A small silly thing

While "waiting" for my bike to emerge from the basement "fix-it-shop", I browsed around the cycling store ... and bought (of course stores love this kind of buying)

New cycling glasses!!! They look like "cycling sunglasses" crossbred with "Armani Fashion Prima Donna sunglasses".
The sales lady told me they looked nice, haha. I am not too sure, i have a small face and they are quite big. Plus I am not used to feeling like a fashion star, maybe I will get used to it.

Then, I bought a new bell!!! Well, actually, it is not a bell but a horn, and It is the shape of an Orca! I like him very much. Pennn Pennn!!
Willy Wallace the Whale wailes pretty good. Get out of my wayyyyyyy!!!

My bike needed some fixing as it had sustained some damage during winter (wink, wink Yee!) ... my cables got cut as someone attempted to steal... my handle bar!
Not the bike... just the handle bar. The bike is not worth much.

Anyhow, everything is fully functioning and it works great! The guy gave me full of free pieces too! New pedals, and new feet holders and ... guess what!
a new bell!!!

(now I have two bells)
I couldn't bring Willy Wallace back and I couldn't say to the guy take back your bell I just bought Willy Wallace.... so now I have the choice, "ding ding" or "Penn Penn"!!!

AnywayZZZ, I went out for my first bike trip of the year, to Jeanne Mance park, for a game of random-stranger-pickup-frisbee and then to Yee's place!
30 KM on the first day (not bad).

I came back to my apartment tired and i walked into my place in the basement, and it felt so dark and cramped. Wow, so dark and creepy in my place!
Then I happened to look in the mirror and notice I was still wearing my new sunglasses.

Hum. Maybe, I shouldn't admit to these things, especially that it was something like 5 minutes before i figured it out.

See you later alligators!

Atwater, money and those high boots

I don't remember what I was doing or where I was coming from but it was late at night and I was heading home. It was so late, Atwater station was empty except for all the beggars. I walked passed them as they braced for a cold night. As always, your heart sinks a little but you still walk by. Atwater is one of those sad places.

My mind was wandering and when paying for my journey at the ticket booth I am not sure I acknowledged the existance of the clerc but then a very simple thing happened. The change she pushed out the slot to give me hit a wind draft and the 5$ bill flew back into her booth. I watched her as she tried to snatch it from the air. She looked so funny and it felt like a mirrored reflexion of my last money adventures. I tried to take my ticket and head off incognito as always but the impulse was too strong and so I started to laugh with her:

« Do you know what happened to me last week? »

I started to tell her all about my money adventures at the guichet (see last blog). She laughed and snickered. Really laughed and then said:

« Yeah, that is nothing! You know what happened to me the other day? »

And so she started to tell me, that the other day this woman came to pay for her weekly pass wearing high boots: « up to here I tell you! You know, like way up here! So, this woman comes to my ticket counter and unzips the top of her boot down to the knee to get her cash out. A big freaking wad of cash, I tell you. You know, the kind you're not sure you want to touch »,she tells me all this in a strong french « accent québécois » and we both understand that we come from different backgrounds.

« Anyway, she pays and all that but somehow when she slipped the money back in the boot it caught the wind draft and all the bills flew out, like down there! », she exclaimed pointing out down the metro hall. Just imagine all those bills fluttering down the metro hall and you'll laugh.

« I tell you the girl jumped over the gates and ran down the hall in her big boots and everything! I had to get out of my booth, and run down after her to help out. Here, I found myself running and jumping about catching all these bills! », she was telling me all this while mimicking running down and snatching bills.

« All that money down the hall! Most of it got stuck at the railings over there! Oouff, we ran! Picking everything up, ouf! Ah! So funny! », she ended her story pretending to wipe sweat off her forhead.

By then, my stomac was cramping with laughter and she was in tears laughing at the memory.

We laughed, and laughed and finally she said: « Oh, so funny! But when it happened, I couldn't laugh, you know, « poor girl »! But after, after I laughed, so funny! ».

We were two complete strangers laughing our heads off in one of the saddest metros of Montreal. Laughter echoes here, these halls are not used to it. They quickly returned to sadnest as I continued my journey but somehow this woman clerk had given me another piece of this surreal life.

Small blog adventure

I am sure this has happened to everybody before but,

The other day I was hurrying up to the metro station. I was to be swimming in two hours and I still had no bathing suit: Small problem that can only be fixed with a little money.

So I run up to the Guichet automatic (money making machine) and take out 200$. As I pull out the balance receipt and depressingly study it, i fold the packet of money in two and distracted I attempt to insert the wad of cash into my wallet, all while holding my packsac and coffee. When,
ouhhh, ouhhh,
I loose gasp and the unfolding money is propulsed into the air. All my 10, 20$ bills flutter gracefully in all directions like autum leaves or fluffy snow flakes...
ouhh, ouh, shit.

I desperatly try to catch them in their fall but i didn't even get one.
I basically was going : ouh! ouh...! ouh...! and panicking as I watched my money flutter down, coffee still in hand.

There I was in Henri-Bourassa metro station, croutched down over a quite large semi-cercle of run-away bills... It now became the game of "pick them up as fast as you can!"
as they were soaking up the melted salty snow puddles, not to mention in great danger of being stollen.

All I could think of is ... Man, i am so lucky it is not windy!

Out of Gonaïves

Hey people!!
I am officially oooOUt of GonaÏves... the city of eternal dust and mud. I am siting in a Port au Prince hotel restaurent typing away on wireless internet...
Oh, oh, the luxury!!
Heading back to civilisation after 4months of strangeness in Haïti.
There IS so much that I do not want to forget. It is difficult to explain but I hope that the video will do that for me.
The last few weeks have been spent running the streets of Gonaïves on scooters filming everything we could catch without getting mobbed.
Yes, getting mobbed was a "preoccupation" of ours as every once in a while we would get swarmed... Blanc, Blanc (White, white!)... People cry out (sometimes nicely, sometimes not so nicely)...
There is a lot of historic racial "baggage" that makes it difficult to interact sometimes.

Here, I present to you, little Papoune.

Yes, that is his tricylce, and yes he uses it to fetch water at the well... and carry the load home. So many kids have to carry water loads on their heads...
(water is very, very heavy by the way) ...
Next time any one of you needs to change the "blue water jug" of our "filtered water dispensers"... you'll notice how heavy water actually is...

Now, fill a big bucket and walk a couple of Km (just one or two) with the load balanced on your head. It does not even have to be up-hill to the mountain houses, just flat road will be enough for you to conclude (as I did) ...
That Haïti needs a lot more Bright red tricycles.

My brother JEAN, the groom

As you all know… I left Nottingham to attend my little brothers wedding. He had proposed about a year ago to his longtime girlfriend Catherine (together already 10 years!!) (10 years!!) (and have two kids!!) (two kids!!)… Now, it was time for the long awaited white wedding… WHITE WEDDINGGGGGGGG!!! Or was it a pink wedding??? (I'll get to that later).

Anyways. The wedding was beautiful, just perfect. It was held at one of those “wedding in a package” locations. You know those places you go to and everything is there: the outside Gazebo right next to a small lake with a spurting water fountain (all this about 100 meters away from the reception room). Everything looks perfect. One of my favourite wedding highlights was the best men... You see…

Jean, the groom (my brother), and his two best men (Laurent, my older brother, and Dany, his best childhood buddy), were going on the necessary “boys day out” shopping for wedding suits. Except, Jean was fast in finding his suit...
and instead of patiently helping the best men pick theirs, he suddenly cut things short and simply told the boys: “Okay guys, just match pink”

and to this Jean left them to their own devise.

Being so loyal, the best men listened and showed up at the wedding wearing classy black suits, supported by HOT pink shirts complemented with HOT pink mafioso hats (and HOT pink socks as well) (better than white, no?). The boys looked hot what can I say (pictures to come).

Seeing them, Jean laughed…. nervously… he suspected it wouldn’t go down well with the bride (or the bridesmaids for that matter). In his defense, Jean tried:
“Guys, I said to “match” pink not “be” pink!!”
To which the boys replied : “Hey, you said “match pink” and all we know is pink goes with pink”.
Jean courageously chuckled … He will forever remember this pink blunder.

Before the ceremony, everybody raved at the boy's suits. It was a real smash and bonus entertainement while everyone waited, waited and waited for the bride. Many people started visiting the bar instead of just standing around… I had by this time already knocked over (in the sense of spilling) a couple of wine glasses.

Finally, the bride’s limo arrived an 1h and 7 minutes late. The bridesmaids softly exited in a fluff of pastel pink dresses. Almost no one could tell they were huffed about the “hot pink” men.

At this point, everybody was busy stashing their beers under their chairs anyways. The guests lifted their heads just in time to catch the bride emerge from the limo and walk down the isle. She was, as all brides are, very beauUUtifull! Everything looked so perfect.

It was a civil wedding but the texts read had mostly been written “by” each other “to” each other which added much to the ceremony and took away greatly from the standard: Code 6.7.4 civil law states that husband and wife shall live together and share their belongings and the charge of any kids that may come (or may already be there). Code 9.4.3 states that… bla bla bla… This ceremony had a sweeter taste everything out of Cinderella’s fairy tales.

The reception was a very lively one. They hired an entertainer, a funny man/cross dresser. He’d do small skits between meal courses; coming out dressed as a priest, then as what looked like a “Marge Simpson” version of a pole dancer. He’d get the tables to play games, bang on tables and sing. He was really good at what he did. The night got well on it’s way as he continued to entertain the crowd. After some YMCA, twist again and la danse du canard (the duck dance) … it was time for the bouquet and the classic taking off the “jartelle” (garder belt) with the groom’s teeth, all very fun. Both groom and bride did a good job with this. The cakes were the cutest things!! There was a little man cake and a little woman cake (you’d have to see the pictures).

Finally, it was time for the “fetching of the groom’s key’s in the lake”
Jean had confided his car keys to me (as I had a purse). Laurent almost immediately approached me with his macavelic plan to perch them on the rock in the middle of the lake and let Jean figure out how to get them back at the end of the night.

But how to do this?? Ingenious Dave was recruted to the team and came up with the solution.
1) Tie keys to 6 party ballounes (to make them float)
2) Attach to long string and throw keys (and ballounes) past rock
3) Pull keys (and ballounes) back over rock till they sit on it safely
4) Cut string
5) Laugh

As the night dwindeled down, Jean started contemplating his options to recuperate his keys. Little did he know that there was…
A YELLOW RUBBER DINGY!!!!!
As Jean approached the lake, Laurent and I (still in high heels) ran across the lawn dragging the rubber dingy and ores in an attempt to plant it on the other side of the lake for Jean to discover...
Except…
Jean was too quick. He had already stripped down to his sexy white briefs and waddled into the cold water up to his mid belly to fetch the “dam” keys from the rock.
And so… just as Jean extied dripping from the lake (keys in hand), Laurent drifted in (full HOT pink style) rowing the yellow rubber dingy out from the other side ... reaching the rock victorious and completely dry…

Memorable. Actually the whole day was memorable. Priceless. For everything else, there’s VISA card.

Playing around with a camera: Nightshots.

I have officially started to mess around with the camera, playing with ideas, making list of shots too take and toying with different settings.

(DALEEE & STÉPHANIE!!! !!! Help!!! Haha!)

Hopefully, in the end, I can show you guys what it is like here. I have not written much about this place. I find it overwhelming to try and describe it.

There are so many things that I am unable to throw out on paper, my written words do not render the feelings or sights. I find myself unable to explain the things I see in a way that could convey enough meaning for others to “get it”. I think this is when the video idea started… I somehow felt that my writing abilities are somehow too limited to picture the Haiti experience and so I am trying to move to another media to catch it.

I have effectively very limited experience with videomaking but it is worth a try even if just to document for myself what this place is about. It’s all experimental right now: As I said, we are adeering to the “Just pretend you know what your doing” motto… and making sure we have fun doing it.

The other evening, music played far out in the distance. We had just finished our dinner and we spontaneously decided to check out the “party” and see if we could get some good footage with our cameras at night.

Night footage! (Don’t we all love messing with special functions)

… In “night shot”, the camera sends out an infra-red signal and enables us to capture images that are normally to dark to get. So we (my father, Laurence and I) had a “night expedition”, on our motor bikes driving down the city streets (pretty daring in itself; because there is no electricity which means no street lights). The sides of the roads are lined with candlelite merchant stalls. The candlelight give an eerie feeling to the street, you could start believing in ghost here, as there are so many figures that move in the shadows and faces that mysteriously flicker in golden flammes of small fires.

Laurence has been doing really well on the motor bikes. I would say he caught up with me in “confort level” when wizzing through Gonaïves traffic. This night expedition was a first for both of us… Oh the stress!

He really learned to ride from scratch in the worst of conditions. He arrived in the rainy season and so when he first hoped on the bikes the roads were but a series of merged mud puddles…. (huge ones). His first “motorbike initiation course” included:

Lesson # 3:

Riding through mud puddles

1- Don’t panick.

2- Don’t try and lift your feet, they’ll get dirty anyways

3- Cross your fingers that the water/mud puddle not be “that” deep.

4- (most important) : Pick up speed. Make sure you have enough trottle to stop water/mud from coming into the exhaust pipe.

5- Don’t hit rocks, even if you can’t see them.

6- Remember … mud is extremely slippery.

Good luck.

Aerial shots

I just hung up from a 15$ phone call … but it was worth every penny of it!

Hellloooo, you guys in Nottingham!!! !!!!!

Pierre-Yves, you can send the freezer to :

8-Gatereau-20 Gonaïves, Haïti

(the house in front of the complexe of cuban doctors)

It could be usefull if we get more steady electricity (or else it can be used for storage room … or a table).

Now, (especially for you Marije…) (who is so good at pestering me to write more)

Story of the week: hummm…

Today, I think I will tell the adventures of trying to make this documentary as I am sure more adventures are to come.

We made a first attempt to get… ta ta “ta”””

aerial shots! (I have to say that once you get into a project like this you start getting a little too ambitious!) Here we are dreaming of including aerial shots of Gonaïves city, where all the “action” should be based.

You see, all self respecting documentary makers always include a couple of beautiful sweeping (steady) aerial shots (usually from cranes or planes)… but, obviously, we don’t have a plane (or a crane).

But… every once in a while… my father goes to meetings across the counrty… and to do so he is obliged to risk his life and ride in an (old) russian (actually it’s ukrainian) Helicopter.

This old beast is simply painted white and plastered with black U.N. letters to make it look “official” and hopefully “dependable”… Now, my father is a pilot and knows a few things about flying machines… but…

… “Ignorance can be bliss” … He always turns a little pale on “meeting” days…

Anyways… we thought it was worth to try! Aerial shots!! Could you believe it!

So next helicopter ride, he took our new “handycam” with him…(heart beating) …

… Tcha, tcha, cha… TCha cha tcha cha….

the Helicopter

TCha cha tcha cha…. Took off and majes”tcha”lly flew over the city… Bruuu… Tcha, Tcha Tcha, Brruuuu

(PS : for those who don’t get it… the “Tcha tcha” part and the “Bruu brrruuu’s” are the sounds effects of the noisy wind and helicopter VIBRATIONS!! Okay?)

So… imagine… Tcha cha, Tcha cha, tcha cha….

The vibrations were so strong, there was no way my father could keep steady. His whole body giggled with the copter’s Tcha Tcha Tcah Tcha…. His hands uncontrolably shook the camera as if guessing it’s Christmas gift contents.….

He then held our (brand new) camera out the window to get a better shot … TCHA TCHA TCHATCHA…. (Bruuuuuuu Brruu) TCHA TCHA TCHA…

and then…

He dropped it!!!

(haha)

(no he didn’t)

(but I wanted to check if you were listening)

The camera made it back safe in the end (so did my father) but the footage is probably worth only a good laugh… Sophisticated “aerial shots” might not make our final cut… but it was worth the excitement of trying to “get” them.

New adventure Ñ CRAZY project

Okay people.... I have to admit to a big secret.

I have been harboring a very... ambitious plan ... dark brewings in my head. Something that I did not want to jinks by openly admitting to ... (talking of secret aspirations is so dangerous!! ... haha...) But no turning back now...

As you all know, I talk a lot.... but this time I got myself in trouble!

Blabla blaa...

You see, I went on blablabbing one morning to my father sipping coffee... and... then... in a moment of pure genious, I said:
"we should make a documentary"

The statement hung in the air... a second ... two ... and then.
the reply:
"Okay, ... but I am just the cameraman, you´re the director"

AAAAaaaaaaHHHHHH!!! The fear!!! The fear!!!
Fight or flight, fight or flight.... Oh, boy!
... now that all the basic equipment has been bought (a certain amount of money invested),
"this" is it!!

I am desperatly clinging to my sister´s famous motö:
Just pretend to know what your doing!....
... and the results just might surprised you...

It still all feels alien to me, I have done (very amature) videos in the past... editing and all but nothing with a "set out" idea. All the grinding of technical details, make me believe that "maybe" "maybe" it could turn out to be an interesting piece...

maybe.. maybe... is about the only word I feel confortable admitting to right now... But things seem to be coming together ... At the moment I am chilling out in the DR (Dominican Republic)... But I am to return to Haiti soon as filming starts on the 5th of December (+ or - a few days).

all the "planning" is still in the process of "being planned"
I´ll try and keep you up dated!
C