Martha

My sister Martha passed away yesterday after her two year struggle with ovarian cancer. Her death is very sad for us, but a relief for her given her physical condition.

A friend said yesterday, "part of me is smiling knowing she's already planted a garden and painted a masterpiece in heaven" and it reminded me of the page in her sketchbook with a drawing of her dream house in heaven. The house is two thirds studio space and most of the rest is a greenhouse...  She has had a very rough past few weeks and knowing that she is in a better place is a comfort. She is already sorely missed, though.

I put together the video posted above a few weeks ago. Editing it created meaningful time for me to remember her and process her dying. She was able to see an unfinished version and was happy with it, which was really cool.

Manman Doudou

Warning: this song will get stuck in your head.

This is KPL (Kore Pwodiksyon Lokal/Support Local Production)'s latest TV promotional:

The Ministry of Agriculture provided production support and posted the spot on their youtube channel in December. Two months later and the French and Creole versions have a combined total of 16,511 viewers.

And this is what energizes me to do what I do. In a country where 2/3s of the population struggles to make a living in the agricultural sector while 70% of the nation's food is imported, and where traditional local staples like sorghum and tubers are denigrated in the cities as "peasant food" while imported American rice is consumed by the boatload... it's exciting that when this song comes on the radio, people start singing along. It suddenly justifies the long hours I spend in front of my computer working on funding proposals and evaluating monitoring data and all of the time I and others have spent working with KPL on quote unquote capacity building. [As an aside, I dislike using the phrase "capacity building," because it implies that all of the learning flows in one direction, and seriously, check out this video. I just have the boring job of taking the vision and fitting it into the boxes that make Western organizations interested in providing funding. BTW, among many of the things I've learned from KPL -- how to slaughter a chicken Haitian-style.]

Lyrics translation:

Mama darling
Papa dear
Give us local food to eat
Mama darling
Papa dear
We want to eat local food

Monday, what we want : Corn and beans, vegetables
Tuesday, what we want : Manioc, sweet potatoes, breadfruit, yams and sauce
Wednesay, what we want : Sorghum, beans, meat sauce and fresh juice
Thursday, what we want : Tonm tonm [a dish made with okra], uncle tonm tonm…
Friday, what we want : White corn, fish and avocado
Saturday, what we want : Soup with goat meat, black beans, dumplings and crab
And Sunday? Local rice, local chicken, plantains… yes!

Elders agree? Yes!
Even children agree? Yes!
Farmers agree? Yes!
The government agrees? Yes!
Haiti, stand up! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

January 12 in photos

People gathering at places like collapsed schools and mass graves to remember loved ones lost in the earthquake:

Pierre Rigaud comes to the National Cemetery to remember his two children ages 8 and 10 and his parents who he lost in the January 12th earthquake.

 People come to a pray at a small church in the National Cemetery

This is a video I shot a couple of weeks ago. I haven't watched it all yet because my internet is too slow. (I didn't do the reporting or editing).

Breathing

Alexis embroidered this Arundhati Roy quote recently (I like the lungs) and it inspired me to watch this film last night. It was a good reminder of why the UN and Organization of American States are able to say Haiti just had a decent election. Its worth watching.

TIME piece on Haiti election

I shot some b-roll and contributed some still images for this. The completed story is more pro-UN troops than I like. Often when you are just taking the pictures you don't have any control over where the story goes.

Haitian Amputees Find Hope in Soccer

I didn't come up with the title I have a pet peeve about Haiti news stories and NGOs using the word "hope" in their title. I shot the video and the Time reporter here put it together. You can watch it larger on the Time website.  It was fun shooting the story and I'm happy with how it came together.

Video Postcard: Forced Evictions

For more information, reports and to find out how you can advocate to stop camp evictions go to ijdh.org/projects/housing

Airsick

Created with 20,000 photographs and a haunting soundtrack, Airsick plays out like an unsettling dream. Photographer Lucas Oleniuk examines our addiction to fossil fuel - and its consequences. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/airsick

Airsick is exactly how I often feel breathing in the diesel smoke pouring from all of the cars and trucks here. Knowing that all of our electricity in Haiti comes from power plants that burn low grade diesel makes me question what development really looks like. Even my laptop runs on diesel here. (Diesel powers alternating current powers batteries powers inverter powers laptop powers me posting videos about pollution on my blog).

Speaking of oil, at 11:45 last night Luna ran into the house looking like one of those dead ducks from the BP oil spill. She must have chased something or been chased into a sewer. The sewer is where everybody here dumps their waste motor oil. We tried washing her and although the electricity wasn't on and we ran out of water, we were able to wash off about 50 percent of the oil (and everything else that you might find in a sewer in Port-Au-Prince). We decided that if she dies from licking the oil off, at least she'll cremate well. But seriously, it's disgusting. And there is no waste oil disposal system or recycling center so even the waste oil from NGOs doing environmental conservation will eventually end up in the sewers.

I've been working on an idea for a mango dryer that uses waste motor oil, but that's for another post. Meanwhile, we have oily paw prints everywhere and an oily cat that hates taking baths.

Fault Lines - Haiti: Six months on

"Six months after the earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people, the dust is starting to settle over Port-au-Prince. As it does, the deep wounds that fracture this country are re-emerging, more gaping than even before."


We have found that Al Jazeera English has been one of the few TV networks with a commitment to doing real journalism and telling real stories from Haiti. Six months ago, we posted this documentary done by Al Jazeera with former CBC host Avi Lewis. Earlier this month, they released the six month update posted above. It's hard to watch, but we would encourage you to take the time.

On a very much related note, Ben has been meaning to post the following comment for several days now: If the pictures he posted of displaced Haitians facing flooding moved you, please don't send more money to big NGOs working in Haiti. Billions of dollars of aid have already been pledged and quite honestly, you can see from this short video how that's going. Instead, call the organizations that you have already sent money and ask them to account for it. Put pressure on the NGO's you support and on your governmental representatives to be transparent in the way that money pledged to Haiti gets spent. We've linked to it several times now, but USE this advocacy guide! Or look for ways to support individuals that are doing good things in Haiti or grassroots organizations and movements. Feel free to contact us for suggestions.

Disaster to Decentralization

Sorry, folks. I embedded the wrong film here yesterday. THIS is the one I intended to post. It'll be worth your time, I promise. Download the study guide and take the film to class or use it in a small group. You can download it for free here.



Disaster to Decentralization study guide [english][french][spanish]

Bicycling Haiti

Everyone needs a way to unwind. Bryan and I put this video together after a couple recent mountain bike rides.

Living in the Median

Frank Thorpe helped me edit the video

Micheline Fleuron lives with her two boys in the median in Carrefour. Her home, the pile of rubble across the street from where she is now, collapsed during the earthquake and killed her seven year old daughter. Before the earthquake Micheline had a small business selling food items -she lost that in the earthquake. She says food aid has been distributed near where she is but she has not been able to get any of it. She says hunger is difficult and "dust from the street is eating us".

Kabrit is a Success.

Yesterday Ben and I helped F & J move... with the cargobikes! See pictures here.

Frank shot this sweet video of Ben on his trip to fill up their propane bottles (prior to which Ben carried 70lb of satellite equipment to their new home):



Fun was had by all and when Ben and I were finally heading home, someone on the street said to us, "that little machine (ie. the Kabrit) has sure worked hard today!"

what you have all been waiting for

How to build a cargo truck bicycle - More DIY How To Projects

click here to see our other cargo bike

Militarization of Aid to Haiti

One of the camps in our neighborhood

Post Earthquake KPL (Support Local Production) video

A thin slice

I shot these pictures last Monday and the video on Tuesday. I converted them to black and white and cropped the pictures because I put it together for fun on Saturday and everybody loves black and white panoramics on Saturday. All shot with my magical Canon G9.

Christmas, It's not your birthday

With one thousand dollars you can sponsor one of these families for an 18-month program to ease them out of extreme poverty. click here for more information
I posted this multimedia before, but I just added some pictures and some drumming and thought I'd re-post it. Also I'm not sick anymore.



-Ben from Lexi's account

Chemin Lavi Miyò Multimedia

Push Play. (It still needs some music and maybe a narrator that doesn't sound just like Alexis)