March 24th, Port Au Prince Haiti, City of God Orphanage, visit to Brother Vistal

Magdaleine Leger (yellow shirt, shown at sewing machine): 15 years old, her father stabbed her mother to death when she was 4. Grandmother could not support her so she became a restavek. The family that had her was abusing her physically, so she came to the TIP center. She learned that her father has since bought his way out of jail but she has not seen him. She has been living at the center for 6 years and enjoys taking culinary and sewing classes. She says that she wants to learn something before leaving the center so that she can support herself.
Clausette Sylvain, (white shirt with American Flag) age 15 has been at the TIP center for 2 years. Was a restavek, but escaped and came to learn sewing and cooking. Her parents are alive but do not have contact with her.
Deralis Judith (red shirt) age 12 staying at the center for 1 year now, but for the last few years she has been coming during the day for meals and schooling. Her father is dead and her mother is living in Jacmel. She is the youngest of 12 children. Her mother gave her away to a complete stranger who took her to Port Au Prince, where she was a slave. She was with her "keeper" at a crowded market, carrying a large basket of food; she became separated and took the opportunity to run away. She is happy now; she said "now I can learn to sew and I love dancing, I think I want to become a dancer".
Robert, age 13 trafficked to the DR along with his mother and brother and were living and working in Santo Domingo. At age 10 he left his mother and never saw her again until one day he was rounded up by the DR authorities and sent back to Haiti, his mother and brother had also been repatriated to Anselpitres and when he got there he was reunited with his mother but she did not want to take him back because she could not feed him. He got to PAP and eventually found the TIP center. "I want to learn a skill so that I can get a job" he says.
Brother Vistal: Changes since last visit: Improvements due to new construction at the orphanage...better security, more space, toilet facilities and a working kitchen/cafeteria. Girls are getting food every day. Since conditions have improved, so have the girl's school performance...better test scores and grades. City of God has gotten much more dangerous though, organized gang rape, much shooting at night, and recently two men were decapitated just behind the building...the girls hear it all and were very frightened. Several gangs have attempted to extort money from Bro Vistal and now he spends almost all his time at the orphanage, fearing that if he leaves, the girls may be in danger. He is now concentrating on improving the quality of the girl's education, preparing them to go on to technical/professional school. They are also working on the third floor to be able to house more girls. His mother died last year, and before she died asked why he was doing what he was doing...he replied, that he really didn't know either, but it was something much bigger than himself, and that God gives him the strength to do it. She left Vistal about 7 acres of land near Leogane, where he plans to build a school.
During difficult times he was having trouble getting money to pay bills and was not always able to get food for the girls. He began having doubts and worried...he would cry at night thinking that the girls shouldn't have to live in such conditions and that if he did not succeed in getting funds to continue, he might have to let the girls back out on the street. (It was a time of La Vienour or the bad life, and it was like wounding one's self). Through the good will of God he made it though that tough time, but this is only the first step, as he has much planned for the future, including his outreach program now serving 600 girls.
Vanessa has been lost for 7 days now and cannot find her, brother Vistal is very worried.
Brother Vistal Kids
Radeline (flowered dress with black collar) age 11 in second grade now. Born in Cap Haitian, both parents died, never went to school, a nun brought her to the orphanage in 2002. she had been living as a restavek.
Joanne Jacinthe age 14 (one of the oldest) in 7th grade from Jeremie. mother died in boat accident father got sick, had no medical care and died. she aspires to be a nurse so that she can help people.
Lelamaine Atale: 16 years old attending the 4th grade. (shown trying to read the bible) she likes taking on responsibilities (like she does in the kitchen helping serve and organize meals) and enjoys showing the younger girls how to do things. she has been at the orphanage 7 years now. "Even if I do not finish school, I want to learn a trade, probably cooking"
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Khartoum Sudan

December....

Tsunami: Banda Aceh January 18, 2005

Report from Banda Aceh January 18, 2005

no grammer or spell check...pretty rough but at least some thoughts.......
....Early this morning I saw something......
Somebody spraypainted "26-12-04 tragidi, hari minggu, hari maut" on a demolished wall...it means Dec 26, 04 : Tragic Sunday, deadly day" wow, that really said it all in terms of images I captured today....
today was jam-packed, it was like everything just happened in front of me....first we were driving out the beach road and i stopped at a place i know, where a body was, with a backdrop of destruction, the body was still there floating, 4 days after i saw it last, I knew World Emergency Relief would want the shot, so I went there to get it. after i finished, we headed down the road and came across the usual body bags on the side of the road, although there were quite a few more than normal so I spent a while photographing that too. a bit beyond that I heard a heilicopter overhead, pretty loud and getting louder...the thing starts to land on the road about 200 yards behind us, so i tell the driver to stop. ther area we were in is know locally as "the wasteland" its like armageadon really, its like hiroshima photos after the nuclear blast...well as this american chopper starts to land people come out of nowhere and start running full tilt toward it.

I jump out of the car and start running and shooting...the chopper is kicking up a huge amount of shit, and the wind is like 100 mph....the thing almost lands on the crowd and the door opens and they start handing out MREs (military Meals Ready to Eat)...it was totally chaotic, and the people were basically trying to board the helicopter and this marine is like holding his ground at the door while the guy behind is throwing stuff out. in about 3 minutes maybe less the chopper is empty and starts to take off with the marine waving and yelling to get back. the take off blast was harder than the wind created at landing and all I could do was face the other direction and point my camera back in the general direction and shoot blindly. after that I photographed the people opening MREs and looking at them kinda confused like...what the hell is this....me and the guy I was with tried to explain that it was food ! they saw the american flag on the box and kept thanking us, like we had somehow been involved ! these folk have nothing other than what they get at the IDP Internally displaced persons camps which is rice rice and rice so they are happy to get anything else.

a bit later down the road we came across a rescue team (that means they find bodies) I followed them to see what the;y were up to and judging by the smell we were around one or more bodies, I made some photos as they were removing someone from the rubble ...seriously i do not know how these folks do this job day after day....its horrific and I was gagging from the smell as I was shooting it. about all they can do is remove what;s left of the body and then determine if it is male or female, then the bag it and carry it to the road......shit, this is nasty stuff and frankly they are just getting started with what's near the road, and the rubble goes on and on and on way beyond that....I imagine the body count is underestimated...way underestimated. and furthermore as i talk to guys were here in the immediate aftermath they say the bodies were everywhere, literally everywhere.

Anyway, next we came upon some elephants working to sniff out and dig debris from around some bodies. Bhava, the guy from ICMC was with me so we went over for a look. the elepants were moving heavy loads of wood and junk...Bhava yelled for me to come over where he was watching some rescue guys digging in a half collapsed building,,,the rescue guys summoned a mahout (elephant trainer rider) and his elephant to come over. I climbed into the wreckage to see and there was a horrific site...a bady decomposed body....thank goodness the relatives were not around...

anyway the elephants dont pick up the bodies, they just clear around them then the rescue guys bag and remove the remains...well Bhava, who is Nepalese and a guy who has worked around elephants, was watching this whole thing unfold and he noticed something that I didnt...we both noticed that the elephant seemed uncooperative when it approached, and sniffed a mattress that was near the body, gingerly nudging it and being careful where he stepped nearby. for a moment he obeyed the mahout and started to remove stuff from around the body and then he backed away and refused to go on...the mohout was prodding it but the elephant would not go back in (now at this point Bhava says he saw a teardrop coming out of the elephant's right eye, the eye on the opposite side of me) i have no reason to doubt him and he says that elephants really do "cry" but perhaps the eye was just like that or it had over active tear glands or something, but anyway anyone could tell that this elephant did know enough to be careful where he stepped and he was certainly unhappy about the job he was doing.....I don't blame him,because I saw and photographed what he was looking at in that hole....a badly decomposed body laying face up with a terrible wide open-mouth scream-like expression ... later on in the day, i kept thinking how terrible this is....this was a person, someone who was loved and cherished and to look like this now......again, i am so happy the family was not there to see it.

That was pretty much it for today, except for seeing a three story hospital building, left standing amid the wasteland, with water damage to the roof...one can scarcely imagine a wave that high in a place like this. I thought i should write about it while it is fresh in my mind so you can understand it best....bottom line is, no matter how much you see or how hard i try to capture it in a photo, it is impossible to make anyone who does not see it in person, understand just how devastating it must have been....rather than be amazed at the number of deaths, i am amazed that anyone in the tsunami's path could have survived !

Galle, Sri Lanka

Nagaputtinam India

entry

Jakarta Indonesia

Friday I was supposed to be on the 10:20 am Garuda Air flight from Banda Aceh to Jakarta but they moved me to the doomed 11:30am flight which arrived in Jakarta about 6 hours late, and I of course missed my 830 departure to Columbo....Garuda Air is the most incompetent bunch of idiots, they really messed me over, the next flight to Columbo is Sunday and they refuse to pay to get me there sooner....I spent all last night at the airport and returned there this morning at 5 am only to meet frustration with their inept staff....Tell everyone you know to stay away from Garuda Air, they suck ! I now have lost 2 days of shooting in Sri Lanka and I guess I missed a bunch of great photo ops in Banda Aceh..The mosques full of people praying and mourning the victims....darn, I should have stayed.....Cooling my heels for 2 days in Jakarta is a drag.

I was insistent enough to make them pick up my hotel for both nights and the meals, but upgraded myself to an internet equipped room for an extra 20 bucks so that I could do email and check on news, and try and set up a hotel for my arrival in columbo tomorrow night.....Did watch an Indonesian program on the tsunami entitled, "Badai Pasti Berlalu" running virtually 24/7 with stories, video and photos about the tsunami, it had some incredible scenes filmed by amateurs, one in particular of a family filming from the second floor balcony of their home in what was probably a Ulee Lhehue or Lhoknga neighborhood. The women were screaming, crying and praying, not knowing if their house would collapse or another bigger wave would come. From what they could see happening around them, they must have thought they were going to die !

Well, heck.....Three days to get from Banda Aceh to Columbo...Totally unbelievable...

Anyway, I will likely be on the computer all day...It is 1130 am on Saturday right now, so other than lunch and dinner I will be here in my roon at the Sahid Jaya hotel in Jakarta...It's pretty nice...The damn place they put me up in last night looked good, but there were mosquitoes that fed on me all night.....What a drag !

Port au Prince Haiti

Well to update you on my situation....I am in Petionville at the hotel Caribe 257 2524 at 13 rue leon nau instead of the ollofsen because there has been lots of "demonstrations" (rioting) in the downtown area where that hotel is. Two days of @#$* in port au prince and the burning of a radio station in st. Marc, so we were lucky to get to port au prince at all since there was a burning road block set up in saint Marc on Thursday. Anyway I thought it would be smart to get out of port au prince so I am up in Petionville where it is safe and am trying to get info on just how bad things are.....I hope it's not a @#$##$# "coup d etat" or some @#$* like that...It's kinda tough to find out what's going on since I do not speak French and that's all the radio is and CNN has not mentioned Haiti...So I guess that's good. I am scheduled to go into PaP on Monday and Tuesday which is the "anniversary of the revolution" or something...So I will play it by ear and ask the local guy for World relief that I am working with.
It's rather nice here in Petionville in terms of Haiti standards and I am feeling quite comfortable and safe. I am the only guest in the hotel which is weird. I am guessing that after Tuesday things will calm down. Since I cannot easily access CNN if you get any Haiti info pass it along on email.
more in another email in a second.....

slow monday

on and off rain today in San Diego, last night we lost our hockey game to the kings but played well for a bunch of old guys.
working on email and computer issues today, nothing too exciting

First entry