WORK: Ayiti: > December 2009

On the morning of New Years Eve 2009, I woke up early and walked out towards a panoramic view of Port-au-Prince from the hills above the city. From that vantage point I watched as the warm early morning sunlight slowly filled a densely populated valley below, the faint hint of smoke hung in the air and the sky above the bay changed from cool tones to a creamy blue. For those few moments before I would descend one last time through the heart of the raging city, I reflected upon what had been ten of the most amazing days in my life.

I thought about all the wonderful moments I shared with my friend Judnick and her family, who did not just guide me around Haiti, translate, feed me and watch my back, but in the Haitian tradition, made me, a total foreigner, feel as one of their own. They exposed me to a land which in my eyes dances in every corner with magical moments. A land filled with beautiful souls who have struggled to survive under the most extreme conditions since Haiti’s beginning.

On January 13, 2010, nearly two weeks after that morning, I stood alone above a pile of photographs in my friend’s apartment, each a memory recorded during my journey to Haiti. I slowly sifted through the images and all that led to each being made flashed through my head. I thought about hopping into the back of a rickety pickup truck in the southern town of Les Cayes and driving for 45 minutes into lush farmland under a moonlit sky. I thought about the tough street kids we sat with near the presidential palace who argued with each other and hustled passersby, their smiles in between filled with the innocence of youth. I thought about the drumming we walked toward while visiting rice farmers north of St. Marc, their family and friends dancing and singing a Sunday afternoon away.

Visiting Haiti was initially a dream fulfilled, a life-shifting experience that helped me gain a broader perspective of our world. With this catastrophic earthquake devastating Haiti so soon after, the significance of that experience and the images I made while there has forever changed. At this moment I’m just too confused to understand how much it has.

Before I left for Haiti my friend Nick wrote me, “Have an amazing time, it’s the type of place that touches your heart.” That it has.