I arrive in the Dominican Republic at around 2pm. Unfortunately, I land in Punta Cana, about as far away from Haiti as possible on this island. I am supposed to be in Haiti tomorrow, but have no idea how to get there. (I deliberately didn't prepare in order to make things more interesting.) I exit the airport and find a guagua (local bus) which takes me to a bus station where I find a bus for Santo Domingo, the capital. The bus takes 3-4 hours during which I make friends with the bus driver. In the capital, he takes me to the hotel where he's staying, then we meet with his friend the taxi driver and the three of us go out to eat, they give me a short tour of the city and tell me how to go to Haiti. Great! They're very hospitable, although one difference between them and all the Iranian people I've met recently is that they're happy to see me pay for things :)

Philadelphia.

I have breakfast here.

Airport in Punta Cana.

Street in Dominican Republic.

The journey can be described as insane at best. It's me, a Peruvian man with his Haitian wife, and around 40 other Haitians, all black. There's loud merengue streaming out the speakers throughout the trip. Everyone is talking and shouting to one another, even though I assume they didn't know each other before the trip started, and things are passed back and forth; food, alcohol, a baby. I'm invited for both food and alcohol during the trip by the friendly Haitians. Everyone refers to me as "blanco" (means white). A girl sitting at my side is touching my skin and speaking to me in creole (language in Haiti, resembles French). A guy at my other side (I'm in the aisle) speaks Spanish and translates: "She wants you." We arrive at the border around noon, it's really busy, like a big market place. When we sit there waiting for our passports, the girl asks if I want to marry her. I contemplate it for a moment, she's 19 perhaps, very beautiful. I tell her it probably wouldn't work.

The border is set next to a lake. Somewhere before the border, the black packages disappear without me noticing. As we've passed, we see a huge black guy without much clothes rowing like a mad man over the lake. He rows towards us, and I see that the black packages are stuffed in the boat. They're quickly loaded on the bus, and we continue towards Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. When I arrive, I call my Haitian friends and they come and pick me up. I'm staying with a Haitian girl called Natasha. There are always a lot of people in her house; friends, family and also another blanco: Jason who happens to be a computer engineer from San Francisco.

At the Haitian border, and the bus and some people I travel with.

Outside Natasha's house.

View from Natasha's place.

At Natasha's.

At Natasha's.

At Natasha's.

Tonight we're having a new year's party at Natasha's place. Jason and I spend most of the evening cooking and grilling. There's also beer and dancing. Suddenly it's 2009 and everyone is hugging and kissing. After midnight I leave with two Haitian girls to a club called Jet Set in Petionville, a rich suburb. There are plenty of westerners here, something you don't see in other places in PAP, they turn out to be from the UN peace keeping Mission in Haiti. It's a good day. A great end to 2008 and start for 2009!

Kids in the orphanage.

Kids in the orphanage.

Making coffee.

Street.

Barbecuing.

Jason, Natasha, me and some of Natasha's friends.

Dancing.

This photo shows our delicious salad and Haitian rum.

Life is good.

Haiti is a true third world country, where running water is a luxury and electricity goes on and off, even worse than in northern Iraq. Here it seems the entire city can black out for a period of hours. There is garbage everywhere. Really! In addition to the omnipresent wild dogs, chicken and roosters, we spot a wild pig digging through a pile of garbage close to the city center.

In the evening, Jason and I go on a quest for pork. After having had so much chicken lately we're craving something else. We find it on the street not far from Natasha's home. The food here is really tasty, with a lot of spices.

In the slum.

In the slum.

With Natasha.

Kids at the orphanage. Natasha on the right.

View from Natasha's brother's girlfriend's house.

Kid eating sugar cane.

Pork.

The kids in the village are very curious about us blancos (Jason and me). They stand at a short distance just staring at us. One little girl is terrified and starts crying every time she looks at us. The people here are mostly dark dark black. For example, on our way home after dark we see at a stop sign on the street, only it's not, it's just a very black man with a stop sign on his t-shirt. For dinner we once again have an amazing home cooked meal at the orphanage. Then we head out to party at Jet Set in Petionville.

I really like this country... people are so warm, friendly, curious, inviting. Similar to Iran in a way, yet with many differences. One being that girls here are much more free, so it's easier to talk to them. In the Middle East I mostly just spoke to guys. Another being that Haiti is not particularly safe. There's plenty of crime and kidnappings here, and Jason and I attract a lot of attention. Except for the UN staff in their heavily armed trucks, we haven't seen a single white person. Moreover, police officers are virtually nonexistent, and the ones out there seem to be up to no good anyway. (The one we saw today was making out with a girl on the street.) For these reasons, we always go accompanied by at least one local, and usually in a car with the doors locked.

Having a snack in the village.

On the way to the beach.

The beach.

Local boys at the beach.

Man at the beach.

Fishermen and the catch of the day.

In the village. This is the girl who's afraid of us.

Kid being cleaned.

Reading stories in the village.

Party.

I sit next to Alexis, a 25 year old Haitian whose job is to move steering wheels of imported cars from the right side to the left. During the 11 hour trip we become friends and he invites me to stay at his place for the night. He lives with a friend, another Haitian, on around 12 square meters in a suburb 30 minutes outside Santo Domingo. The living conditions are VERY basic. He prays to God every day to show him an exit, a path to a better life. It's a very moving experience.

Haitian.

Sugar cane salesman in Haiti.

Head for sale in Haiti.

This concludes my vacation. I'll try to summarize briefly. I've been to 11 countries (Norway, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Sweden, USA, Dominican Republic and Haiti). I met one person whose philosophy appealed to me: "I trust people. If you can't trust people, the world is shit. And I don't want to live in a shit world." I've been careful, but chosen to trust many persons, and it's worked out wonderfully. I've met countless of new people, many of which I'm still in contact with. I've paid for accommodation twice now in 65 days (in Diyarbakir and Santo Domingo), and practically never had to eat a meal alone, which I think goes to show that humankind is pretty good after all :)

Cathedral in Higüey.

Higüey.

Banana street, Higüey.

Punta Cana.