Alice Smeets | Blog

Thanks already for all the best wishes for my birthday! Today was a hot, exhausting but very interesting day with many new impressions. This morning we went to the SOS-village of children and I took pictures of the children living there. It was good to see, that there is not only poverty here, but also help. Then in the afternoon we went to a very very poor slum. The people there have nothing at all, but they aren’t sad. They were friendly to me and let me take pictures. Especially the children really liked to be photographed. Afterwards everybody wanted to see the photos on the little screen on my camera. So I found myself in the middle of ten to twenty children, who where all soo happy to see their pictures. The slum were we have been is supposed to be very dangerous. But it didn’t seem like it. I wasn’t scared at all..It was a really exhausting day, especially because it’s so hot here. And now my whole legs are itchy because of the fucking mosquitoes. They must love my blood. I put on the antimosquito-gel every evening, but they still bite me…:-s

After two days without having any time to write anyone, I have finally a bit time to tell what happened until now.

I arrived Sunday at 12pm (18h in Belgium) in New York. The flight was ok, even though there was no film or anything. The women next to me was very nice. In New York they asked me some strange questions, took my fingerprints and photo and then let me into the country. I took a taxi into the city and arrived at 2pm at my hotel. Then I went visiting New York. The first impression that I had was that it looked similar to Auckland in Newzealand. But ten or even twenty times bigger. The city is huge and just amazing. I think in New York there is nothing that doesn’t exist. I really liked the city with all his lights and strange people. I certainly will return to NY and stay longer than one day!

(For the people which I´ve sended postcards, there are some postcards with the World Trade Center still on it I realized it afterwards, but it was too late)

My flight to Haiti was on the next day at 9:15am. The flight was very funny. I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole live. It was so chaotic, nobody listened to what the air hostesses were telling us and at the baggage claim everybody tried to get as near as possible. Indeed, there was one man who jumped on it. Then I went out and found Audel, who came to pick me up. Because the police took his driverlicence for some weeks (he parked incorrectly), I had to drive the car. That was an adventure Everybody drives like he wants. It’s like there were no rules, structure or anything. It was then when I also got my first impression about Haiti and his citicens. It’s like I sad very chaotic and some parts of the city are very poor. But I really like the people. When we arrived at Nathachas and Audels home, there were so many people to welcome me. That was great! So we talked, ate together (really good meal!), and then I went to sleep very early.

Today we went to a very poor part of the city to take the first pictures. Some people didn’t want to be photographed, some were angry and on the other side children jumped on every picture and smiled into the camera.. But anyway.. It was a great day, I made new experiences and took some quite good pictures.

I will stop for today, because I’m  tired again..

See you soon… Alice

I arrived today in Haiti. It’s great here, the people are very friendly and nice. New York was great too. I will write tomorrow more about it. Now I’m tired and just want to sleep..