on my t-shirt, I was now looking at him in the coffin. A white coffin, with white inner lining and ruffles. Him, wearing his black Sunday suit, a different colour, bloodless, eyes closed, lips sealed....
16 février 2012

Linoleum, fantasies and vitamins

After 3 weeks of extreme tiredness, 2 weekends spent in bed and more dizzy spells, I visited the MSF hospital in Leogane today. I was reluctant to go for various reasons and didn’t want to admit I was unwell, you have to be strong and resistant here,...
18 janvier 2012

Music is Life!

Was it 4 am or 5 am when I was woken up by people chanting outside our window? Half dreaming I listened to their voices, warm, powerful, singing about love, life and God. I listened and my dreams took me to another place, a place where people spoke Spanish...
18 janvier 2012

Legs and Hurdles

Today I flew from Haiti to Miami and am experiencing the expected reverse culture shock. As we were approaching the ground, I saw cars going fast in orderly lines on perfectly straight roads, I saw skyscrapers towering over the sea, I saw roofs, I saw...
28 septembre 2011

...Leaving Cartagena, December 9th 2009

Last June, I left people puzzled when announcing I was going to Colombia, leaving them to fantasise about a country they knew through the news and Hollywood movies. Drugs, crimes, illegal armed groups and Shakira. My knowledge of Colombia wasn’t thorough,...
28 septembre 2011

7 Days, 168 Hours, August 24th 2010

48 hours ago I was boarding a plane in Cartagena, flying over Crespo, seeing the beach, seeing Marbella, the historical center, Manga, la Popa and all the other barrios that stretch out off the ocean's coast. Each sight brought back memories. I could...
28 septembre 2011

The Fantasy Door, March 13th 2011

My neighbour smells of old spice and walks up the stairs with a limp. He is old, but how old? He has big brown framed glasses with thick dirty lenses that make his dark eyes look ever so tiny but ever so smiley. I like his demeanour, his features and...
10 novembre 2011

My street is a dirt track

When I arrived in Leogane I found myself desperately looking for houses, for people and for life. I was taken to rue Duval where people were out amongst debris, sand pits, broken houses and makeshift shelters. The street was heaving. Adults children and...
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