Since 1997, when he went to Fort Liberté with his family during the holidays, Ralph Jean has been making wonders out of rocks. The colours and shapes of the rocks he discovered had an impact on him. He began looking for rocks shaped like hearts and other common shapes. When he finally found one that pleased him he started to cut it with a nail clipper. He wanted to make something special for his girlfriend, but wasn’t sure what to do. He simply wrote her name. She was happy with that.

Later, he thought about cutting graphics into the rocks: names, logos, honor plates and so on.

The process required four steps. As his tools were limited he first had to find a specific kind of rock generally found by rivers. Secondly, he had to hire a “tap tap” and three or four other young people to help him transport the rocks to his workshop. This cost him about $40.00 U.S. The third step is to pencil draw the desired shape onto the rock and begin cutting in with various tools such as a drill, saw, hammer and other self-made iron tools. Ninety per cent of the work is manual and it takes a full day to make one of his beautiful “Happy Birthday” rock impact designs. The final step is to spray the customer’s desired color over the finished product.

On January 12, while the terrible quake was occurring, Ralph was returning from work in a van. He only realized the quakes effect when he reached Canape-Vert (St. Marie), the neighbourhood he had lived in. Eighty per cent of the homes had collapsed although his home was not affected.  He had to move to avoid the rubble and corpses. Unfortunately, looters took everything left in the house eight days later.

However, Ralph did not give up. He knew life would have to go on and that he had to earn a living. He gathered what he could and started a new workshop in the camp where he lives today. He displays most of his work on Facebook but he also wants to create a large souvenir catalogue for tourists

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi blogs weekly for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, connect with him on Facebook or through his business, Haiti Fixers.

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement (FAD), profiled by Nicolas Jolliet earlier this year.

Port-au-Prince - Tele Mobil is a mobile cinema organization, founded before the earthquake by accomplished Haitian movie Director, Jacques Roc, the director of several Haitian blockbusters.

The camp where they’re working tonight in Port-au-Prince used to be a soccer field, according to Jean Marcson Benoit, a young volunteer, who is leading the crew. TeleMobil, which is supported by the UN’s MINUSTAH as well as other firms and companies, was initially set up especially for Cité Soleil.

However right after the earthquake, the organizers realized that the project could not only be for Cite Soleil, but should be for other camps that needed activities.

So, they have enlarged the program, with the crew split into small units of 4 members, plus equipment, per camp. They program began in February the 25th at four particular camps: Champs-de-Mars, St Louis de Conzague, place Boyer and Ste Thérèse.

At first, I thought this was the same free movies and music provided by other organizations, playing any type of movies or music to keep people busy. I was wrong. Tele Mobil does not just screen movies: they analyze the movies first, they chose movies without too much violence, and they also cut the adults scenes out when necessary. The most interesting thing is they randomly pick, train and employ youths in order to bring the same programs to more camps.

I have also seen more than ten trailers onscreen featuring Haitian actors providing information about cases like assault and theft. These were shot specifically for the purpose of being aired at camps so that if any of those watching find themselves in those situations, they will know exactly what to do, and even how to prevent those events.

I asked Marcson, the young volunteer, what will happen when Tele Mobil are no longer in these camps, as the authorities have started moving camp people to their temporary shelters elsewhere. He told me they will follow and deliver the same programs to the people anywhere as long as they are needed, from Thursday to Sunday, from 4:00 pm in the afternoon to 10:00pm in the night.

At the Tele Mobil screening tonight, I met a guy named Chery Wilner, who told me that the screenings are good for people in the camps, since it provides a break in their lives from the stress and worry that they are surrounded with.

In addition to the social perks, M. Wilner also points out, that these activities have helped bring him more customers to his little “mobil boutik”, which he runs alongside the nightly screenings.

Marcson also tells that he is proud to be a member of this group, because whenever he runs into people on the streets that he used to see at the camps, they greet him and ask why he doesn’t come by every day. As a young camera assistant, he already feels his fame is growing!

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi blogs weekly for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, connect with him on Facebook or through his business, Haiti Fixers.

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement (FAD), profiled by Nicolas Jolliet last month.

Montreal – C’est sous une tente à la Perle Retrouvée qu’avait lieu mercredi dernier la conférence de presse de Solid’Haïti. Solid’Haïti est une coalition d’organisations à caractère communautaire qui se donne pour mission de soutenir la reconstruction en Haïti.

C’est sur twitter que j’ai fait la connaissance de Lorraine Craig et de son projet pour venir en aide aux sinistrés d’Haïti. Depuis plus d’un mois, nous échangeons sur les moyens de mettre sur pied une collecte de tentes pour Haïti. Lorraine n’a pas ménagé les efforts pour mettre son projet à terme. Trouver des partenaires sérieux et organiser l’expédition n’est pas une mince affaire. Mais elle n’a pas baissé les bras et a su s’entourer de personnes tout aussi dévouées qu’elle pour réaliser ce projet ambition. On annonçait donc hier que la collecte, qui se fera à différents points, aura lieu du 26 au 28 mars.

Les témoignages qui sont ressortis de cette conférence de presse nous indiquent clairement les problèmes auxquels doivent faire face les sinistrés depuis le 12 janvier 2010. Des milliers de gens n’ont toujours pas d’abris ni les moyens pour se procurer les produits de première nécessité. Plusieurs sont inquiets et se plaignent de l’aide qui n’atteint pas les gens les plus touchés de la société. La saison pluvieuse a commencé pendant que les sans abris sont toujours entassés sous des tentes qui ne peuvent pas les protéger contre la pluie et les vents violents. Même les hôpitaux sont construits dans des abris rudimentaires.

Certaines agences canadiennes disent que les tentes ne sont pas la solution idéale à l’heure actuelle. Toutefois, les Montréalais d’origine haïtienne qui ont été en Haïti sont d’avis contraire. Jusqu’à présent des milliers de sans abris n’ont rien reçu et les maigres provisions disponibles sont au-delà des moyens de la population sinistrée. Malgré les cris de désespoir, la situation ne s’améliore pas. C’est dans ce contexte que Solid’Haiti a vu le jour dans le but d’apporter de l’aide nécessaire et des moyens efficaces pour atteindre ceux et celles qui sont dans le besoin les plus urgents.

Qu’est-ce Solid’Haiti ?

Solid’Haiti est une coalition de Montréalais d’origine haïtienne, de citoyens préoccupés par cette catastrophe naturelle qui a frappé le pays ainsi que les communautés de foi et certaines organisations qui évoluent dans le domaine social de proximité, se joignent pour apporter des produits de première nécessité et en même temps de créer une structure qui permettra de soutenir la société civile haïtienne dans la reconstruction du pays. En ce sens, elle se donne pour mission de renforcer les efforts de tous les volontaires qui planifient des voyages en Haïti afin d’avoir une vue plus large de la situation ainsi que ceux qui collectent des tentes de dimension standard durant la fin de semaine du 26 au 28 mars.

Grâce à l’aide généreuse des partenaires communautaires*, TENTES POUR HAITI est maintenant en mesure de recevoir les donations, les tentes, les bâches, les sacs à dos et d’autres produits de première nécessité. Ces sites ont été arrangés en conséquence : de Deux Montagnes jusqu’à Chambly et de l’Ouest de l’Ile jusqu’à Laval. Certains sites auront des activités communautaires et des divertissements.

Pour plus de renseignements : (514) 223-1500
http://homeinhaitimtl.wordpress.com

I tried in vain to interview some of the merchants today. Some of them pretended to be too busy to be interviewed, while others complained about being interviewed too many times without ever seeing any changes from it. Because nobody wanted to be interviewed, but would permit me to photograph, I took some pictures in the morning, hoping they would tell some of the story for me.

When I came back in the afternoon to try the interviews again, my eye was caught by a little boy on the street. He had bare feet, dirty clothes on, and was begging along the street where fast cars were passing by. At first I thought he was crazy, or homeless and orphaned from the earthquake.

I followed this boy for a little bit, because I couldn’t understand what was going on. It’s not that there aren’t lot of kids in the streets, but they’re usually in squads. As I kept on following him, I realized he was really all by himself.

I decided to talk to him, even though I doubted he could provide any information. The first thing he said to me was “Gimmie some money, I’m very hungry, I’ve been walking and begging for hours and nobody gave me a thing”.

I gave him ten Haitian dollars, and asked his name; he told me “Ti Je” (”Little Eyes”). I asked him where he was going to, and he said “home”. Since I wanted to tell his story, I decided to follow him to his home nearby, a place called “Place Boyer”.

Once we arrived at his tent he earlier had called “home”, I met the woman who is in charge of him when his mother is selling goods at the market.

Knowing that she had neglected her responsibility, she did not want to be photographed with him (she told me he was a “wanderer”). But she allowed me to take pictures of him and answered all my questions.

This woman told me she was the family’s neighbor, which is why she had to keep an eye on him. She said that people call him “ti je” due to the deformation of his eyes, and that before the earthquake, he and his family were living in a slum village not too far from Petion-ville, but away from the city centre.

Because now it is possible for anybody to build a cottage in the street, or in any public place, the mother moved the family to Place Boyer; Ti je’s father disappeared during the earthquake.

Before I left, Ti je bought some plain rice and pea soup with the money I gave him in the camp and started eating.

I had to ask myself: in the years to come, what’s going to keep Ti je from all the downfalls of the streets: drugs, theft, prostitution, and all the lessons that come with them?

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi is blogging for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, or connect with him on Facebook .

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement, profiled by Nicolas Jolliet earlier this month.

Sainte-Marie, Port-au-Prince - After last night’s rain drenched Haiti’s camps in mud, this morning people had to play hopscotch to get in and out of their tents safely. The camps were were so muddy that people were afraid they would be swallowed up in it.

Making it through the night was a real mental struggle for me. I went to my friend’s house to get away from the drizzling weather. The house is cracked; no expert has visited it yet to tell us if it is secure to stay there. But risky or not, inside and sheltered from the rain is the best place to sleep.

But sleep didn’t come; I spent the whole night with my eyes wide open, so I could easily get away from the building if necessary. It was still dark out in the morning when I left to seek stories for my first blog for Inside Disaster.

My first thought was to to go to the camps in Champs de Mars, where I guessed that the rain would have a disastrous effect, creating another source of panic and disturbance.

But on my way there, an alley off the main road caught my attention. I ventured down the alley, risking that there might not be any story to be told at the end. I had no idea of what I would find in there, but my instincts urged me on.

After walking around for ten minutes, I was surprised to find a big camp flooded in mud, three or four kilometers away from the main street near Canape-vert. I had never heard of this place, called Sainte-Marie. There are lots of fissured houses, stacked between the rubble of the ones that weren’t able to resist the January 12th earthquake.

Further along, I saw both the young and old trying to clean their tents with primitive tools to start another day in the flooded camp. There was an entire community living here, even though the entrance looked like the way to a residential area where there would be no natural disaster victims surviving.

Seeing me with my camera, they automatically assumed I was a journalist. Everybody wanted to be photographed, filmed, to tell their story about that night and ask that always-common question: how are we gonna help them get out of this mess? It shows that Haitians not only expect help from the government and from God, but from anyone with the will and ability to lend a hand.

I sympathize with them. Trying to sleep through the rain can feel like a bad dream – you wake up feeling like you’re drowning and are relieved when you realize you’re not. But when you open your eyes and discover that you’re soaking wet for real, you see it’s not just a nightmare, but part of real life.

I met a young mother who told me she had just spent a sleepless night under pieces of used cloth, supported by wood tied up with home-made ropes. She was trying to cover her two boys so they wouldn’t get wet or catch flu and all other diseases the rain can bring to her kids, who are not old enough to understand what’s going on around them.

I also met this 56-year-old woman, named “Joseph Supreme”. She told me that she had been waiting six hours for the sun to come out, so she could mop up around her shelter.

Joseph toldme she had been sitting on a block all night, thinking of the life she had before the earthquake. The way she lives now, she told me, “is not even a way that I would treat my pigs. What should I do?” She is not the only one asking this question.

Within six hours of the rain stopping, the people in Sainte-Marie had begun to form a line to collect the aid water distributed by UNICEF.

And this was after it had rained for two hours! There is not even a mechanism to collect the rainwater – which is free to all, and hasn’t been branded nor transported in by trucks!

Port-au-Prince student, fixer and researcher Emmanuel Midi is blogging for Inside Disaster from Haiti. You can learn more about him in these blog posts, or connect with him on Facebook .

Emmanuel volunteers with the youth organization Fonds D’Actions pour le Développement, profiled by Nicolas Jolliet earlier this month.

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 – 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.

Photo by S. Wojtkowiak; from Flickr

Instead there was something else, there was crying, or chanting, or crying as a chorus or praying, it’s hard to describe, it was buried just below the crickets. It must have been the people down the hill mourning or something. I was so tired that I was dreaming awake before finally sinking in this world of voices and pain.

- Blog, January 16th

Port-au-Prince - The other day I asked Emmanuel about the singing. He told me that in the camps they do sing every night; I hadn’t been dreaming.

I want to go there and record this. This would really help us to know and understand the camps better. It is at night that people cry and gather; during the day they are busy surviving.

Emmanuel is staying at a camp that hasn’t had ANY help yet. It’s at Carefour des Brosses, out of town. Emmanuel tells me they sing every night, and that I could come. He would talk to the head of the organization they created (U.D.Ha.C, Belange Ignare) to see if it would be all right. There are 3,500 people in this camp.

The problem is security.  A white guy with a nice camera out at night is a tad risky here.

But I feel the singing would be so beautiful, and would help the donations and bring some attention to these camps. Since this is about music, I remembered my old friend Sarasvati who always protected me and my guitars/sitars while on tour; with the satellite modem pointing at the stars, it was easy to “skype” her to ask for protection.

I had been careful to talk and joke with the guys at the door of the Canadian Embassy so they would get to know me. Today, I asked them to let me out at night and TO LET ME BACK IN when I came back. “Pa ni problem,” they said.

Emmanuel and Johnny picked me up with a driver. We started to cross the city. Things are very busy here at night, there are a lot off people sleeping on the sidewalks.

At one point we had to go back to take another way because a street was full of people sleeping on the ground. There are candles everywhere, and these smoky, busy, streets seem from another world. We also came across a local police road block; teenagers with AK47’s always make me a little nervous.

There were no lights in the camps, but I took out my super duper low light camera and  fast lens. We also bought candles to give to people, so I would have light to film a little.

We walked through the camp, bent under the makeshift “tents” and up to a bigger tent holding about 50 people. The wounded and the sick lie down, while the others stand up. The group had started singing already, so we distribute the candles, and I somehow found my way to the center without walking on anybody.

I didn’t want to shoot a music video, move around, put my lens in peoples faces; I wanted to be as invisible as possible.  The group started to sing, and the magic began:

They sing their souls out, asking that the earth not to tremble again.  They clap their hands so they can heal, shout out their prayers that help will reach them soon. They regain hope from the harmony of their voices melting together as one powerful call. People of Haiti, you are so strong and so beautiful.

Related: Gospel singing in Camp Petionville

Previous: Port-au-Prince comes back to life

We went up the hills above town. The first camp we visited was Ste Therese; there must be about 4000 people in there. The heat is unbearable under the improvised tarps and sheets tents, especially with people cooking under them.

But what surprises me is how well kept it is, considering there is no latrines, garbage disposals, or anything else.  Some of these camps are well organized socially – people help each other and work together.

People are friendly and good-natured, children play, women wash clothes in plastic tubs or cook what is left of their food on the coal stoves. They take care of the wounded the best they can.

This is nothing compared to camps I’ve seen in the first days. Yet no help has come their way. I only saw one Haitian doctor working with the little supplies he salvaged from his house. After going through such an ordeal they seem to keep it together and hold on. Not for very much longer though, they lack for everything, and most of all drinking water.