Every once on a blue moon you stumble upon a story that gets stuck in your mind. The story of Mrs. Popa is one of them. I met her a year ago while on assignment for Amnesty International in the slums just 10 kilometers due North of the posh inner city of Paris, where she lived with her husband, three children, a cat and a goat in a cardboard shack somewhere along the high-speed TGV train track that connects Paris to Brussels and Amsterdam.

She was a hearty woman and invited us in for a remarkably good cup of coffee. Her tale was one of sorrow and despair for their future in Romania and the health of her daughter who didn’t get any treatment for her tuberculosis back home. Thus they ventured out into the world searching for a better life, only to end up there in their shack next to the trains swishing rich tourists back and forth to the Champs Elysées. She managed to make the most out of the hostile environment in which they settled. The lack of water and electricity was a minor nuisance. It was the rejection of people living their rich lifes comfortably tucked away in their lavish homes that hurt, especially the kids throwing stones at her beautiful daughter on her way to school nearby. And still, in all the misery, she was kind and welcoming and invited us over for a BBQ one day. Of course we never went back, our worlds being so close and yet so far apart.

A week ago I went to Paris and must have swooshed past her small cabin. I never managed to spot it, but she’s been on my mind ever since. Mrs. Popa, how have you fared?

“With hair dark as night / her eyes were like that / of a cat in the dark / they hypnotize me with love / She was a gypsy woman”, Santana sings and he might have been describing the woman in the image, some 20 years ago, for all I know. Although this particular shot was already used in my farewell to Paris, I now have a pdf of the resulting article for download (in Dutch). It was published in the July issue of Wordt Vervolgd, the monthly of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International, an organization I heartily support even if they don’t know how to spell my name…

By the time you read this, the Mac I wrote these words on is safely tucked away in a container awaiting delivery in Brussels by the end of August. That means I have something in common with the woman in the image as I’m homeless this summer. Luckily, for me that doesn’t mean sleeping on Rue de Rivoli. We’ll be spending our nights in hotels in Brussels, Sweden and Tuscany instead while this blog will be having a siesta. So here’s wishing you all a wonderful summer and see you in September!

While this might at first glance look like a fashion shoot, complete with props such as a derelict caravan, the harsh reality is that this 17 year old girl, recently recovered from tuberculosis, lives with her parents and two brothers in a cardboard shack just a few kilometers north of posh Paris in the hope of finding a better future here than back in Romania. You can read more about her in the summer edition of Wordt Vervolgd, the Dutch monthly of Amnesty International, in a feature on the dark side of major tourist attractions.

As I promised some time ago, I finally present you a revamped website! From now on everyone can comment on each post I dump on the unsuspecting visitor. Hope you like it and drop me a note if you run into any problems. On another note, I met the cute girl above in a dirt-poor village on the North coast of Bali. I thought I’d give her at least a small part of her 15 minutes of fame over here…

I’ve said it before: Paris is a lovely city… but it’s got its problems. Apart from a recent rash of bicycle riders (more on that in the future), I’m talking about the ever increasing number of beggars that line the streets of this, somewhat socialist, Western paradise. Lured by richness, a lot of people find poverty instead. “A rash on the face of society”, someone before me said a long time ago. She (British author Charlotte Bingham) was referring to virginity, in 1966. The world has changed since, hasn’t it?

Ok, so I live in a big city. And big cities are full of street artists, so they don’t surprise me any more. Or do they? This elderly couple, playing violin on a bridge over the Seine river, certainly managed to draw a lot of attention and left me wondering about France’s pension system. On the other hand, they might own a castle and this could actually be a genuine Stradivarius…

Paris is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And then there’s always a ‘but’… But it ain’t always pretty: homeless people flock the streets like this man sleeping on the pavement next to the Bon Marche, one of Paris’ most expensive warehouses. One can only hope the next president can change some of France’s social problems, to start with this one.