Not that type of pool. I’m a lifeguard. I work at private swimming pools all around the island of Montreal as a substitute or stand-in. When you’re sick or don’t want to work for whatever reason, I’m your guy. I’ll bike over to your pool and sit there for 8+ hours at a time.

Why would I travel so far just to sit and bake myself in the sun for a day? A big part of it is that I love biking and being outdoors in Montreal; the city glimmers in the summertime. Mostly though, it’s for the people-watching. The residents whose pools I guard are the other Montréalers. The oft-forgotten residents of Montreal’s suburbs who don’t usually come to mind when we think of la belle cité. My job gives me access to those whose lives are rarely covered in the news, in books or in the movies. Far away from the glamour of the downtown, this city’s suburbs are vast and otherworldly to me. Exploring them and the people who live there has been quite a learning experience and I’d like to share some of my thoughts from it.

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Apartment building pools are interesting places. For most of the residents, when the summer comes, the swimming pool becomes an extension of their home. Children who have languished in their rooms all winter gladly take up residence in the pool every moment that they can, right up until the minute I close it down for the day. Retirees who had lost touch with their friends across the way during the rest of the year happily gab with each other, picking up where they had left off. I watch them – it’s my job – and I learn a lot about how the other half live.

Article and photos By: Wadner Pierre

First publihsed on San Francisoc Bay View

In 2004, I was in Haiti living under the injustice Bernard Gousse inflicted on his own people while serving the Haitian elite and the "International Community". Like many of Gousse's victims, I was driven into hiding - in my case it came after the arrest of the late Father Gerard Jean-Justice, a prominent Lavalas leader and human rights activist. Under the dictatorship of Gerard Latortue, Gousse ran the Ministry of Justice - an injustice machine that filled Haitian jails with political prisoners, usually targeting the most vulnerable.

Here are seven reasons why Gousse shouldn't be Haiti's next Prime Minister

1) Gousse became the Minister of Justice after the 2004 coup against Haiti's democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Gousse was considered as one of the most powerful men in the U.S-backed regime that ruled from 2004 to 2006. In the 1990s Gousse served in the military dictatorship of Raul Cedras; a regime that used the FRAPH death squads and brutal FAd'H forces to murder people in the slums and countryside.

2) Among the people illegally jailed by Gousse were Fanmi Lavalas officials under Aristide such as former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, the former Minister of Interior Joselene Joceleme Privet and former legislator Amanus Maette. The allegations against all of them were shown to be completely baseless. In the case of Neptune, the illegality was so egregious that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the Haitian government to pay Yvon Neptune reparations.