Jan 15, Part 1: “Let’s get to it”

By Nico — January 16, 2010 | 0 comments

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Port-au-Prince – This morning Nadine’s crew went with the Red Cross to follow them. I had to find some transport when I met Stanley, my fixer-to-be, and Talia, a photojournalist from California. She was desperate to go to town, and so was I. We decided to team up and go together.

Stanley found a guy that would take us to a driver, but as soon as we reached town he told us that his guys couldn’t drive us – he had gone looking for his family. Through our conversations I was happy to discover that I can understand a bit of the Haitian creole, it’s the same as the St Lucian creole, this will prove very handy.

We found a guy that would rent us a car, but we had to find our own gasoline, and that’s very difficult right now. We tried to find a solution but there was none. While doing this I got to talk to Stanley, he just came from Dominican republic where he is working, he is trying to find his family here in town. We agreed that I would come with him. I just like the guy, he reminds me of Luti, the actor I worked with in my Amazon film (Aluku Liba). He knows the town very well and knows where not to go.

So, we ended up walking for a bit. Once you reach downtown, you really get to see the size of the disaster. You cross camp after camp and see destroyed buildings everywhere, with people digging on every pile.

We photographed the destroyed government buildings.

At the Department Des Finances, I went up on a slab with locals digging for their friends.

I went down the hole below a collapsed slab. Nadine’s second crew (Stephan and Simon) did the same, but it was to look for someone still alive after 3 days.