jake lyell photography

For the better part of the year I have been in East Africa. Tanzania became my refuge back in December when my mom’s voice (”Promise me you’ll always do the smart thing”) rang in my head to leave the Kenyan city of Kisumu following the outbreak of some brutal post-election violence. Kenya has settled down now and I hope to return later this year.

Tanzania is a country with which I am well acquainted. Eight years ago, my first foray into the developing world was to Tanzania where I taught in a summer ESL program in a primary school in Moshi, at the base of Kilimanjaro. The country was to prove quite captivating; this March marked my fifth journey there. Experiences in Tanzania in years past have shaped me as a person and influenced the career path I’ve taken. Returning at the beginning of this year for the first time since I’ve considered myself an established photographer, I was eager to try a more mature eye on the country.

In Tanzania I was able to document the work of two NGOs: Heifer International and Light in Africa (LIA). The two organizations, which are unaffiliated, operate in some of the same areas of Tanzania but differ greatly in size, scope and organization. Heifer and LIA have vastly different goals; Heifer is a development organization whereas LIA can be loosely defined as a relief organization. The humanitarian work of these groups meets different needs of those they serve. Large and small, the work is from the heart and is changing the lives of some of the most vulnerable Tanzanians. This post will focus on LIA’s work in Tanzania. I’ll focus on Heifer’s work in the area in a later post.

It seems odd to call Light in Africa an organization or an NGO. Yes there’s an office and staff, and a even a company letterhead but it operates almost like a big family. Lynn Elliot, “Mama Lynn,” is the matriarch, the founder and CEO. She came from England in 2000 on what she calls direct assignment from the Holy Spirit to “deliver these children safely into My arms.” She founded a children’s home in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro but moved down to the town of Boma Ng’ombe on the Arusha-Moshi highway in 2003.

Since 2003, Mama Lynn’s ministry has expanded from raising some 40 orphaned or abandoned children to around 150. Many of the children she cares for are afflicted with HIV/AIDS. See my PEPFAR post for more on this subject. Far more than a children’s home, now operations include a food kitchen in the desperate town of Mirereni (shown above), medical dispensaries in several remote villages, and housing and hospice care for many elderly and disabled people. However, this is by far not an exhaustive list of LIA’s current and ever-expanding duties. “Whatever God puts in our path, we will care for,” Mama Lynn says. Below, she slaps fives with children waiting for a meal at Mirereni food kitchen.

This Whatever God puts in our path policy keeps Mama Lynn in a mode of constant ministry and her house full of guests. She has very little personal time, save for prayer in the morning. At the time I visited, Mama Lynn had been spending an increasing amount of time in the aforementioned mining town of Mirereni. In addition to operating a children’s home there, she established a food kitchen there the previous year. Below, children in LIA’s Mirereni Fleeze House.

The kitchen now serves over 400 hungry adults and children a day. Many who attend are children of Tanzanite miners whose parents work in deplorable conditions for extremely low pay. The food kitchen serves not only to fill hungry stomachs but also to keep a pulse on the community, identifying other needs as they arise.

Take for instance Anna Mapena. Shown above with her baby boy of nine months, Taigo, she is 40 years old and lives in Mirereni. Mama Lynn and I first met her lying on the doorstep of the town’s only medical dispensary (built by LIA volunteers). The doctor there could not do anything for her condition, which was later thought to be Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. I was unable to photograph her in the state in which I first saw her: sick and in pain, lacking dignity. I couldn’t do it without first gaining her trust and letting her know my intentions; so I didn’t even ask. That week, Mama Lynn brought Anna along with her husband, Sakita, back to LIA in order to begin treatment for her skin condition at KCMC hospital in Moshi. It was there that I shot the above picture.

Paulo Nangu (above) is a man who slipped through the cracks of Africa’s traditional gerocentric society. Husbands and wives sometimes have children numbering in the double digits to insure that they are cared for in their last years. Paulo and his wife, who died many years ago, were never able to have any. A migrant worker, he ended up in the town of Magadini. There he developed a tumor in his leg and became too ill to work. Villagers there would trade off providing what they could in the way of food, shelter and clothing. On a trip home to Magadini, a LIA staff member heard of his plight and brought Paulo back to live at the guest house.

Paulo (above center) receives food, clothing and a place to live at LIA’s guest house. “Here I am happy because I never sleep hungry, but there I went to bed with no food,” he says, looking back to his former life. He considers Mama Lynn’s charity an answered prayer. Mama Elihuruma (below) expresses similar thanks for the help she’s received. To her, LIA is “a close friend you can run to for help.” LIA stepped in as she was being driven off the land she was renting while caring for her severely disabled child, Elihuruma. Light in Africa volunteers pitched in to buy her a plot of land and build a house for her and her family. LIA still funds and facilitates physical therapy for Elihuruma.

Operating on the examples of Jesus laid out in the gospels by providing for those in need, Mama Lynn is unabashedly outspoken in her Christian faith. Rising early in the morning for prayers and continuing her heavenly dialog throughout the day, she often fasts meals. “I was anointed by God to come out here and do the work,” she says. “I could not do it any other way… I rely totally on the Holy Spirit.”

However, Mama Lynn has refused to identify with any particular Christian sect or denomination, preferring her autonomy. She remains accepting of volunteers at LIA of any faith or no faith at all. She keeps in close contact with the Hindu community in nearby Moshi, who have dubbed her the Angel of Kilimanjaro. Furthermore, she receives food donations from Muslim merchants in town.

Brushing aside the inevitable comparisons to Mother Theresa, Mama Lynn humbly states, “I’m not a holy person, I’m a social worker,” thus recalling her former occupation in the UK that has given her much needed experience in the care of the vulnerable and disenfranchised. Mama Lynn’s daughter, Laura Cox, was an integral pillar of LIA before returning to England last year to better educate her children. Laura (below) still makes occasional visits and eventually plans to resume her full time role at LIA.

LIA receives no regular funding from any religious, government or charitable institutions nor do they hold fund-raising campaigns. Mama Lynn operates solely on what is given to her by passing volunteers or those that choose to arbitrarily deposit money into her Paypal account. “We pray for people to be inspired to help with God’s mission.” This way, she says, she is more clearly able to discern God’s will and the purposes of her ministry; if she is to help someone or begin a new work, the funding will become available.

Her living-by-faith financial strategy is rare for NGOs and unheard of to many Tanzanians and government officials, who from their view perceive all westerners as having no bottom to their bank accounts. Charitable work is seen as big business in Africa and for some NGOs it is. For Mama Lynn, who refuses to pay bribes, the resulting lack of cooperation from local government has been exhausting. Things are improving of late however, since the election of President Jakaya Kikwete. His anti-corruption and NGO-empowering policies have yet to fully filter down through the ranks of the old guards still occupying positions of power.

Recently, recognition of her work has been on a national level. Mama Lynn was last year an honored guest at a luncheon hosted by President Kikwete. Mama Salma Kikwete, the Tanzanian first lady, has twice made visits to Light in Africa.

Driving the dusty, bumpy, ever-shifting route to Mirereni, Mama Lynn comes to a new fork in the road. “Which way do you think Jake?” she asks. “I say right, but you can always go ahead and forge your own path,” I wittily respond. It wouldn’t have been out of character. “I’ve tread enough new ground by now thank you” she laughs. But somehow, I think there’s more yet to come.

Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell. With thanks to Laura Sechu.

The President is just back from a whirlwind tour of Africa. He swept across the continent in 6 days, leapfrogging to friendly and peaceful countries while dispatching Secretary Rice to areas that need a little work (see my Kenya post). While much of the headlines these days deal with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration has been waging a more silent war against AIDS in the developing world.

I’ve spent the last month in Northern Tanzania, observing the work of an NGO called Light in Africa. Light in Africa, or LIA, began as a children’s home on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Since work began in 2000, founder Lynn Elliot (aka Mama Lynn) has gradually expanded its ministries to include food, nutrition and medical programs to the surrounding areas. The operation has since moved off the mountain to be mainly concentrated in the village of Boma N’gombe. LIA now raises some 150 children, around 40 of whom are living with HIV/AIDS. Below, children at Light in Africa’s Pilgrim House for boys.

A marked change has come since former visits I’ve made to LIA in 2002 and again in 2004: all the children who previously lived (or sadly, died) from day to day with the effects of HIV now have access to antiretroviral drugs without cost. Furthermore, the children receive regular checkups from doctors and nurses. Thus, children whose quality of life was once severely diminished can now live a relatively normal life compared to their peers who are not infected with HIV. Below, Omega and Felix are two of about 40 children at Light in Africa with HIV.

Antiretroviral drugs suppress the replication of the HIV virus in the body, allowing more T-cells to grow. T-cells are needed for a strong immune system in order for the body to fight off diseases and viruses. Such drugs are expensive. The majority of people around the world infected with HIV lack access to them either financially or geographically. It is little known that George W. Bush has made it a goal of his administration to change this. Below, Sonya lacked antiretroviral treatment from an early age. Her condition is now moving from HIV into AIDS.

Doctors recommend beginning antiretroviral therapy when one’s T-cell count falls below 350 and surely when reaching dangerous levels below 200. When word of Phineus reached Light in Africa, their social worker, Samueli was sure he could not be saved. Samueli had been dispatched by Mama Lynn to bring the child, whose parents had both died of AIDS, under her care. Phineus was langushing at home in bed, nursed by his grandmother with what doctors would later find to be a T-cell count of 6. Upon seeing his condition, Samueli returned to LIA without the child. By now accustomed to miracles, Mama Lynn insisted Samueli bring Phineus to live at LIA.

Two years later, Phineus (shown above on a recent checkup) is now healthy and lives once again with his grandmother. He receives antiretroviral drugs and health screenings from nurses and doctors at a local hospital or LIA’s clinic. The medication and care he receives are made possible with funds from PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief.

Passed by Congress in 2003, the Global AIDS Act that authorized PEPFAR was first touted in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. The program has continued to be funded each year since and was greatly expanded in 2006. The funding is distributed both to trustworthy local governments as well as to aid-groups and hospitals in the field. PEPFAR is currently working in 13 “focus” countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to Vietnam and Guyana.

In addition to structured prevention, care and treatment programs for AIDS, the act also authorized funds for the prevention and treatment of malaria and tuberculosis. Despite the relative lack of publicity, malaria is the continent’s most deadly disease, though AIDS can be more debilitating for a longer period of time. The incidence of co-infection of HIV/malaria and HIV/tuberculosis is also common. As of 2005, an estimated 24.5 million people in sparsely populated Sub-Saharan Africa were suffering with HIV. Though the area accounts for just 12% of the world population, it contains a disproportionate 60% of the world’s total AIDS population.

Two hours from Moshi by dusty, bumpy, almost-undriveable road to the dry Tanzanite mining town of Mererani, nurses from KCMC hospital in Moshi have come (thanks to a lift from Mama Lynn) to conduct HIV tests. Enough funding for the program exists for the hospital to regularly distribute antiretroviral medications to the village should enough people be found to have the virus. Word spreads quickly of the nurses’ presence and within a few minutes there is a line of twenty or so people waiting to be tested.

Sun pours in an otherwise dark room where tests are being conducted. The atmoshphere is tense. One man, after waiting all morning for the nurses’ arrival, is overcome with the anxiety of knowing his diagnosis. He removes the tourniquet from his arm before nurses can take a blood sample. After a few minutes he again consents to the test which later comes back positive. It seems that many who enter already know their fate and request antiretrovirals before the test is even administered. After the first 90 minutes, all but one of the villagers tested is HIV positive.

Assuming that KCMC approves the outreach to Mererani, the HIV+ villagers there are more fortunate than most. Even though antiretrovirals are freely administered in hospitals, they are far out of reach for people in remote areas like Mererani. The drugs may be free, but getting to and from the hospital requires bus fair, meals and a day or more away from the shamba, or field, where most people earn a living. Furthermore, queuing at a hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa is often a multi-day ordeal.

This is where PEPFAR’s work is most effective. By bringing the medicines as well as medical workers out into the bush, PEPFAR is sustaining the lives of many who would otherwise have stayed home.

“I know it is about life, and it is! But what do they do out in Checkireni (another remote region of Tanzania) when they don’t have the money to feed their kids and have to come up with 10,000 shillings to get to KCMC?” says Laura Cox, Mama Lynn’s daughter and fellow worker at LIA. Sadly, for most, there is no answer.

We return to Light in Africa later that evening to find that social services has delivered two more children to the orphanage: Hasani, a boy aged four, and his sister Azziza, aged 2. The pair look as if they have come from a famine-stricken refugee camp; Hasani weighs about 16 pounds and his sister not quite 10. They suffer from AIDS and Tuberculosis. The two however, did not come from a refugee camp, but from a mother who is dying of AIDS in a hospital bed at KCMC; they are despairingly inconsolable and in tears at being separated from her. Above and below, Mama Lynn and Laura administer antiretrovirals to Hasani and Azziza.

Within a few weeks in Light in Africa’s care, Hasani has shown improvement and is able to walk while holding someone’s hand. Azziza (below) does not fair so well and is checked into the hospital with pneumonia.

Despite its generous and far-reaching effects, PEPFAR is not without its critics. One third of the program’s prevention budget, or 6.6% of the overall budget, is spent on abstinence-only programs, to the chagrin of some public health experts who are concerned that Christian or moral agendas, rather than those of public health or human rights are PEPFAR’s motivating factors. Certain restrictions for funding are also placed on organizations working with prostitutes.

Whatever the motivations, according to PEPFAR’s reports, the program has administered antiretroviral therapy to some 1.4 million people. Though a tremendous amount of work remains, the results are significant. As the program expands, people are healthier and living longer, economies are strengthened because of a greater workforce, and HIV infection rates are decreased giving greater hope to the next generation. Time will tell whether or not these achievements will be overshadowed by the administration’s foreign policy failures elsewhere in the world. But one thing is sure, as the President leaves office next year, he leaves Africa in much better shape than when his two terms began.

Momentum can be a dangerous force. Just ask former Senator George Allen, whose political career as a darling of the Republican Party was brought down by the momentum of the Macaca incident in 2006. Were it not for such a slip (and the hoopla that followed), Barack Obama could well be riding his current wave of momentum to a race in November against Allen, who was a very early GOP front-runner for the nomination. While Virginia won’t be selecting a nominee from its native sons or daughters this time around, it will certainly play a more crucial role in the nomination process than in the past.

Obama swept Democratic primaries and caucuses held across the country Saturday and Sunday, and poles have suggested that he will continue to fair well on Tuesday’s primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. That Obama momentum was felt by thousands of people inside and outside of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center on Saturday night in Richmond, where the Democratic Party of Virginia hosted its annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Below, a police officer works to keep Hillary and Obama fans from spilling into the street.

The raucous crowd inside, overwhelmingly in support of Obama, often became vocally impatient for their candidate to take the stage. Addressing the crowd early in the evening, Clinton had a bit of a disconnect with her audience when compared to Obama, who would speak over two hours later. Her supporters were out-shown and out-shouted by those of her rival.
In a broad attempt to combat perceptions of un-humanness, Hillary Clinton continued a recent trend of laughing and smiling incessantly on the campaign trail and at the podium. Noting primary and caucus victories on days subsequent to performing the stunt, political strategist and pundit Ross Catrow predicts that Hillary will have a tearful moment before the cameras on Monday, ahead of key primaries in the Mid-Atlantic.

The event was also a rock-star rally of sorts for local Virginia Democratic politics, which up until a few years ago, would usually have hosted its annual dinner at the back room of a Ruby Tuesday’s. A man named Mark Warner changed the Party’s prospects, however. Taking the governorship after Republican Jim Gilmore’s reckless term came to an end in 2001, Warner showed Virginia how to run a fiscally sound government while maintaining important social and education programs. Warner’s policies helped Virginia steer around many of the economic problems facing other states in post-911 America. Below, the Virginia Governors from left to right: current Governor Tim Kaine, Mayor of Richmond and former Governor L. Douglas Wilder, former governor Mark Warner.

“Remember when I was governor that year?” the Democratic heavyweights schmoozy it up backstage.
While Wilder and Kaine have both endorsed Obama, Mark Warner does not plan to endorse a candidate until the nomination is sealed up. Anticipating a seat in the Senate next January, Warner wants to ensure a smooth working relationship with whoever occupies the Oval Office. As the Democratic candidate for Senator, the popular Warner should win handily against the current GOP front-runner, the aforementioned Gilmore. With Jim Webb already in office, Virginia will have two Democratic Senators and a Democratic governor for the first time since the Norman conquest of 1066. Okay, so if it’s happened before, it was probably back in the 30’s.

The big question is… can Virginia bare to vote Democrat in the general election? Could it be turning into a blue state? If Clinton were the nominee in November, I dare say Virginia would tip McCain. However, Obama is a much easier shoe for Virginians to slip on. Obama’s record (or at least rhetoric) of reaching across the isle to get things done is a strategy that has proven effective for Virginia Democrats like Kaine and Warner. Below, Obama and Kaine wave to a sold-out crowd on Saturday evening.

Obama has proven he can gain support among independents and moderates. He is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate able to attract young and old with his compassion, wit and charisma. The Superdelegates who may decide this race for the nomination would be wise to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, as McCain tries to beef up his conservative credentials, he will likely alienate independents who supported him. That makes for an easier race in the general election for Obama. But with the delegate race in a dead heat, let us not look solely at Obama’s current momentum to sum up the outcome; look at the numbers. Hillary has long-sought the nomination, and to think she would give up before it got into overtime would be what Bill Clinton would describe as a “fairy tale.”

Words and Photos - Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell

No one predicted what has come over Kenya in the last month since its disputed presidential elections. But since then, the country has fallen from the grace of being one of the most-stable countries on the African Continent to being the host of machete wielding street mobs of young, angry, disenfranchised men. Tourists and ex-patriots have largely left the country as security and the economy have plunged amid the unrest.

In all likelihood, Orange-Democratic Movement leader, Raila Odinga, won Kenya’s presidential election against incumbent Mwai Kibaki on December 27th. Raila, an ethnic Luo, widely led in opinion polls up until the election, accusing Kibaki, a Kikuyu, that he had not done enough to tackle corruption. Kenya’s other various minority tribes have long been hungry for a more prominent role in government. With the slow and non-transparent way the votes were counted in the days following the election, many were convinced fraud had taken place.

I knew something strange had come over the city on December 29th when I took an early morning stroll on the shores of Lake Victoria in the Western city of Kisumu, the hometown of opposition candidate Raila Odinga. The election results had not yet been released but tension was in the air because the results had been delayed for a second day. I was followed down a dirt road by two men, when one, bearing a machete, announced somewhat casually that, “We are going to kill you.” It was a little too casually in fact, for he was not convincing enough for me to readily cede my camera.

Nevertheless I began to scream for help as I was hit twice in the arm with his (luckily dull) machete and knocked to the ground. I screamed as loud as I could as the two men tugged on my camera bag while I took a few kicks. I could not physically let it go. It was impossible. I had come to Kenya to work, and work was now my life. Within a minute, several dockworkers heard my cries from inside the port and came running, sending the thieves to scurry off down some nearby railroad tracks.

I was left only with bruises, scrapes and a small laceration where the machete had hit. Thanking my helpers profusely, I marched on to my hotel in order to wash up before going to the police station to report the incident. The police were surprised that this would happen in a normally safe and peaceful town. However, within the hour the city descended into chaos as a shocked police force stood in passive observance of mobs looting shops and burning the houses of anyone not of the Luo tribe.

The fact that I had just walked away from a machete attack camera in hand may have given me an air of invincibility, but I began to photograph the mayhem as it unfolded on Kisumu’s streets. In a tense moment of being surrounded by a crowd, a man named Joseph stepped out and began to mediate between me and the mob, demanding they go about their business and let me do my job.

Joseph stayed with me like a guardian angel for the next several hours as the rioters looted and burned every shop in town and did the same to the houses of rival tribesmen. Even the livestock were not spared. Goats and cows were savagely torn apart, their limbs paraded around like trophies. All the while chanting “No Raila, no peace!,” the rioters seemed indifferent that I was documenting their actions.

This phenomenon was to last only a short while however, and after a few attempts at my camera and a few more close calls with machetes, shooting became impossible. Joseph and I holed up in my hotel room and prayed for peace to come over the city.

Calm came to the city that night after the Kenyan army marched in, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at anyone left on the streets. But the quiet was to be only temporary. On the following evening, the Kenyan Electoral Commission announced the results in Kibaki’s favor and swore him in within 30 minutes of doing so, prompting new and increased outbreaks of violence.

Unable to get food or water and out of cash, by this time I was waiting at the airport for the next flight to Nairobi. After waiting 12 hours for the flight, it was canceled due to security concerns. I was able to make it on a later flight with a different airline that evening. The riots that had taken place the previous day in Kisumu were no longer just an affair of Western Kenya, where I was, but had now spread throughout the country. As our plane flew out of town I could see the flames engulfing the streets and buildings below.

The violent aftermath that has engulfed Kenya has not subsided in the past month. It has begun to take on an eerie resemblance to Rwanda in 1994, whose genocide occurred under similar post-election tribal strains that descended into civil war. Mediators including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, have failed to nip the problem in the bud. Last evening, Mugabe Were, an Orange-Democratic Movement MP elected on December 27th, was killed outside his home in Nairobi. Officials have stopped short of calling it an assassination.

Since its independence in 1963 Kenya has been ruled by only three presidents: Kenyatta, Moi and currently Kibaki. All men have followed the pattern of being ever-reluctant to relinquish their presidential powers. Despite his failure to implicate corrupt government officials as promised before winning his first term, Kibaki is most remembered for making primary education universal for all children in the country.

After years of peace and functioning democracy, Kenya’s brutal tribal tensions have come to a rolling boil and are now exposed to the rest of the world. But before too much sympathy is given to Odinga and his supporters, there isn’t much evidence to show he would have acted any differently as an incumbent. While most likely the true victor, Odinga and his ODM party is also the likely perpetrator of electoral irregularities according to the New York Times. Let us also remember that Kibaki, the current incumbent, himself came to power in 2002 as the opposition candidate of change, vowing to rid the country of corruption but keeping many of the crooks from the Moi administration in office. At the center of the problem is a nasty tribalist mentality that will continue to draw blood and tear apart the country unless ordinary citizens can look past tribe and see one another as united Kenyans.

With thanks to Joseph Otieno.

Heavy, loud, and concentrated. These are words I use to describe Haiti’s assault on the American senses. But its more than the intense atmosphere and lack of polish that keeps westerners away. People from developed countries are a rare sight in Haiti due to its poor security and lack of infrastructure. Those that come remain sealed off in walled compounds and are sped away in the relative safety of a tinted-window, 4-wheel-drive rent-a-car. The warnings of violent crime issued from behind the desks of those at the US embassy in Port-au-Prince are not unwarranted; kidnappings, robberies and murders of the wealthy do occur. But the situation here is one that requires vigilance and common sense, not paranoia and seclusion. For those of us who step beyond the boundaries of our comfort zone, the rewards seem endless. Investing in a good insurance policy is also recommended.

700 miles to the South-East of Florida, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. Occupying the western third of the Island of Hispaniola, it is a microcosm of the world’s humanitarian problems: unclean water, lack of health care, environmental degradation and an economy in shambles. These problems are interdependent and where solutions are brought about, new troubles emerge. As the nation’s fragile new government slowly takes hold and security improves across the country, Haiti is opening a new chapter in its restless history.

I left Port-au-Prince with my interpreter Romel the day after I touched ground, though I would return later to spend several days there. My thinking was that as the capital is the most unstable part of the country, and I had a greater risk of having my camera stolen there, I would prefer to have that happen after I had at least a week’s worth of images safe and backed up. Riding the crowded tap-tap (public bus) to the North, our destination was the city of Gonaives. Despite Haiti’s small size, (its area is comparable to that of the State of Maryland) traveling from one end to the other by tap-tap can take an arduous 48 hours. I decided to break the journey to Gonaives in the valley town of Mirabalais. Click the map below to trace the route of my journey.


We were fortunate to arrive in Mirabalais on market day, when people come from the town and surrounding countryside to sell or trade their goods while stocking up on needed supplies. Despite its bustling streets, people in Mirabalais like Etide Francois (shown below in her sewing shop) complained of low wages and not being able to make ends meet. Madame Francois’ story echoes national statistics. Over two-thirds of people in Haiti are unemployed or underemployed. Most people in Haiti have jobs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that income is being generated. Therefore, the term underemployment has come to best describe the economic disposition facing the majority. Many days may pass without a sale made or a service rendered. While more than 80% of Haitians live below the poverty line, I seldom encountered beggars on the streets.

Below, a woman named Yvette makes cornmeal near the market with the help of her daughters.

Though it was hard to judge at the time, the outlook in Mirabalais was brighter than in other parts of the country I was to visit. It seemed most people had electricity in their homes because of the town’s proximity to the same hydro-electric dam that supplies power to Port-au-Prince. Consequently, Mirabalais’ streets and shops remained busy well into the night. While most did not not have running water, communal water stations like the one seen below piped in fresh spring water from the surrounding countryside.

We were hard-pressed to find affordable lodging in town that did not double as a brothel. Luckily, a woman named Dada offered to put us up for the night in her home. That evening as I was editing photos in my room, much of the neighborhood came by to watch the town light up on my laptop’s screen. Some curious residents are shown posing below. We departed early the next morning for Gonaives.

Haiti was pounded by Hurricane Jeanne in September 2004. The damage was particularly severe in the port city of Gonaives. Rushing water from the passing hurricane emptied off the mountainsides surrounding flood-prone Gonaives killing over 3,000 of the city’s residents. The flood damaged every building in the town and left 250,000 people homeless.

Charles Luders, shown above, lives with his wife and seven children in the mountains that surround Gonaives. From his house you can see the entire town: the dusty hills that ring the city, the winding avenues that lead you through the cauldron of downtown until you reach the shoreline. Charles and his wife moved to the hillside 11 years ago. Moving to the outskirts of the city was the only way that they could afford a home and education for their children. “I have struggled a lot to provide a better life for my children than I have had” says Luders, who has made education a priority for his children. “With education you can make a life for yourself and earn a living.” Luckily, their move up the hill also allowed the Luders family to escape the destruction of Hurricane Jeanne. While they experienced mudslides and minor flooding in their home, the heavy rains had a far-worse impact on the downtown area.

Like the rest of Haiti’s countryside, the hills surrounding Gonaives have been stripped of the trees that once enlivened them. In fact, 98% of Haiti’s original tree cover has been lost due to the common practice of harvesting trees for lumber and charcoal. Neighboring Dominican Republic passed laws back in the 60’s outlawing commercial logging. Haiti followed suit by outlawing logging by unauthorized individuals but was never able to enforce such measures. Today, Haiti’s lumber regulation consists only of educational programs and minor replanting efforts instituted by the Ministry of Environment. Knowing the lack of trees in his neighborhood causes increased soil erosion and exacerbates flooding downtown, Luders and his neighbors have made an effort to plant trees throughout the neighborhood.

Although the residents on Gonaives’ hillsides have managed to escape the worst of the city’s flooding problems, the outlook for some appears no less bleak. Sylvia Hertel sells vegetables in the market while her husband is a tap-tap driver. She is shown above with three of her children (youngest to oldest: Wilson, Kenkenn and Dieukinet). Her and her husband’s combined income is not enough to send their four boys to school and two of them have had to stay home this year.

During my interview with Sylvia Hertel I noticed one of her boys, Dieukinet, had a nagging cough. Sylvia, rather gaunt herself, explained that two of her sons, Dieukinet (above) and Kenkenn are kept up in the night with coughing, fever and sweats. My interpreter Romel, himself a medical student, suspected the children of having Tuberculosis when Sylvia stated that they have been coughing up blood. Even though Haiti lacks universal health care, government hospitals will treat anyone diagnosed with TB without cost. Stressing the urgent need for care, Romel and I made arrangements to meet the family the next morning in order to accompany them to the hospital and cover and any fees that are incurred. (They didn’t show.)

Down at the waterside, Goniaves’ port is bustling as a handful of rusty freight liners and a shell of an American school bus lie grounded along the shore. It seems only the old wooden sail boats, some propelled by motors, continue to traverse the waters. The boats bring in goods from around the country and some goods from afar. As workers unload large oblong bags of charcoal from ships by the hundreds, buyers come to haggle with the managers. The charcoal sold here comes from the North-West province - places like Bombadopolis and Anse Rouge. As in much of the developing world, in Haiti charcoal is made from wood and is used for cooking in every household, street-side eatery and many restaurants. Imitating a practice begun by European colonists for the expansion of agriculture, residents obliterated Gonaives’ surrounding forests long ago. As demand for charcoal and lumber continues, new sources must be found further afield.

Above center, Tifamm Val, 30, has sold charcoal in the market since she was ten years old. Below, lumber vendors await a sale in Gonaives’ market district. With the exception of a couple of small protected (not necessarily enforced) areas, wood is free game in Haiti.

50 kilometers north-west of Gonaives, the town of Marmalade is the hometown of Haiti’s president, Rene Preval. Surrounded by brown, barren hills, Marmalade is an oasis of waterfalls and shade below towering trees from the blistering sun . Lush as it may be, Marmalade is the origin of the charcoal sold by an old woman on the street just outside my hotel in Gonaives. As Marmalade was only two hours away, I decided to make a day trip of it.

There I encountered what I had set out to find; though they weren’t the ruthless tree-choppers with gnashing teeth that I had expected. Charcoal makers worked all over the hills surrounding Marmalade, most of them on their family’s plot of land. Like other poor farmers in the area, Fritznel Silvain, harvests trees from his land, buries them under limbs and brush to keep the air out, and sets the mound to smolder. The process is a tricky one and if any oxygen gets inside, the batch is lost. Mr. Silvain has made a business out of selling charcoal to restaurants in Gonaives for the past two years. Between his charcoal business and growing bananas, he is able to provide for his family of five, as well as the two children (shown below) of his deceased brother and sister-in-law.

It should be mentioned that the FAO, (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations) has a small office in Marmalade. They are responsible for environmental education and replanting efforts in the area. Despite their presence, Mr. Silvain, shown below, has never been contacted by anyone from the FAO or the Haitian government concerning his charcoal business.

Back in Gonaives, UN soldiers patrol the dusty streets where revolution flows in the blood of the city. It was here that Haiti declared independence from France in 1804. Exactly 200 years later, gangs opposed to the authority of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide began an uprising that led to the leader’s ouster. Gonaives has seen a return to near-complete calm in recent years and appears at peace with the Preval administration.

It seemed like the Haitian government was taking a proactive step in preventing another Jeanne-like catastrophe. In February of 2006, private contractors commissioned by officials in Port-au-Prince began to construct a series of gutters and canals throughout Gonaives to channel floodwaters pouring from off the surrounding mountainsides. Entire roads were shut down and bulldozed to make way for these massive canals. Somewhere along the way, officials forgot to finish the project; or perhaps more likely, used the funds for personal expenses.

Begun nearly two years ago, today these would-be canals dotted throughout the city are giant cesspools where people throw their waste and where mosquitoes breed. They stand as giant pools of filth and stench. Unconnected to any drainage network, the pools stand idle, save for the occasional passer-by falling in.

The canal that runs down what was once Vernet Street seems the most egregious of them all. Vernet Street borders Gonaives’ central market to the north. The Vernet canal bisects the former roadway leaving a small sidewalk on each side for the busy market traffic to negotiate. On the south side of the canal, waters run nearly to the doorsteps of houses and shops, climbing into the dwellings during the rain. Harold Previse, 31, who sells mattresses on the south side of the canal is especially incensed over its presence. Up until 2006 he owned a shop on one Gonaives’ busiest streets. Now he sits within two feet of the rank sewer and business is no longer booming: “My business has decreased since this was installed. No foot traffic, no tap-tap, no cars. So no one can see my business.”

Along the same block, a group of bored Haitian youth hang out on their doorsteps, most sporting white t-shirts. Among them is Desmite (above left), whose front doorstep faces the canal. Asked how life has changed since the building of the canal, he complains of flooding in his home and subsequent health problems for him and his family: fever and diarrhea and other digestive problems. Desmite goes on to tell that he sees people fall in the canal daily, especially at night as there are no streetlights to illuminate the area. As the canal is over 8 feet deep, several have even lost their lives doing so.

It seems officials have already forgotten about the destruction of hurricane Jeanne. Gonaives’ drainage system has remained incomplete for nearly the past two years and is now a ticking time bomb waiting to unleash squalor and sickness throughout the city at the next passing hurricane.

At the port, the bawdy seafaring mob continues on as it has for centuries past. The women smoke tobacco pipes as the dockworkers load sugar cane into old sail boats. An itinerant preacher bathes along the shore while calling out to the indifferent crowd for repentance. After washing his hands of them he moves along. I left Gonaives with a feeling that a force majeure more imminent than the Judgment was at hand.

Busy, chaotic Port-au-Prince has one foot in the door of progress. The other one will take a while to catch up. Take for instance trash cans. More than just a novelty here, they actually exist on street corners for people to dispose of their garbage. Furthermore, they are collected regularly. But that’s only for some neighborhoods. The automatic weapon-toting police presence on the street is also a sign that Port-au-Prince is entering a new era, however sluggish. Though many officers are more interested in flirting with women or trying on sunglasses than walking the beat, their actual presence on the street is something not seen a year ago. Even once impenetrable neighborhoods like Cite Soleil have shown improvements in security. This week Doctors Without Borders announced it was turning over operations in the dangerous seaside slum to the Haitian Ministry of Health due to the improving situation there. However, the announcement came back to back with a plea from President Preval to gang members that they may release child hostages and cease abductions in the city. Violent crime, while still rife in the capital, has decreased significantly in the last year.

Like many capitals in the developing world, Port-au-Prince has seen an influx of migrants from around the country, drawn by its wealth and infrastructure. Makenson Pierre (below left) is known by his peers as Baby. He left his home near the market in Gonaives several months ago to come live on the streets, taking his place along side what UNICEF counts as 7,000 other street children in Port-au-Prince. Baby looks to be around 9 or 10 years old, but he doesn’t know for sure how old he is; he’s never been in school or celebrated a birthday. The street kids always travel in numbers here for protection. Older boys often prowl the streets looking for kids to beat up just because they can get away with it. Baby admits that life in Gonaives was much happier for him, but he won’t return: “I won’t go back home because my mother cannot help me.”

A middle class was ubiquitously evident for the first time in Port-au-Prince. In Plaza Champ de Mars, just a block from the presidential palace, primary school children in uniform play on the steps while couples clad in business attire take an evening stroll. Men gather every evening under the shade of a large oak tree and form several circles debating politics. Listening in on their conversation, they are infuriated by the state of their country and the corrupt practices in the government ranks. Below, a man known as Petit Marx (hat) who spent several years in Cuba, argues the advantages of a communist system.

Port-au-Prince seems stricken with an identity crises. It is the most economically prosperous and at the same time the most crime-ridden place in the country, home to a large middle class but also home to one of the largest slums in the hemisphere. Yet as I watched the men debating politics in the park, or the youth painting a street mural on the eve of World Aids Day (see below), I encountered a spirit that I had not witnessed in other places in Haiti: an unyielding passion for change and the dedication to make it a reality.

…with thanks to Guillet Adolphe.