It feels like many months have passed since we last crossed the border into Haiti, and a lifetime worth of emotions is beginning to hit my brain.

Our crew met for the last time at the Red Cross camp:

And packed up our gear for the trip across the border:

As our crew of four silently stares outside the minivan windows, we can see the landscape change from the Port au Prince region’s dry, treeless horizons to the green and lush paradise of the Dominican Republic.

We never had much time to think while running these long days of work over the past month in Port-au-Prince (P.O.P). We all feel like it is too early to leave our friends behind in the dusty chaos of Haiti’s capital.

Don’t worry Haitian friends, we have enough images in our psychological luggage to knead our brains for weeks to come; we won’t forget your plight as we settle back into our comfortable Toronto lifestyles.

The aid agencies have much work ahead of them, and there are still many more stories that need to be told by the media before Haiti can slip out of international attention.

Our crew will be back in Haiti within six months to document the progress of the country’s reconstruction. Knowing we’ll return helps me with the guilt of “jumping ship” so soon.

As we drive through a barren valley not 20km from P.O.P, Stefan breaks the silence in the van: “Why couldn’t the quake have happened just a few kilometers east? Why did it have to happen right near the most populated city, in the poorest country of the region?” It’s true, when you think about it, what are the odds?

The explanation is easy for religious extremists: “God wanted to punish the sinners of Haiti”. But after spending weeks amongst this country’s “sinners”, I can tell you that the Devil himself would blush in shame for having anything to do with destruction on such a scale.

In a way, we all need an explanation. We want someone, something to blame it on. But unlike wars, there is no one to blame. No corporation, government or organization sold any weapons responsible for this. No one financed revolutionaries to do the killing on their behalf.

From watching the rescue teams competing for the limelight, military public relations officers courting the press into reporting every good deed, I can understand why the international community and politicians are so drawn to natural disasters. They are a great opportunity to do good in the public eye, an a-political PR opportunity for those in power.

A natural disaster is a ‘clean’ calamity. It allows us to forget about the shady trade agreements and economic stands by the international financial institutions that contributed to the poverty of Haiti before the 12th. (I love to read Le Monde Diplomatique for an alternative view on world events).

To me, a natural disaster can be attributed to fate, but not the impoverishment of a population prior to it.

As we drive closer to Santo Domingo and leave Haiti behind, I’m stunned by the difference in wealth and landscapes between these two countries, made up of the same people, living on the same island. What happened to the strong and independent Haiti?

One thing that really struck me from the beginning was the near absence of anger amongst the victims of the earthquake. I talked to Haitians who were angry at the aid coming in too slowly, angry for being forgotten in their camps, and frustrated from hunger and thirst.

But overall, it was as if many of them had accepted the fatality of the earthquake. I would hear phrases like, “This is how it is, this is life”, or “there is nothing to do about it, we must move on”.

Will it be possible to build a better Haiti, with the country now starting from scratch? I believe the Haitians have what it takes. But will the international community really give them a chance once the show is over? Will they cancel the debt?

Toronto: what was that dream I just awoke from? Can you repeat the question?

PTV Productions gave me a very broad mandate as “Web Producer” for the Inside Disaster website. My role was to create portraits of the daily lives of earthquake survivors, rather than focusing on the news stories of the hour.

My goal was to give a voice to the common people of Haiti, to get the public to know them as human beings. I tried to do this with the utmost respect and love, to find dignity when the food lines and desperation would mask it.

Veteran journalists told me the first week after the earthquake was more difficult than anything they had experienced in twenty years on the job. Others talked about photographing “Holocaust images” of the kind the world hasn’t seen for sixty years.

Yet despite the hardships of the situation, one thing in particular was very different from my previous experiences abroad. The media had unlimited access to virtually everything in post-earthquake Haiti. The aid organizations, the citizens and the military understood the importance of getting the stories out to the world in order to bring in as much help as possible. Last year, working in the Amazon forest, I would have guns drawn on me just for taking out my camera, but in P.O.P., no one would ask me any questions as I wandered into any hospital, or into any situation.

In the streets and the camps, people wanted to tell their stories to the world. I spent a good part of my days simply listening to people. The challenge wasn’t to find a story, but rather to stick to only one and not get sidetracked — especially since I had to meet my deadline of uploading a story every night.

Upon my return to Toronto, I’ve been asked in interviews and conversations what it was like for me personally, what marked me, what was the hardest part, and so on.

While I was there, I wished I was a doctor so I could save lives. I wished I was a pilot flying in food to feed people in the camps. I wished I was a Red Cross logistics manager so I could give people tents, or a chemist capable of purifying water.

But I was only a media guy with a camera. I had to play my role by telling stories rather than saving lives. And that was difficult when I was visiting places that hadn’t seen any help yet, and I had no help to offer them.

I hope my work helped to put a human face on survivors, to share the urgency for help. Journalists probably convinced many potential donors with their stories. I took as many pictures as I could and told as many relevant stories as I could.

But as you try to focus on one thing, as you try not to spread yourself too thin, you end up ignoring other stories, ignoring people you could have helped. These memories haunt me now that I have time to replay all the events in my head.

It was Friday the 15th, just a few days after the earthquake. The city was still in shock and the street looked like a scene from the Second World War. Buildings in rubble, people were walking aimlessly in the streets, looking for loved ones within the destruction.

I was in front of the Hopital General, where people had been carrying in the wounded for days. The place was very quiet, and the hospital wasn’t fully operational yet. The only noise covering the silent agony came from the engines of trucks dumping bodies in front of the morgue, right beside the hospital.

On the sidewalk in front of me, less than twenty meters away from the growing pile of corpses rotting in the sun, were a handful of hospital beds holding the wounded. Many more of the injured and dying lay right on the ground around the beds, waiting for care one hoped may come.

I was just getting my first glimpse of the size of the catastrophe. I had barely slept in the last three nights, and like a robot, all I could do was take pictures of this unreal sight. I remember the deafening silence weighing on my shoulders, the sun beating down on my head so hard that my right ear would buzz as I tried to breathe through my mask. This was a completely hypnotizing nightmare, something humans were not built to see. Like a machine, I would trigger my camera, not really looking at what I was capturing.

My lens led me to two wounded girls lying alive right there in the thick of the smell of death.

Someone had dropped them on a blowup mattress right there on the sidewalk. They were waiting for a doctor, without a blanket or clothes to cover them. While submerged in the darkest surroundings I have ever known, it’s the young girl’s naked breast that stood out, that caught my eye.

Surrounded by death, despair and destruction, in this moment, there was nothing more beautiful and precious than the sight of this flowering young woman, nothing more fragile, nothing more innocent, she was hope itself, she was future motherhood.

The image of this girl shook me out my stupor, and woke me from the nightmare around me. (to find beauty everywhere would be key to enduring the next weeks in P.O.P).

My friend and colleague Stanley was standing in the middle of it, all completely traumatized. His own family was missing since the earthquake, and being surrounded by the dead and dying outside the hospital had overwhelmed him: he told me he wanted to go to Carrefour to find them now, immediately. And so we ran…

Days later, I saw the snapshot of the girls on my hard drive. I could have helped these girls, talked to them, gotten to know them. I could have slipped a 50 dollar bill in a guards pocket to make sure they would be taken care of. I could have moved them to a better spot, jut have given them water.

Now, I’ll never know if they made it. There were among the hundreds of thousands of people that needed help that day. But these two had somehow called out for me, and I had run away.

It was a great privilege to be able to tell the stories of the Haitian people, and also a great responsibility. The beauty and strength of my fellow humans never stopped to amaze me throughout my travels, something I surely expected to see much of in a disaster zone.

How can I explain that the horrors I have witnessed would soon be replaced by triumphant humanity? What I carry on my way back to Canada is a rather refreshing feeling of humility, a growing love and faith in what we are capable of as a human society.

I was not alone this past month. I want to thank Emmanuel Midi and Johnny Pierrot for relentlessly and courageously supporting and accompanying me to all the crazy places we went to visit. Back in Toronto, Katie McKenna, Yshia Wallace and the PTV team were working endless days editing, posting, and promoting the blogs.

Nadine, thank you for taking me along on this life changing experience and for allowing me to be part of this project.

Stefan, Simon, Paul, Tony, I feel fortunate to have witnessed first-hand what the cream of Canadian documentary filmmaking is capable of.

And dear readers, thank you for all of your pertinent and encouraging comments that gave me energy and inspiration throughout these challenging weeks.

I can’t wait to go back to Haiti.

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.

Photo by S. Wojtkowiak; from Flickr

Au lieu de cela, il y avait autre chose, il y avait des pleurs ou des chants, ou des pleurs comme dans une chorale ou dans une prière, c’est difficile à décrire. Ça devait être les gens en deuil au bas de la colline ou je ne sais quoi. J’étais tellement fatigué que je rêvais éveillée avant de finalement sombrer dans ce monde de voix et de la douleur.

- Blogue, 16 janvier

Port-au-Prince – L’autre jour, j’ai demandé à Emmanuel à propos des chants que j’avais entendu. Il m’a dit que dans les camps les gens chantent tous les soirs. Je n’avais donc pas rêvé.

J’aimerais y aller pour pouvoir les enregistrer. Ça pourrait vraiment nous aider à connaître et comprendre les camps davantage. C’est durant la nuit que les gens pleurent et se réunissent, pendant la journée, ils sont occupés à survivre.

Emmanuel demeure dans un camp qui n’a pas reçu d’aide pour le moment. C’est à Carrefour des Brosses, en dehors de la ville. Emmanuel me dit qu’ils chantent tous les soirs, et que je pourrais venir les voir. Il va en parler au responsable de l’organisme qu’ils ont créé (U.D.Ha.C, Belange ignare) pour savoir si ça c’est possible. 3500 personnes demeurent dans ce camp.

Le problème c’est la sécurité. Un homme blanc qui se promène avec un appareil photo la nuit, c’est un peu risquée ici.

Mais je sens que ces chants seraient si magnifiques, qu’ils pourraient aider la récolte des dons et donner un peu d’attention à ces camps. Puisqu’on parle ici de musique, ça me fait penser à mon vieil ami Sarasvati qui m’a toujours protégé, moi et ma guitare / sitar en tournée. Avec le modem satellite pointant vers les étoiles, il est facile pour moi de lui demander de me protéger.

J’avais pris soin de parler et de plaisanter avec les gars à la porte de l’ambassade du Canada afin qu’ils apprennent à me reconnaître. Aujourd’hui, je leur ai demandé de me laisser sortir la nuit et de me laisser entrer à mon retour. “Pa ni problème (Pas de problème)», m’ont-ils répondu.

Emmanuel et Johnny sont venus me chercher avec un conducteur. Nous avons commencé à traverser la ville. Les choses sont très occupés ici la nuit, il ya beaucoup de personnes qui dorment sur les trottoirs.

A un moment, nous avons dû revenir en arrière pour prendre un autre chemin parce que la rue était pleine de gens qui dormaient sur le sol. Il ya des bougies partout, et ces rues enfumées et très animées semblent appartenir à un autre monde. Nous avons également rencontré des policiers sur la route ; des adolescents avec des AK47 ça me rend toujours un peu nerveux.

Il n’y avait pas de lumière dans les camps, mais j’ai sorti ma caméra Super Duper avec faible luminosité. Nous avons également acheté des bougies que nous avons données aux gens pour faire un peu de lumière pendant le tournage.

Nous avons traversé le camp, courbés sous les tentes de fortune “et jusqu’à une tente plus grande qui pouvait réunir près 50 personnes. Les blessés et les malades étaient allongés, tandis que les autres étaient debout. Le groupe avait déjà commencé à chanter, alors nous avons distribué les bougies. J’ai quand même réussi à me frayer un chemin vers le centre sans marcher sur quiconque.

Je ne voulais pas de tourner un clip musical, me déplacer et mettre ma lentille dans leur visage. Je voulais être aussi invisible que possible. Le groupe a commencé à chanter, et la magie a commencé :

Ils chantent avec leurs âmes, demandant à la terre de ne plus trembler. Ils battent des mains pour qu’ils puissent guérir, crient leurs prières pour qu’elles puissent être exaucé. Ils retrouver l’espoir et l’harmonie de leurs voix confondues ensemble est un puissant appel.

Peuple haïtien, vous êtes si fort et si beau !

Johnny était en classe lorsque la terre a commencé à trembler. La secousse était si forte que les jeunes ne pouvaient pas se rendre jusqu’à la porte. Johnny a eu le réflexe de grimper sur une chaise et de sauter par la fenêtre. D’autres élèves ont fait comme lui, mais plupart n’ont pas eu la chance de s’échapper.

Son cousin Emmanuel était juste à l’extérieur du bâtiment, il avait été chercher de quoi manger. Les deux se sont retrouvés vraiment sous le choc. Ils ne comprenaient pas ce qui venait de se passer. À travers le chaos, les cris, et la poussière, ils partirent à la recherche de leurs familles.

Ils ne les ont toujours pas trouvés d’ailleurs.

Aujourd’hui, je les ai raccompagnés au “Bâtiment B” de l’Université des Hautes-Études pour voir ce qu’il en restait. C’était très émouvant et ça les a fait réfléchir sur leur avenir, leurs études et leurs buts dans la vie.

Alors que nous fouillons dans les décombres, Emmanuel a été surpris, voire sous le choc de trouver une carte parmi les briques brisées : “c’était l’anniversaire de quelqu’un».

C’était un poème :

Hier est passé
Demain est un mystère
Aujourd’hui est un cadeau
C’est pourquoi nous l’appelons le présent
Le plus beau jour de ta vie est aujourd’hui
Ton avenir est basé sur le jour présent
Profites de la vie aujourd’hui
Du succès et du bonheur

Que le maître et l’architecte de l’univers
Te montre le chemin à suivre
Joyeux anniversaire

C’était une note d’un étudiant au directeur de l’école.

Nous nous sommes assis sur le côté de l’immeuble et avons parlé pendant quelque temps.

«La vie était déjà difficile en Haïti avant le séisme, mais nous pouvions étudier et avoir espoir d’un meilleur avenir. Si nous ne pouvons pas finir nos études, il n’ya pas beaucoup d’avenir pour nous. Nous ne pouvons pas quitter le pays, nous n’avons pas d’argent ni de famille. ”

Johnny et Emmanuel ont espoir qu’un État étranger aidera Haïti en leur fournissant des visas étudiants. Ils me disent qu’ils veulent terminer leur formation, allez de l’avant et faire quelque chose de cette vie”.

Avec l’ampleur de la destruction, ils ne voient pas comment le bâtiment pourra être reconstruit. Ça prendra des années pour reconstruire les écoles.

Ils veulent terminer leurs études maintenant pendant qu’ils sont encore jeunes. Emmanuel avait économisé pendant des années pour pouvoir aller à l’université – et maintenant tous ces efforts sont perdus. Leurs parents ont fait beaucoup sacrifices pour pouvoir les envoyer à l’école, et c’est pourquoi ils ne veulent pas abandonner.

Emmanuel veut aller à l’étranger, terminer ses études et est prêt à travailler très dur. Il veut revenir ici et retrouver ses parents en vie, afin qu’il puisse les remercier en aidant à la reconstruction du pays.

Mais tous ses certificats et bulletins d’école sont perdus : Johnny n’a aucun moyen ou preuve pour attester de la véracité de ses trois années qu’il a complété sur quatre dans son programme d’économie.

Johnny veut aller étudier à l’étranger, et revenir pour son pays : «J’aime Haïti, le soleil y est magnifique, dit-il. «Je veux que mon pays puisse un jour respirer un air d’espoir et de liberté. Je veux être ici quand cela arrivera ».

Il veut faire partie des personnes qui feront une différence pour Haïti. Il veut revenir riche et investir dans son pays et son peuple.

«Tout est à reconstruire à partir de zéro. Peut-être arriverons-nous à rebâtir un pays meilleur qu’avant, mais combien de temps ça va prendra ? Nous voulons terminer nos études, afin de pouvoir être en mesure d’aider notre pays. ”

Vidéo : Nico rencontre Emmanuel devant l’ambassade du Canada

Pouvez-vous aider Emmanuel et Johnny ? Partager cet article avec de la Gouverneure générale Michaëlle Jean ou aidez-nous à passer le mot dans votre communauté en partageant ce poste avec vos amis et votre famille.

School’s out.

Johnny was in class when the earth started trembling. The shaking was so strong that they couldn’t walk out the door. Johnny had the instinct to climb on a chair and jump out of a window; a few other students followed him. Most didn’t get a chance to escape.

His cousin Emmanuel was just outside the building; he’d been getting some food. The two met in shock, not understanding what had happened. Amongst the chaos, the cries, and the dust they ran to find their families.

They haven’t found their folks – yet.

Today I accompanied them back to the “Batiment B” of the Université Hautes-Etudes to see what was left of it. It was very emotional and got them thinking about their future, their studies, their goals in life.

As we sort through the rubble, Emmanuel is stunned to find a card amongst the broken bricks: “it was someone’s birthday”.

It’s a poem, in French:

Yesterday has passed
Tomorrow is mystery
Today is a gift
This is why we call it present
The biggest day of your life is today
You future is based on today
enjoy your gift of today
for success and flawless joy
may the master and architect of the universe
show you the path to follow
Happy birthday

It was from a fellow student, to the principal of the school.

We sit down on the side of the building and talk for awhile.

“Haiti was already very difficult before the earthquake, but we could study and hope for a future. If we can’t finish our studies, there isn’t much of a future for us. We can’t leave the country; we have no money, no family.”

Emmanuel and Johnny hope a foreign state will help Haiti by providing them with student visas. They tell me they want to “finish [our] education, to move forward, to make something of this life”.

With the amount of destruction, they don’t see how the building can be fixed; it will take years to rebuild the schools.

They want to finish their education now, as young men. Emmanuel had saved up for years to be able to go to university – and now it is all gone. Both of their parents sacrificed a lot to help them through school, and that’s why they don’t want to let go of it.

Emmanuel wants to go abroad, finish his studies, work hard. He wants to come back here and find his parents alive, so he can repay them and help rebuild the country.

But all the school’s papers are lost: Johnny has no certificate to show for his the three years he’s spent on a four-year economics program.

Johnny wants to go abroad to study, and come back for his country: “I love Haiti, it has a beautiful sun,” he says. “I want my country to one day breathe an air of hope and freedom. I want to be here when this happens”.

He wants to be part of the people who will make a difference for Haiti. He wants to come back rich, to invest in his country and people.

“Everything has to be rebuilt from scratch. Maybe we can rebuild a better country than before, but how long will it take? We want to finish our education, so we can be in a position to help our country.”

Related video: Nico meets Emmanuel outside the Canadian Embassy

Can you help Emmanuel and Johnny? Share this story with Canadian Governor-General Michaëlle Jean or help us spread the word in your community by sharing this post with friends and family.

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

Yesterday, Nadine’s crew went to the new Red Cross camp. Stephan, Simon and I went to the Canadian embassy where we would have less restrictive rules (not closing doors at 6pm). When we got there the front of the building was crowded with Haitians wanting to emigrate. It took us quite awhile to get in and wasted most of the day to my uttermost frustration. The Canadian journalists are all camping on the roof of the embassy, quite an intense place with lots of stories flying around.

This is where the Canadian media sleeps at night:

This is where the media write and edit their stuff:

This morning, the crowd in front of the embassy got huge, and the rumors spread. While waiting for my driver to show up, I was watching  the moody soldiers barking at the tired survivors desperately trying to emigrate and not understanding the principles of “please stay behind the line sir”. Some people have quite urgent situations and just want to talk to someone, without going through the queue.  A man comes up to me to see if I can help him (do I look Canadian now?). He has just found 2 children on the streets and they gave him names of relatives in Canada.

Emanuel and his cousin John were also standing there and we started chatting.

Emanuel is a 25 year-old student that like many others, didn’t find his parents when he came back from school on Tuesday. He doesn’t even know if they are under the rubble. Since then he and his cousin have been drifting from camp to camp with the backpack he had that day. With no money, no home, Canada sounds like a good Idea to escape this place.

I liked these two, and by talking a little more they told me about these camps in particular where no help or media has visited yet. Emanuel is quite an educated guy (speaks 4 languages) while his cousin looks like a streetwise, more manly guy.

The perfect pair, I hire them and off we go. Part 2: tomorrow.