We went to the General Hospital to see the delivery of food biscuits by Mercy Corps to the families staying there. The shipment ended up being delayed, so just did a story about the scene there.

I was given permission by the patient and nurses to photograph a birth that was taking place. It was going well until other photographers showed up and started getting in the way. I could see it was going to become a problem, and sure enough it was. One TV reporter jumped in and stuck a microphone in the face of the doctor even though the doctor was clearly busy. At this point I knew it was time to go. I said thank you and headed on my way.

The other visit we made with Mercy Corps was to a small community as the they assessed the water conditions in the area.

Providing clean water a priority for Mercy Corps in Haiti

The 7.0 earthquake snatched some of their best and brightest, says Monsieur Claude, as he is called by the 300 mostly-barefoot children here and another 520 adults. Fissures split the walls of some huts. More than a dozen are so damaged that residents have strung cloth to broken tree limbs pounded into rocky ground to fashion crude shelters. Claude needs international humanitarian aid groups like Mercy Corps to first help rebuild and then transform.

His test confirms the water isn’t potable. Claude says the well has always been used for washing and was not damaged in the temblor. In the world of emergency humanitarian assistance, the largest well in a slum of 800 won’t be reborn as a source of safe drinking water because it wasn’t safe before the earthquake.