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.

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.

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”.

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.

Port-au-Prince – Today I just traveled around town to see how things were going.

Outside of town in Petion Ville, I saw water with people helping themselves in an orderly fashion; I saw bedding and cookware distributions:

I visited a camp above Carefour called Basil Moreau, and they had water filters in action.

I decided to hang out at camp and talk with people for a while. People don’t want to talk about themselves.  They are not interested in complaining – they want to know if there is help coming or not. They are afraid of being forgotten.

Everywhere, people tell you the same thing: help us, help us. Need water, need food need medication. Everybody needs help, Every social class, every age group, every neighborhood (of course some were hit harder than others).

Somehow disasters put people in the present, and open them to others. In everyday ‘normal’ life, a beggar on the side of the street is ignored by the passers-by.  But during a disaster, people seem to help each other regardless of social class and social protocols. Suddenly life focuses on the ‘here and now’, and long term plans and old disputes are set aside. It seems Haitians want to survive as a people.

People know what to do in a disaster, especially in the developing world where they have learned how to survive in poverty. Sometimes hard times bring out the good in a society. This might be a little optimistic, but somehow that’s the impression I got from the people I meet here.

Two evenings ago, our documentary’s second unit, Stefan and Simon, filmed a rasta man shouting this out in front of a burning building: “The earthquake is God’s way to even out Haiti; it will bring the money down from the mountains to the poor people of the city, and everyone will have to start fresh again”.

We’ll see.

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.

I was supposed to accompany Stefan and Simon to Jacmel that morning, where international relief was supposed to reach today, but our driver didn’t show up (gas is hard to find).

Stefan is not a guy to waste time, so he starts to conduct interviews with people in the waiting crowd.

People still believe the rumour that Canada is giving temporary visas to Haitians… and there is no good information telling them to think otherwise. All you can see from the crowd is soldiers keeping people in line. How hard would it be for the government to have someone out there talking and explaining things to them? To have signs written in Creole? Why have them spend days in the sun in the hope of getting out of the country?

Beside me, the frustrated soldier tells me: “they won’t listen and stay in line”.

I get frustrated too, and say: “Well, could it be because they don’t speak English? Or that they are hungry and making them stand in line in the sun for hours without water would make them impatient? Could it be that after losing their families and houses standing here is the only hope they have?”

“Sir, wait on the side of the gate please, you’re not supposed to stand here.”

When I came back today, the soldiers made me pay for it by letting me wait for an hour before letting me in. That big mouth is costly sometimes.

The city has changed in the last two days. Before, people were in shock and walked around like zombies. But now life is picking up again: you can see women selling food in certain areas, and people starting to move to the country with what’s left.

I saw a few piles of bananas for sale:

With money, can still buy flour (at a high price):

You see signs like these all over town; the neighborhoods are organized:

People are getting hungry and thirsty. The streets are filled with people looking for help, trying to find someone, trying to figure out what to do. In the first days you could pull your camera out and do your thing.
But now as soon as you do that, people circle around you. They ask you: “do you have some water, is help coming soon?”. They ask about the outside world: “will they help?”; “Do you think the country will recover?” After talking for two minutes, you have fifty people around you. People are desperate for information, solutions.

Overall the vibe is just calm and sad, not mad or violent. People are helping each other and getting organized. But I fear that this could change as the people grow more separate. Help is coming though: today the Canadian military (and others) arrived in Jacmel, and it’s already making a difference.

While driving home we came across people salvaging goods from the rubble of a store being flattened by a back hoe. Is this looting or recycling?

What do you think?

Next: Surviving in Haiti: Camp Ste-Therese

Today I went with Stephan and Simon to the Caribbean Supermarket site. This is the supermarket that collapsed on hundreds of people on Tuesday, and dozens more have been trapped since then. [Ed: see this excellent Toronto Star piece, excepted below, for more on the situation at the market].

Our crew had been shooting there yesterday, where they had the opportunity to follow the rescue units under and inside the rubble. Today they went back, as there is (was?) still hope for people still being alive (see video, above).  Today, access was very difficult for the crew as the big networks are on it and the rescue team put every camera at a distance.

With the sun beating as hard as it could on our heads, we sat all day waiting for something to happen, expecting a surprise, some happy news. They need it here.

It is hard to imagine that there might dozens of people still alive under this pile of concrete slabs. It is a long shot but people still hope. There was relatives of the “survivors to be” waiting there, there was hope in their tired eyes.

The U.N soldiers only let selected media and agencies in. There is a big metal door that is kept close. Stefan kept sending me back to our camp to reload and bring back fresh batteries and every time I had to cross the irritated and edgy crowds kept outside of the door. These are people still hoping that their missing folks are part of the survivors. I felt bad having access and not them.

I am now back at Red Cross camp to send this blog and a bit of poor footage  I could get from behind the “media line” (a yellow rope ran across). As NBC already left, Stephan and Simon stayed, they will sit there with their camera ready until someone comes out of there alive. Maybe we’ll be able to upload some footage later tonight.

From The Star:

“Is anything I tell you going to be of any help to anyone inside?” the Haitian engineer asks while standing beside tractors inside the locked gate of the Caribbean Supermarket compound.

The four-storey mall – the largest of its kind in Haiti – caved into itself when the tiny island nation got shook to its core, trapping an untold number of people inside its thick concrete.

“We’ve hit really hard with an iron bar so that people can hit back to communicate their position,” said Roy of the rescue efforts by his own group along with teams from Venezuela, Iceland and the U.S. “Only the people who could actually express themselves got saved.”

Roy knows there are more people inside.

So does the crowd standing on the steep and filthy sidewalk opposite the market.

Stanley is in a rush, after walking for a while we found a minibus that was willing to take us to Carrefour, the area where his family lives. From the van we walked/ ran through a maze of small streets and Stanley anxiously asked around about his father, brothers and sisters. We ran into and found an aunt and cousins: his family, for now, is fine. What are the odds?

Someone saw me with the camera and asked me to post a message to his family in the United States. His name is Patrick Nertilus. Hope they can see this video.