He spent a week embedded with the men as they crossed rivers, built makeshift bombs, argued on their cell phones over logistics and even set up roadside IEDs that, in the end, failed to explode and kill their targets. The video (which can be viewed online) gives an unprecedented and human view of the day-to-day operations of these “hapless Afghan bombers”, as The Guardian UK calls them, and shows how far some reporters can and will go to show us the other side of the story.

That initial feeling quickly gave way to the realization that those who were hustling were doing so because they had no choice.  Not only had almost everyone I spoke to either lost family members or friends, and likely their house, but invariably they said that they had no adequate shelter, and weren’t getting enough to eat. Most of those on the streets were doing what they always did: trying to survive.

I heard story after story of the losses people have endured, as well as amazing stories of survival. Most people’s stories are some combination of the two. Take my friend, Getro Nelio, for instance. Getro was in his family’s apartment building when the earthquake struck, and the building collapsed. Somehow he was relatively unscathed, and quickly set about locating his father who had also been in the building. But when he found him, he saw that although he was still alive, his head had been crushed by debris and he was surely going to die. Getro then decided to leave his father so that he could help others. He ended up pulling 22 others out of the wreckage alive. And now, he and his surviving family members are in the middle of the soccer stadium, struggling to find enough to eat and getting soaked every time it rains.

As is the case after many natural disasters, there has been some discussion about how humanitarian aid can be better administered. Unfortunately – based on what I saw and heard from those I spoke to – it seems that it has been business as usual for the most part.  The distribution of aid still seems totally uncoordinated between the many organizations working in the country, and as mentioned above, the majority of survivors still lack even minimal shelter or enough food and water. Based on what we were hearing, most of the outside organizations still continue to operate without consulting Haitian community leaders, organizers, and average people. Honestly, this boggles the mind.

It seems that the first thing that should be done in this type of situation would be to call together community and neighborhood leaders from throughout the city and ask them how best to approach getting things to people on the ground, and how to do so in a culturally sensitive, respectful way. For the most part, at the very local level, Haitians are already doing this with what minimal resources they have since no one can count on outside help. I saw Haitian-led initiatives by APROSIFA and by a consortium of Haitian social organizations that are working in ways that are smart, efficient, and for those receiving help – dignified. They are happening on a very small scale, but if the NGOs and others bringing aid would consider – first, listening to their ideas, and second, working together with them – food, water, and shelter would be getting to where it is most needed.

Granted, this is a disaster of historic scale in a place that was already in a precarious situation and even the best possible scenario for distribution of emergency aid would have problems. I’m not saying I have the answers to the complex question of how best to approach this. But it does seem that if the international community is serious about wanting to help Haiti, the best place to start would be to listen to Haitians. This is true right now when people are still in desperate need of basic emergency relief like shelter and food. And it will be absolutely crucial in the coming months and years as the country rebuilds.

Eight out of the ten Americans who faced charges of child abduction soon after the earthquake hit Haiti, walked away from jail in Port-au-Prince last week. Orphanage founder Laura Silsby and her nanny have stayed behind to face more questioning and a judicial system that is trying, but is in shambles.

As the case moves forward, incriminating evidence has surfaced: the Americans have been linked to a notorious Dominican sex-trafficker-turned-legal-adviser and to business interests in the U.S. But all of this brings up many more questions about the nature of international adoptions.

This case is reminiscent of abduction charges against the French nonprofit Zoe’s Ark in Chad in 2007. The organization was accused of airlifting 103 Sudanese children through the neighboring country illegally, with the hope of placing them in foster homes throughout Europe. In both cases, individuals carrying the banner of humanitarian will descended on a country weakened by war, or in Haiti’s case, by a natural disaster.

The public scrutiny over both scandals focused on the individuals and organizations involved in the trafficking of children.  But this most recent case involving American missionaries in Haiti sheds light on a very troubling and dark side of the adoption story: a globalized and growing demand of children who, for better or for worse, can often end up being trafficked into “better” lives.

Sadly, child abduction and trafficking is not a new phenomenon in Haiti. More than 2,000 children are illegally trafficked every year out Haiti. In a 2008 report, an ABC news correspondent showed the ease with which a foreigner could “buy” a Haitian child for under $100 and face little consequences. These images stayed with me and troubled me as I traveled to Port-au-Prince later that year and saw children in the streets, asking for money, and vulnerable to anyone who’d promise to take them out of the country.

Now is a difficult time to beg for stricter enforcement on the part of Haiti’s government, which is in deep disarray. Many of these restaveks, or child laborers, and their families are especially vulnerable to child-trafficking mafias; tens of thousands of children have lost their parents in the earthquake.

But to turn a blind eye on the well-established adoption infrastructure in the U.S. and Western Europe that have enabled child trafficking from poor countries, would be a big oversight and a moral mistake.

Rose won the distinction for her series called “Global Health Connections” which aired on public radio station WUNC in March of 2009, exploring research being done in North Carolina, the initiatives they’ve spawned, and their health impacts in Malawi and Zambia. Through a collection of reports, online photo essays and blog entries, Rose documented humanitarian issues, midwifery, nursing and medical training in Southern Africa, among other topics.

“Selling Food Stamps for Kids’ Shoes” was reported in Connecticut over many months, revealing a portrait of poverty and the welfare system in recession-deep America.

I don’t know what the “official” estimates are, but I would guess that at least two hundred thousand residents of Port-au-Prince gathered together to pray and worship in the middle of the tent cities that are occupying Champs Mars between last Friday and Sunday. The sight of so many people gathered together after suffering through so much was pretty amazing, and it filled me with the hope that this country can somehow overcome yet another enormous obstacle thrown in its path.

If religion helps people through difficult times, I am not one to criticize. But at the same time, I felt that there has also been a message being propagated by some religious leaders here and abroad (both Haitian and American) that was sad, counterproductive, and simply wrong.

The basic line of thought I’ve been hearing from this camp is that the earthquake was sent by God as a punishment for sinful Haitians. I was told yesterday by a guy I met on the street, named Michel, that God sent the earthquake to punish the government because they are so corrupt. It’s true that corruption has been endemic in all Haitian governments for as long as anyone can remember, and true that the government (with a lot of help from the U.S., France, the World Bank, and other international players) should be in large part to blame for the total devastation left by this natural disaster.

But I reminded Michel that mostly good, innocent Haitians are suffering — and not the government — despite Preval’s public complaints that he “lost his palace”, and was left with only one shirt. The “catastrophe”, as everyone now calls it, has affected the lives of all Haitians, rich and poor alike, in ways that not even faith can help explain.

Fonografia Collective’s Bear Guerra is in Haiti for two weeks, traveling with Beverly Bell, an activist and author of “Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance”. Together, they will be documenting Haitians’ efforts to rebuild, one month since the earthquake. This dispatch is a collection of Bear’s observations on the ground.

Not surprisingly, it’s incredibly difficult to photograph so much destruction. It’s kind of similar to what we saw after the earthquake in Pisco in 2007: destroyed buildings everywhere you looked. This is much worse though, because a majority of the construction is concrete and cinder block, whereas Pisco had mostly wood or mud-brick buildings, aside from the churches. It’s not the only thing I’m photographing, but I can’t help but ask myself at times, “How does one make moving photos of piles of rubble after piles of rubble after piles of rubble?”

Josette Perard, the director of Lambi Fund Haiti, told me this morning that she can’t bring herself to go again to the Grand Rue after she already saw the area once since the quake. She was born here, and it’s far too painful for her to see so much of that part of the city reduced to dust and tangles of rebar.

Haitians are perhaps some of the most industrious people I’ve ever encountered, and not surprisingly, the one market that has quickly sprung up in the streets of “the Rue” is for metal scrap. I only saw one or two bulldozers at work in all of downtown today, but where there was one, you could also find a crowd of young guys staying clear of its giant shovel while pulling what they could from the wreckage.

Unfortunately, the media frenzy that ensued after the quake has left yet another market in its wake: the sale of directions to where the deceased are that haven’t been pulled out from the rubble yet. I had to tell five guys who offered to take me to see these bodies, that the world had already seen more than enough photos of dead people from Haiti.

Fonografia Collective’s Bear Guerra is in Haiti for two weeks, traveling with Beverly Bell, an activist and author of “Walking on Fire: Haitian Women’s Stories of Survival and Resistance”. Together, they will be documenting Haitians’ efforts to rebuild, one month since the earthquake. This dispatch is a collection of Bear’s observations on the ground.