Landa and her family moved out of Cité Soleil last Saturday.

Happy faces in the new house…

Now every person in the house has a bed and a mattress. The children have never slept on a mattress before.

Jeremie is very clean and quite.

A little girl on her way to school.

Jeremie is well known for its bakeries.

Burning wood to produce charcoal. Jeremie is one of the last places left with a lot of trees and vegetation. But Haitians continue to cut it as they have no other way to make a living to survive.

People putting the finished charcoal into a ferry. There is no real road leading to Jeremie. The city is isolated from the rest of the country. People get transported through a ferry that goes to Port-au-Prince once a week.

The ferry is extremely overcrowded and has only 2 lifeboats.

Beginning of this week I was in Jeremie. I flew in the helicopter of the UN to get there. It’s almost impossible to get there by road. Another option is to take a ferry, but they are so extremely overcrowded and only go once a week from PaP to Jeremie and back.

So the city is very isolated. No one really cares about it. But it’s beautiful though. Nice, but empty beaches, beautiful colors and nice people. It’s still very poor but has compared to Port-au-Prince  a much higher quality of life. The climate is a bit colder, there is always a little breeze, there is no traffic jam and there are actually people that clean the city!! And Jeremie is well known for its good bakeries.

It’s late and I have to get up early tomorrow morning, so I will post pictures another day.

By Paul Farmer and Brian Concannon January 25, 2009

source: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/25/change_haiti_can_believe_in/#

THE INAUGURATION of a US president committed to reversing “the failed policies of the past” provoked sighs of relief around the world. Few were more relieved than the citizens of Haiti, because few have suffered so much from failed US policies. But Haitians are still waiting to see whether the “past” that is to be reversed extends beyond the illegal and destructive policies of the last eight years to include over two centuries of US policies that have failed both our oldest neighbor and our highest ideals.

Our treatment of Haiti was bad enough during the Bush administration. We imposed a development assistance embargo in 2001, because we did not like the elected government’s economic policies. The embargo stopped urgently needed government programs - a Partners In Health study found that cancelling water projects in just one city had a devastating impact on health in the area. In 2004, US officials forced Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide aboard a clandestine flight to Africa and placed a Bush supporter from Florida at the head of Haiti’s government. Thousands were killed in the ensuing political violence. Years of hard-won progress toward democracy were erased overnight.

But our mistreatment of Haiti started earlier, as soon as Haiti became independent in 1804, when we refused to even recognize the new republic run by freed slaves. We invaded Haiti in 1915, to ensure repayment of a debt to Citibank. We propped up ruthless dictators in the name of fighting communism. In the 1980s, we decimated Haiti’s agricultural base by forcing subsidized US rice on Haitian markets.

These policies failed Haitians terribly. They cost thousands of lives lost in political violence. Millions more suffered because Haiti’s governments could not or would not provide clean water and basic healthcare. The policies have also failed the United States, by requiring us to mount expensive military interventions, respond to repeated waves of refugees, and deal with the drugs that transit easily through an unstable Haiti on their way from South America.

Haitians are hoping that America will reverse the failed policies of the past. Their hopes are grounded not just in President Obama’s promise, but in their own country’s brief, but successful, experiment with democracy from 1994 to 2004, and in America’s important contributions to that success.

Haiti’s democratic interlude included contested elections, and struggles to provide basic justice, education, and healthcare - the predictable challenges of a poor, emerging democracy. But it also included Haiti’s first transfer of power from one elected president to another in February 1996, and its second in February 2001. Democratic progress included extending AIDS retroviral therapy to rural areas that had never before had a simple clinic. It included two historic trials that brought powerful figures from Haiti’s former army and current police force to justice.

These successes were due, in part, to US government investments. US troops intervened to restore the constitutional government in 1994. USAID helped craft Haiti’s successful application for financing from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. US judges, prosecutors, and police officers trained their Haitian counterparts, and we helped equip Haitian courts with basic legal resources and materials.

We now have a historic opportunity to work with Haiti’s current constitutional government to build a stronger, more prosperous Haiti. Seizing this opportunity will require restraint, and faith in democracy: We will need to allow elected Haitian leaders to make their own policy decisions, even if we would have decided otherwise.

We will also need to invest in democracy. Three days’ spending in Iraq or two weeks’ interest on the bank bailout could fund Haiti’s entire government for a year. Prudent, depoliticized investments in Haiti’s democracy will yield dividends of prosperity and stability to Haiti, and will save US taxpayer dollars in the long run by reducing the flow of refugees and drugs to our shores. Perhaps most important, by helping rebuild a better Haiti, we will show the world how, in President Obama’s words, “we are ready to lead once more.”

Paul Farmer, MD, is Presley professor of social medicine at Harvard Medical School and a co-founder of Partners In Health. Brian Concannon Jr. is director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

Landa and her family are going to move to Delma 4. Compared to Cité Soleil it is a paradise for them. I will buy beds, matresses and other furniture. The kids will continue to go to their old school until the end of the schoolyear. In September they will then visit a better school with the help of the sponsors.

Family Gerome in church last Sunday.

I’m shooting for the NGO Nos petit frères et soeures. In Belgium they are called: Nos petits orphelins. It’s fun to stay in their house, I’m living together with great people from all around the world.

It’s late and I am tired so I am not going to write much, I will just post a few pictures that I took in the orphanage of “Nos petits frères et soeures” and in their hospital. The pictures are different then my others. Normally I don’t look for the eye contact to the people or pose pictures, but because it’s for a charity organization I do it much more (which doesn’t mean I also have some natural nice moments).

One last good news: I found a really nice place to stay for Landa and her family. It is not too expensive and they could even open a little shop in front of their house (there is a little place for that!). I collected enough donations to pay for the rent. It would be great if I could collect some more, so I can buy beds and matresses for all kids and make their home really comfortable.  You find the bancdetails of my donation-account on my website.

Here are the pictures of the orphanage and the hospital:

On Monday and Tuesday I went to Gonaive, a city 4 hours from Port-au-Prince to shoot the post-cyclone situation. The city and houses are still full of dirt, people lost their homes and have to live in tents, marketwomen don’t sell anything anymore. It’s a very sad situation. NGO’s already got much dirt out of the city, but there is still so much work to do. There is not much help from the government.

Last weekend I went to the orphanage of “Nos petits frères et soeures”. Pictures will follow tomorrow.  Here are the pictures of Gonaive:

It’s hot. It’s colorful. It’s chaotic. It’s poor - It’s Haiti.

I finally arrived in Port-au-Prince yesterday at 1pm and found my way to the house of the organization Our little brothers and sisters, where I will be staying for my entire stay. I will be working for them halftime - the rest I will be working on my personal projects (I have a lot in mind, you will see!).

This morning I went out and after 10 minutes Shooting my camera broke (the mirror started to get its own will and moved around).. Great start But it was my old one, so I went back and took the new one. I went to see Naschda, the little girl that my mum and my grandparents sponsor. She was very ill for a long time but now she is healty again - I am really happy for her.

In the afternoon I went to Cité Soleil to see Landa - the girl on the Unicef picture. I visited her at her home and she lives in really bad conditions.

She has 5 siblings (on the picture are only 4 because one was not there).

They live in a dwell, its really dirrty and their father is ill because of the bad smell that surrounds their house.

I want to help them to move away from Port-au-Prince into a nicer home and want to help the kids to go to a better school. And the all need a medical check. Please help me with donations!

Here again my bancaccount- details for donations:

International:
IBAN: BE857410 0358 4006
BIC/SWIFT: KREDBEBB
Account holder: Alice Smeets
Name of the bank: KBC

Belgian transfer:
741-0035840-06 

I am also looking for sponsors for each one of the children. 20 Euro each month will be enough for them to be able to visit a good school. It would be wonderful if we could all together change the life of the very poor Haitian family named Gerome! (All the first names will follow)

Some other pics from today:

Cité Soleil, a portrait of a boy that uses a plastic bag as a kite.

Another kite - this time self-created

Picture in the streets in Cité Soleil

I haven’t written on my blog for a long time. As I told you in my last post, I moved back to Belgium by the end of February. On the 19th carnival started and I took pictures there. It was a pity that I got ill on Friday until Sunday, so they only days I could take pictures were Thursday and Monday. I will upload them soon to my archive.

After carnival I went to Paris for a day to show my portfolio to the editor of National Geographic France. I got up at 5 in the morning, took the train and the bus and arrived at 12h30 in Paris. I left Paris again at 17h, so it was a really short trip

On the 4th I left Belgium for London. On the 5th I had an appointment with the Observer, which was really good. I also took the chance to see some friends again before I leave for 2 months. On Friday I took the plane to fly to New York. When I landed I went straight to the office of Glamour magazine. They are interested in publishing a story about the things I’m doing in Haiti.

On Saturday I had an appointment with the New York Times. There is a chance that I have to shoot something for them when I am in Haiti. After the meeting I met Mo, who is a Haitian living in New York. He took me to one of the 2 Haitian communities in New York, as I am planning to work on a reportage about Haitians living outside their own country. Here are a few pictures I took on Saturday.

I have some more appointments today with a Haitian girl, on Tuesday (with Getty images) and a Haitian girl and on Wednesday with Time magazine.
On Thursday morning I will leave New York to go to Haiti where I will stay until the 24th of April. I will write blog-posts about what I am doing there as much as possible.