Friday 31 December 2010

Diervilla early morning

In the backyard of our house, many things happen 'unnoticed' when we
teach.

Every day Diervilla is doing the laundry for instance. It's hard
labour, but she does it with a smile.

Like many Haitians that try to survive in this country, she does not
know about all the western luxuries like washing machines. Or steady
electricity for that matter. Or running water from a tab ...

Thursday 30 December 2010

Nephtalli filming

Daniel Morel

A very lively discussion today with the world famous Haitian
photographer Daniel Morel.

Hopefully he will be able to drop by more often to help educate the
students.

Wednesday 29 December 2010

Meanwhile in the garden

The last days of 2010 ...

... and Headmaster Ton is still at it.

And so are our students. They are trying to finnish their first edited
stories before the year ends.

Friday 24 December 2010

X-mas eve

Even at X-mas eve Ton is educating a select group of students.

They will be filming the late mass at the church later tonight.

Goodbye Bart

Bart taught the students editing in a week and is now flying back to
Holland, Amsterdam.

Thursday 23 December 2010

Filming in the neighbourhood camp

As I said before, our school is in a nice and quiet neighbourhood.
It's near a hospital (de la paix) just off Delmas 33.

Accross the street is a very well run Christian Guesthouse - Mathews
25. At the other corner there is an equally well run cyber cafe.

As in every neighbourhood in Port au Prince, there are also a lot of
displaced people, living in makeshift tents in temporary camps - for a
year now.

'Our' camp is a very well organised and relatively small one. Only 700
people live on a former soccerfield ...

Yesterday it was the last day of school. There was singing, dancing,
food and drinks for all.

And Haiti Reporters was there with 3 filmcrews and 4 photographers to
document it.

This photo shows 3 of the little dancers being interviewed.

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Files, formats and films

Craig is the only one still out there.

Geeking out on the camerafiles/formats and choosing which one we
should film on.

Producing never stops ...

Jean is also a carpenter

We bought a couple of tables for the school, but they were not really
well build.

So Jean made one himself.

I think it's the best table in Haiti ...

Friday 17 December 2010

The substitute

Today we continued the editing course with our new teacher Craig.

Thursday 16 December 2010

Starting editing with mr. Bart

Divided into three groups, the editing classes started today with
teachers Bart, Jean Jozef and Craig.

Better chlore then cholera

We don't hear much about the cholera situation, but we still use
chlore to purify the water in Villa Baptiste.

When we clean the dishes they go through a little chlore bath before
we put them away in the drying rack.

Tonite Ton and I walked back from Delmas to our house and we passed a
little cholera camp of Medicins sans frontière on Delmas 33. There
were a lot of people trying to look over the fence to see what was
going on there.

And a woman in the TapTap asked us for anti-cholera tablets. So there
is still a lot going on and I'll get back on this story later.

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Faire un interview

Ton wanted the class to understand more about doing an interview. So
he invited one of our Canadian 'roommates', Marie-Paule Brisson, to do
an interview with him.

Marie-Paule speaks Kreyol, so she explained the students that they should
better speak in their native tongue.

The interviews later this day went very well. We have the footage of 3 camera's to proof it.

Table shopping

Today Jean and I bought wood to make some tables for the school.

The heavy rain stopped, the streets are cleared, so it seems we're
back to normal in Haiti.

Monday 13 December 2010

Mud roads

The roads are cleared from rubble, but now the rain makes them even
less accessible.
This truck
Got stuck

Videocamera and Sound lesson

Schooldirector Ton Vriens starts the new week with educating our
students with what he knows best -videocamera.

It rained all night in Port au Prince and the roads have turned into
mudslides, but everybody made it to our school @ Villa Baptiste.

Just heared that the final results of the presidential election will
be announced on Wednesday. The airport will be closed untill then ...

I wonder what will be the outcome on Wednesday. If 'Sweet Mickey' is
not included in the run-off in January, will his supporters close the
streets again?

Sunday 12 December 2010

Presidential Election 2010





The first video of Haiti Reporters is online!

Please have a look and tell me what you think ...

Click here!

Saturday 11 December 2010

First student blog


Just another historic day at the office - our students had the
opportunity to meet three very interesting people. André Paultre,
Kwame Dawes and Andre Lambertson honered us with the first
'professionals' lecture.

Dawes and Lambertson (see picture below)  talked about there work and showed it to more then 30 people.


Please have a look at their websites and be inspired.

http://www.alambertson.com/
http://www.kwamedawes.com/

The work they are doing in Haiti is for the Pulitzer Center and can be seen here:

http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/caribbean/after-quake-hivaids-haiti


On this last link below you'll see what the students blog was about - go to the page ACTUALITE

www.haitireporters.info

Friday 10 December 2010

New schoolbus?

Back to Normal?

One of our students, Johnny Baptiste, is a trained sociologist. He
explains the current political situation to his classmates.

Out of 21 students, 9 made it to the school today.

The streets are still empty. There is not a lot going on in PaP,
because most people stay at home. Hopefully everything will be back to
normal on Monday.

Thursday 9 December 2010

Filming in Delmas

It was a historic day for Haiti Reporters. Our students filmed for the
very first time outside the Villa Baptiste compound.

We took it to the streets of Delmas and filmed and interviewed some
merchants. The students asked them about their personal situation
during this weary times.

It was also the first time in a month it rained in Port au Prince,
hence the umbrella. And as you can see, schooldirector Ton Vriens is
overseeing the filmactivities like a hawk.

It was historic day.

Quiet Schoolday

Three students made it to the school today. One of them (Rama) walked
for one hour to get here.

After lunch we'll go to the street to do some filming with them. Rama
already works as a cameraman sometimes, so the other two will do sound
and producing.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

Empty streets in PaP

Protests broke out last night in Port au Prince after the official
election results were announced. Supporters of mr. Martelly put up
fires on every streetcorner and blocked the streets with rubble and
trashcontainers. Even the TapTaps stayed in their garages.

It's my first quiet day in PaP. Normaly the noise is overwhelming, a
bit simular to the streets of New York but then mixed with crowing
roosters and barking dogs.

A good day to do some grocery shopping in the neighbourhood. I bought
some pasta, mango's, chadec and pouyak.

And I looked at a car again: a 1998 Nissan Pathfinder, 150.000 miles.
Price: 11.500 USD.

I found one in the US for 2.200 USD.

Welcome to Haiti.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Election Results Day

Tonight 'all the votes' of the presidential elections are counted. I
put exclamation marks there, because on the election day Haiti
Reporters went Downtown Port au Prince and we saw that there were no
voting ballots at the polls. All the people we talked to were not able
to cast a vote. All the boxes were empty.

News tonight is that Mirlande Manigat and Jude Celestin will probably
have a run-off on January 16. They came in first and second.

This photo I shot today with my friend Jean somewhere in Delmas. It
says 'Whether you want it or not -President Mateli. Peasants respons.'

Mateli is the popular Haitian singer Michel 'Sweet Micky' Martelly.
According to the official results, he came in 3d place.

A lot of people distrust the results. Manigat has 31.37%, Celestin
22.48% and Martelly 21.84%. A margin of only .64%

Will our students be able to make it to the school tomorrow or will
the streets be filled with Micky supporters?

Monday 6 December 2010

Students introducing themselves





All the students told a true story and an untrue story about themselves.
The rest had to guess which story was a lie.

And then there where 21

We still have too many students, but in the next one and a halve week
there will be only 15 left.

Sunday 5 December 2010

Beach Preval

Went to the beach today. First time we went out of Port au Prince and
the first day in a month with some relaxing time. It took us 2 hour to
get here, but it was very much worth it!

Searching for 'Schoolbus'

Traffic is a jam in Port-au-Prince (PaP). They call it 'blockades'. If
you want to go from Delmas 33 (where the school is at) to Petion Ville
for instance, it can take from 20 minutes to close to an hour
depending on traffic and the exact road that you take. Delmas is one
of the main roads in PaP. It connects the Petion Ville neighbourhood
through the neighbourhood of Delmas directly to downtown - Centre.
Untill now we always take TapTaps. Private transportation that you
find in a lot of countries around the world. They work on the basis of
'our car fits all' - literally. But at some point we need to be able
to drive the students with their equipment to the different (film)
projects. So in our queste for cars today, we saw these brand new
(Chinese !?!) standing on a parking lot near the airport. Anybody any
experience with them?

Friday 3 December 2010

Arnold Antonin's Birthday seminar

Haitian's top cinematographer Arnold Antonin was so kind to invite us
to a wonderfull evening at the Brazilian Cultural Centre in Petion
Ville. Mr. Antonin showed some of his latest work and held a
fascinating speech on fiction and documentary films in today's Haiti.

Choosing is losing

It's hard to make a decission on our candidates. We put their
temporary nametags on a door as a reminder. Monday we'll start with
'the best of the best'. Out of the more then 80 that we interviewed
and more then 200 that we spoke to, 20 will begin. It does not even
stop there, since there is place for only 15. We'll see if natural
selection plays it's role in our little world as well ...

Thursday 2 December 2010

On the other side

Behind our school, Haitian life goes on in it's own wonderfull way.
This little rooster keeps us awake even during the night. You should
listen to it some time ...

Sebastian explains photography ... again

The new group of students gets there bit of ISO, diaframe and
shutterspeed. There first photo's will folllow soon.

Interviewing some more

It's hard to choose between all these talented and driven young
people, but we only have funding and staff for 15.

Second Schoolday

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Sebastian explains photography

Interviewing and filming

First Day in Haiti

It sounds strange to call it a first day after being more then 2 weeks in a country, but today was really the first. The first day of our new school.

We thought our biggest problem would be finding the right people - we where wrong. They are all here. And many more.