Today I saw Nadine Pequeneza, the director of the three-part Inside Disaster documentary series, working in the editing suite. Her editing team has started logging the dozens of hours of footage they brought back from Haiti three weeks ago.

Nadine seems very happy with the zillion hours of amazing footage she and the crew managed to shoot in almost impossible conditions, and the next phase will be to turn these hundreds of sequences into stories, which will become the film.

While we were in Haiti I met up with the crew during the last days of their shoot. I found them at a Red Cross building materials distribution point near a camp.

A young guy was asking Nadine what kind of music she seemed so focused on listening to while pressing her earphone in her ear. “I’m not listening to music” she laughed, she was listening to the audio Paul was recording.

Nadine was directing the film crew while following the Red Cross workers starting a distribution line. She was tracking the development of the fast moving situations her characters solve all day long, being careful not to miss crucial decision-making or dialogue.

It is one thing to get good footage, but it all has to make sense and become a film in the end. For weeks, Nadine has been following the characters, stories and sub-stories that developed in the chaos of the aftermath of this huge disaster.

Making the film was nothing like what she expected – Nadine knew every disaster was different, but this was the biggest operation the Red Cross ever had in one country. This was the most challenging shoot in her career so far, as everything from logistics down to lodging (camping) and food had to be organized on the fly.

After 25 days of relentless shooting, the crew was still going strong trying to film the last needed bits of stories. This was a perfect time to catch Nadine for an interview during a quick break in the heat of the day.

Port-au-Prince – Since the day I met Emmanuel and Johnny in front of the Embassy, we have continued working together. They are the students you can see in the blog from January the 24th, “There isn’t much of a future for us”.

I’ve been paying them for their work as “fixers”. I thought they would carefully save the money for their very uncertain future, or perhaps spend it on basics to improve their comfort in the camp, like getting their own tent and so on.

But no, the students spent all their money on this organization which they started back in 2005. It is called FAD (Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement). The goal is to help the underprivileged kids around Cité Soleil and Bas Delmas. Before the quake, every Saturday, they would greet between 100 to 200 kids in the school of Bas Delmas, feed them and have creative activities.

Addressing poverty is not only providing food, clothing and shelter, but it is also providing intellectual stimulation, love, fun, creative energies, some more love, psychological counseling, laughter, group dynamics, skill development and so much more. The 50 members of FAD have been doing a great job at this since 2005. And they have been doing it on their own, even if in 2007 FAD was officially registered with the Haitian government. They would collect funds amongst themselves and buy as much food as they could. Most of the time it would just be plain rice, but occasionally there would be candies.

Since the earthquake, the FAD members have been victims as well, and it took a while for them to find each other, gather some money and start again. But they did it, and I was invited to attend the first “Hebdo-FAD” event after the disaster.

In the crowded class room, there is no bible and no God with any agenda or judging anyone’s sins, only a universal tolerant God sitting outside of all religions is present. There is a mix of kids from every faith, background, social class and age.

For the first hour, the kids sing fun songs, songs they have written themselves. They dance and clap their hands. The counsellors take turns doing different activities. In one of the activities, they talk about the earthquake, explain what it is, how it has happened before in other countries, and the fact that it is a natural phenomenon (not God punishing them for their sins). They talk about remembering the ones who didn’t make it, what it means to move on and keep growing and learning, rebuilding the country etc…

There are many foreign NGOs working in Haiti. There is a desperate need for help in hospitals, in the camps and in the orphanages, and it is important to send money to the main organizations like the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontiere so they can work on the ‘bigger jobs’.

But an organization like FAD is built by victims and young intellectuals who know the  local culture and can play an important role in Haiti’s recovery as well, especially in the long run. Jose-Hancy Lamy (President of FAD) told me how they would like to take in more children, have the means to have more skill development activities, have their own building equipped with a kitchen among many other projects.

Since the FAD organization is officially registered with the government (No.STC-05902, 16 March, 2007), I am able to wire funds every week to help them continue.

If you want to help them as well, you can easily send funds to this Paypal account: fad@theplaceonearth.com. If you don’t have a Paypal account, you can open one at www.paypal.com.

Emmanuel will upload pictures and reports every week so we can follow their progress.

February 5, 2010

Port-au-Prince - Madame Nicolas had been living in this wooden house since 1982. Her sister-in-law, Madame Fritz, tells me that after the earthquake on the 12th she had gone to the country in order to be safe. Before leaving, Madame Nicolas made the mistake of hiding all of her papers in the house.

Today, while people were scavenging for building materials on the nearby pile of rubble, someone lit the wooden house on fire. Some say it was a cigarette, others say the looters set it on fire because they couldn’t get in. We’ll never know.

This was a classical historical wooden house, and one of the last ones standing on this downtown street. It hasn’t rained for weeks, things are very dry and light up like matches. Madame Nicolas’s house went down in less than ten minutes. Almost 30 years of memories went up in smoke, just like that.

The police came very quickly and arrested the first guy they saw running with loot in his wheelbarrow. I asked a policewoman, Berline, what they do with people they arrest since there is no working court system or jails anymore. “For small offenses like this, we just release them after a few hours. For serious offenses, we lock them up at the police station until the courts can function again”.

Lighting a house on fire while looting is a small offense here. Where I live (Toronto), I risk life in prison for walking in the street with a beer in my hand.

At least this system will prevent many innocent people from being locked up, since the police force is not in “hunting” mode — and the guy they caught is innocent of setting the house on fire.

It is true that the police has been very tolerant and calm since the earthquake. Two weeks ago I saw the police catching looters inside a shop – they simply let the kids go, after keeping them lying down on the ground for a while.

Although the firemen showed up only after the house had collapsed, both they and the police were on the scene within minutes.

In some ways, things are well “under control” in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Cap Haitien, Haiti – Yesterday morning we left town for Cap Haitien. After three weeks, it really was time for me to see the real Haiti, the Haiti of before the 12th, the Haiti of the countryside, the Haiti of the past. I wanted to try to get a feel of what this country’s original vibe was, even if that’s impossible to do in a day. A good way to do this would be to go visit the northern regions of Cape Haitien where the history and origins of Voodoo took place.

We took the main road to the north, a road paved for maybe half of its distance.

Even on the paved sections, the car has to slalom between the vicious pot holes densely spread throughout.

For the first hours, we were crossing bare, dry, valleys. There truly is a deforestation problem in Haiti. The joke in the car was “look over there, there is a tree we forgot to cut down”.

To see some green and farming you have to reach the rice fields mid-way to the north. Suddenly things start to look very pretty, the landscapes of rice fields, coco trees and baked soil huts reminded me of southern India.

In the small towns outside of P-A-P the poverty is worse; the difference is that the buildings are standing and there is no food distributions. Donkeys and horses are still a prevalent mode of transport for the farmers.

This is what the rest of the Caribbean must have looked like 40 years ago.

Crossing the mountains was quite a challenge, as our tired car would continuously have its gas filter plugged by the dirty gasoline. Every hour Cyrilien would stop and try to inject fresh gasoline in the filter to unplug it. The worry was getting stuck out there at night, on the bandit-infested roads.

We made it to Bwa Kayiman just before nightfall. This is the most sacred and historical site of the Voodoo faith, where the voodoo ceremony that gave Haiti it’s independence was held on the 14th of August 1791 – the first “official” voodoo ceremony.

The prayer pronounced on that day went like this (translated from Creole)

God who like the sun lights us from above
Who raises the sea, makes the thunders growl
The god of the others is hidden in the clouds, he looks at us
He sees what the white man is doing.
He asks them to commit crimes,
Our god only wants the good.
Please good god of ours, let us avenge ourselves
guide our arms, give us strength
let us get rid of the white god
Let us listen to the freedom growing in our hearts

After Zaza, the high priest of Bwa Kayiman (Bois-Caiman) greeted us warmly, he led us to the historical cave were Brise, the main angel (loi) of the Voodoo faith resides. Brise is the most powerful “loi” after the god almighty (Zaza doesn’t talk about the God of the Bible here). Brise is the loi that gave the Haitiens the power to gain their freedom. Up to this day, government officials come to this cave for advice and guidance.

I’m told that normally a non-initiated foreigner wouldn’t be allowed near or in the cave. But they are so happy to see a foreigner show up, that Zaza makes an exception. With the economy collapsing, the people in the countryside are suffering more than usual. Haitians are used to dealing with aid agencies, and hope that containers of food and help will follow every foreigner they see. Zaza is eager to have the Bwa Kayiman site known: they need all the help they can get to build their community, have roads, power, schools, activities for the youth, and so on.

Zaza explains to me that Brise couldn’t protect Haiti from the earthquake, as this catastrophe came from the god above. Brise only takes care of the mystique of the Haitian people and Haiti itself, not of the stuff that comes from above and outside. If god above wants to judge Haiti, Brise can’t do anything about it. The “lois” are only angels sent by god.

I asked Zaza if he agreed with the idea that god himself made the earth tremble to punish the people. Zaza doesn’t know, but he knows that the “lois” have nothing to do with it; the “lois” are the Haitian’s culture and heritage, and should be respected. He notes that the people affected by the earthquake were Protestants, up to me to make my own conclusions.

I didn’t feel the need to publicize my views on religions, as a world without gods wouldn’t be a sane concept here. They already think I’m half crazy for coming all the way here.

When coming back from the cave to the temple, a big lizard followed us. Zaza told me it was a “loi” checking on what was happening here with this stranger and his camera.

It was time to start the music and dancing. This would last most of the night, until we had to hit the road again.

My lens and recorder had their best time ever, we got to meet the hardcore Haitians. Get a feel for the past and birth of this strong people.

Being exposed to the heart of Haitian mystique even for such a short time was definitely worth the exhausting drive.

The return was safe and smooth. The car worked perfectly and if we had to stop, it was only for me having to run in the bush with dangling toilet paper under the laughter of my friends.

Port-au-Prince – As street life starts again, so is the oldest profession of the world. And there’s a lot of new apprentices coming up town to work.

The vultures and amateurs of young, clean flesh are having a good time. The street prices are at their lowest, and there are plenty of women to choose from.

I found some of the new girls in mini-brothels, set up in court yards that look just like any camp.

Away from the bustle of the main streets, I wouldn’t have guessed that behind this rusty galvanized fence, school girls were learning their new trade.

All I see is a dog chewing on some garbage, and an old lady selling Tafia (homemade, high-proof rum) by the entrance.

All is quiet, except for a few Johns doing their shopping in darker corners.

As I have to do is wait for the place to be less busy, to wait for the Johns to finish their glorious deeds, to find a girl willing to tell me her story. We join the “party” sitting by a Tafia stand, where we could chat with the “street bosses”.

Tafia is a high proof home made rum containing tree bark and leafs that will “make da man strong”.

Tafia will intently lobotomize the rotten parts of your brains containing these memories and images you don’t want to carry with you.

Tafia will sweat the smells of the earthquake right out of your skin.

Tafia will free you from this tenacious diarrhea constantly reminding you that you are just a white boy and should stop eating out of side street food stalls.

It is a perfect choice to accompany the suffocating smell of burning trash that fills the neighborhood.

This is not a street party, just a dark and gloomy reflection of one. As you walk these dark streets, you watch your step so as not to stumble on families trying to sleep on side steps and hidden corners. On these streets, it’s hard to differentiate the “working” mothers from the ones that haven’t given in yet.

As things slowed down, I got to talk to “Johanne”. She barely had the energy to understand my questions. Her scorched voice, red eyes and already fading youth made me question what I was doing here.

But she had to tell her story, even though I could write it just by looking at her.

As we started talking, it seemed like she was waking up from a bad dream. She told me her story like she was hearing it herself for the first time. Johanne became more and more emotional, as if her mind had shut down since the 12th and now the numbness was wearing off.

Her story is a classic. At 19 (older than the others), she was still at school and working from home by doing laundry and cooking for people. When her house collapsed her and her two babies found themselves sleeping on the streets (where she still is today).

She used to live with her brother and her cousin, but now she doesn’t know where they are.

After she kept failing getting food in the early line ups, she started to sell herself to get money for food.

She charges from $3 to $6, the higher price for the richer clients driving a car. To give you an idea of what that will buy – a beer or a bottle of water is $1.50; a meal is $4 to $8.

Johanne tells me this is just temporary, that working the streets will allow her to save a little money to maybe go back to school, feed and send her kids to school, get a job, build a new life. But even though she is very pretty, business has been tough until tonight. There is lots of competition on the street, and prices are dropping.

“Johanne”, I wish you all the strength you will need, and I hope the whack of dollar bills I gave you won’t go to your pimp.

I hope you and your girlfriends can get out of this very soon.

Camp Guatemala – Anywhere you go you will find young people with dreams. You will find musicians and artists. Haiti is no exception. Many future plans have been shattered on the 12th, but as the destroyed city is slowly waking up from this nightmare, so is the youth.

Just after sun set, the sweet soothing voices of the trio Negrillon (Darline Beauzile, Ralph Masson and Rodney Silveta) are flooding camp Guatemala. The campers are slowly getting ready to sleep while the evening band practice brings some rest to the worried minds.

Even though they didn’t have the heart to sing in the first few days, they now find comfort in it. They like to play for their fellow campers, but Ralph points out; “it doesn’t replace the need for food, water and shelter”.

They were in the process of recording a first album when everything went down. The studio they used to record in collapsed, but luckily they didn’t lose all of their recordings. They still have the passion for music and the will to write new songs.

As long as there is youth playing music, there is hope. There is a chance to heal, to rebuild. Culture is at the core of a peoples society, culture is quality of life. Culture didn’t get crushed in the rubble. Spending 2 hours in this oasis of youth, beauty and warmth is proof to me. I forgot how music has the power to stop time, to recharge the inner soul.

Enough talking, let them sing about love, change, equality, tolerance and hope….

Ha come on, one more song, this feels so good. (this one is in French)

P.S: If a big producer out there feels like helping out young musicians, contact me for Ralph’s email adress.

Port-au-Prince – The city has changed a lot since the 13th of January. Downtown still looks like a war zone. But as the food lines become routine, and help starts to arrive, life seems to grow back towards a sort of a “normality” at least a street level.

Drivers honk each other in the crazy traffic, women bargain at the markets, backhoes and workers clean up the rubble, young men chat up the girls at bus stops, banks and stores reopen slowly.

Journalists recycle stories and UN soldiers seem as sleepy as ever. You can even have a conversation without being interrupted by army helicopters flying low.

This ruined city is swarmed by people hungry to live. The old inequalities and social order are starting to show their face again. The pain and misery seem to be covered by the sheer will to move on. Mothers will remember their lost children in silence.

People didn’t have time to grieve, they are hungry, they need to find work and rebuild their broken lives whether they still have a family or not.

For the professionals, there isn’t much left to do as all major businesses are down. The main industry is now the aid industry.

But the “street” economy is back at work. Even in the “well off” camps you can have your laundry done, buy cooked meals. You commonly see “phone charging” spots, where someone will charge your phone out of a car battery. In a country were 80% of the population lived with less than 2 dollars a day, people know how to survive. Within poverty, people create “micro” markets.

Edgar Royal restarted is bicycle repair shop that he runs on the side walk.

Bicycles waiting their turn with Edgar:

Fede Wousmail is carving car parts out of old tires.

Every where people recycle things, build coal stoves with scrap metal. “Business is not as good since many people have left town”. Like most of the people I meet, Fede accepted this new reality, “it is much harder to get by, but we’ll be fine”.

Haiti – Yesterday I was wandering around the Cite Soleil neighborhood again. But this time I kept going farther out of town. Just after passing the last camps and slums one will find the “country side”, a treeless grassy land standing between the sea and the inner land hills.

The deep blue sea jumps out of the landscape and reminds me that unlike my new friends here, I will get to leave this place soon.

Trust me, we are very far from the all-inclusive hotels of the Dominican Republic. No tourists are suntanning; instead, I see skinny cows chewing under the burning sun,

Haitian “cowboys” trying to get them to move.

You can see the odd wanderer looking for building material, or scrap metal, like the scavenger in blue (above).

A soldier had told Nadine (the director of the Inside Disaster documentary) that “since the government has started to clean the city of its rubble, the trucks have been unloading near the slums and on the roads just outside of town”. Today, I wanted to find out if this was true.

Unfortunately, it was. Even though there are designated spots to drop-off the trash, rubble, and human remains where they bury with them with backhoes, I can see kilometers of road side covered with piles of rubble and flesh.

Even with the dusty winds crossing the valley, the smell of rotting bodies will grab your throat.

The people from the city’s slums who are used to go through piles of garbage to survive don’t stop to notice the bodies. But for others, like Fanel Milfran, it is an outrage.

Fanel doesn’t understand how the government can let its truck drivers pollute the road ways with rubble full of human remains. To him this is a huge disrespect for the public and the inhabitants of the area. If this keeps going, the valley will become a waste land. Since the drivers work for the government, Fanel can’t do much but try to yell at them and ask them to stop.

He hopes they will clean up this mess one day.

Port-au-Prince – While driving out of town, 15 minutes past the airport, it’s easy to miss Camp Marassa. Under the dust and fumes raised by the heavy traffic sit 2685 people trying to protect themselves from the merciless sun.

They barely have any materials to build these tents of fortune. They used wood sticks from the bushes surrounding them and a few pieces of cloth. I haven’t seen a camp like this until now, 17 days after the earthquake. Even in Cite Soleil people seemed to be better off than this.

People are half asleep, staring in oblivion, trying to forget their hunger and thirst. There are no coal stoves boiling water, no women washing clothes in buckets, no kids playing. It seems very quiet as the wind coming from the valley plays its eerie music with the tarps and makes the fragile tents dance.

These people barely have anything, the only house ware I saw was empty bottles of water and plastic buckets. They have to walk 35 minutes to the fire station where they can BUY a bucket of water in exchange for two Gourdes ($0.10).

I’m the first media guy they see, but the good news is that as I walk in, two Red Cross workers from Dominican Republic show up. This is also the first time this camp has seen help coming.

The Red Cross didn’t come with food or water though, yet. They came to assess the needs of the victims. The Red Cross has been doing this for a while now, they go from tent to tent filling out forms. They write down the names of the inhabitants, the number of children per family and so on. Once a tent has been registered they tie a little colored string on it.

They will bring materials, food and water for each family later on. It might feel a little strange to see starving, thirsty, and sometimes illiterate people filling out and signing surveys. It is a slow process but in the end every family will get its share of food.

Its a time-consuming process, but it must work better than having to go fight in the U.N food lines.

Altenor Yonald, the head of the camp, tells me he’s happy to see the Red Cross, but some how he doesn’t seem to believe food will actually come. Altenor is surrounded by men holding wood sticks in their hands. They are trying to ensure some security and order in the camp while the Red Cross workers do their assessment.

But his main worry for security is at night. Because the prisons broke open during the quake, there are rumors of people being pillaged, beaten and raped in remote camps. Altenor would like to get some help from the police to protect them at night.

I hope these people get help soon, they really, really need it.

Like I said in my last blog, you never know. You never, ever know.

Tonight I was going to Carrefour Feuille to do a night shoot in the streets. I was just about to arrive when I saw happy looking people crowding the road side.

This is uncommon sight these days, so I stopped. The rumor was that they had found someone alive under the rubble of a house sitting on the hill side.

Of course, this is impossible 15 days after the earthquake.

I noticed a rescue team from the French “Securité Civile de la Gendarmerie Nationale” getting all busy digging under the stare of excited journalists perched on the roof of a small room right above. It must be true.

I walked straight up to rescuer Christophe Renoud and he told me that there was a 17 year-old girl trapped under the rubble. His rescue team had talked to her and started to rehydrate her as they could see the top of her head in the hole she is trapped in.

Neighbors had heard her calls and called the Haitian police, who called in the rescue team. Fifteen days after being buried, is this possible? A week ago, I had heard of rescue teams giving up on people being alive.

This would be the 16th person the French have pulled out alive. It took the team less than two hours to come out of the hole with Darlene Etienne.

The crowd started to clap and thank god, while the journalists went crazy walking on each other. I’m sorry not to get better footage but this was about a human being between life and death, and I was not going to jump on her with my lens.

The French men where very happy, talking amongst themselves they were wondering how they would celebrate this properly. They would pause as a group for photographs.

A “miracle” has just happened. This is about a teenager who spent 16 days under the rubble; will she live? And when she does, who will she have become? These questions are bigger than my lens.

I moved on to meet Simon and Stefan at my original destination. It was as if the whole town was flooded with the good news. I found myself in the middle of a group of people clapping and dancing with passion. The more misery, the more intensely joy can be felt when it does come, and filming these kids dancing with smiles as wide as my 28mm lens, I couldn’t help it but feel good for 5 minutes and take it in.

Of course, as rescue teams 50 people strong spend days saving a few individuals, you have 50 people dying in understaffed hospitals down the block. Still this story proves rational thinking wrong, gives one the right to hope for the impossible (and also gave great PR to the humanitarian agencies who fight for the lime light).

On our way back we stopped at a road side market. We found ourselves in front of food stalls serving all kinds of delicious Haitian specialties. This normalcy seemed unreal in the middle millions of hungry people.

For the record, I myself only ate a can of tuna tonight