Sunday, April 29, 2012

Dominica, Organized Poverty ...




Public benches, by the day home to some hungarian tourists from the near by low cost cruise liner, 
by night home to people like the guy I met who had not eaten for 2 days







Picnic by the streetlight


I don't have other pics than the few I took from my hotel room for it is forbidden to take any 
photo when in the whole island but, what I saw is not what you see when doing a Google search !!
I saw extreme poverty, deepless misery. No work, no shop 
(cigarette paper is sold by the leaf !!), 

no roads, no schools, scarse electricity, a lot of (not running) water, no nothing, 
life in its most basic expression, especially for the Carib indians in the NE part



A few pics I could have taken, should I have not been forbidden 
by the taxi driver to take pictures... according to the law

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Godissart, Martinique, West Indies - PHOTOS


The 'why' of this greyish picture is because for the first time in my life, I saw people who take crack, because it was the first time I saw zombies like humans, who are no more like you and me, not even like an animal, not even wrong ...


'Manicou' (Didelphis Marsupialis), 12/2011



Exerpt from Hugh Mitchell book, Captive to the Wind:

"As beautiful as this place is, and as nice as the people
are, it could become deadly boring. The expatriates tend to maintain
a distance between themselves and the islanders. On a basis of eco-
nomics and cultural background rather than out of any racial prejudice.
Even though the place is virtually crime-free, except for petty larceny,
the billiard table lawns and the costly houses set on them are almost
without exception the property of a few very well-to-do locals and the
seven-hundred or so Americans or Canadians that live here. Some of
them only stay on the island during the winter, renting the houses for
exorbitant amounts during the other months of the year. For the most
part they cannot understand the reasons for the underlying resentment
that they, and a few of the more sensitive tourists, sometimes sense. I
think I can understand it now. 

The main problems in the islands stem
from the populations that are expanding rapidly, are underemployed,
have been misdirected into believing that the North American lifestyle
is the only acceptable goal. The whole chain is close enough to the
United States to experience a constant exposure to things American.
Only recently has the streets paved with gold" image been diminished.
Complicating the issue is a century-old movement away from the land,
from things agricultural. 

This because of an association between slav-
ery and the soil, and an emphasis on medicine, law and teaching as
being the most acceptable professional areas. The result is that peo-
ples who live in areas that should be essentially agrarian in fact shy
away from the land and, to a degree that now begins to threaten their
survival, have sold it to foreigners, accepting a ash of prosperity in
exchange for later destitution. 

The land that once produced food now
supports hibiscus and cinder block. The farmers who remain grow to
suit the demands of the best market, the expatriates and the wealthy is-
landers who ape them. Diet patterns change to exclude the traditional.
Yams and dashines, virtually self-tending crops, are rejected in favour
of costlier, ill-adapted ones that Northern palates will pay the highest
prices for. And more and more unwittingly condescending foreigners
decry the growing poverty."
page 99
































Carib woman, 80 years old




ORIGINAL PICTURES, ASK FOR REPRODUCTION RIGHTS

Friday, April 27, 2012

Paris, rue Marcadet - PHOTOS








ORIGINAL PICTURES, ASK FOR REPRODUCTION RIGHTS

Turkey, near Korkuteli - PHOTOS
















Young Gypsies 'flying' to say hello before getting stones from the guy behind, 10/2007








(not near Korkuteli !)


ORIGINAL PICTURES, ASK FOR REPRODUCTION RIGHTS