From MSNBC:

WASHINGTON — The largest earthquake ever recorded near the capital rattled Washington, D.C., early Friday, waking many residents but causing no reported damage. The quake hit at 5:04 a.m. ET with a magnitude of 3.6, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was centered near Rockville, Md., the USGS said. NBC News reported that the quake was felt in the D.C.-area, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Amy Vaughn, a spokeswoman for USGS, told NBC station WRC that the quake was the largest recorded within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of Washington since a database was created in 1974.

Yo D.C., Ima let you finish, but Haiti had the most destructive earthquake of all time…

Photo found on twitter via @firesideint and @troylivesay.

Then today, while searching for inspiration for the upcoming photoshoot I’m participating in so I can have some decent head shots/avatar pictures, which have been requested by just about everyone above me in the professional world (and one person in my personal world who I wish was above me in a different way right now if you know what I mean), I came across this strapping young lad’s soul mate:

Look at that fucking love connection!!!!!!!! Amirite?

I hope they found each other and had dirty hot sex by the light of the Atari 520 ST with color graphics and 64k RAM.

CAn’t. Stop. Laughing.

(H/t Dan MacArthur)

• I’m still working with Nate on the book project, which is coming along swimmingly and continues to provide me with the most fascinating brain food I have ever encountered. Friday we went to IBM Headquarters to interview the project manager of Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer that beat Grand Master Gary Kasparov in 1997. It was the first time Kasparov had ever been beaten, period, and by a computer.

• I’m a community manager of Haiti Rewired, Wired.com’s community-driven site to discuss technology and infrastructure solutions for Haiti. It’s an incredibly challenging and rewarding project to be working on. The site has been in existence for about 3.5 months and now hosts 1,250 members. Compared with the previous community-driven site I worked with, ScienceBlogs.com, which only had about 80 active contributors, it’s an entirely different animal. Though I do see many similarities in user behavior, especially with regards to the waxing and waning periods of activity. One cool thing that’s happening with that now is that a project to create a Wired computing hotspot in Port-au-Prince for Haiti Rewired journalists is launching in about two weeks! It’s really motivating to see real-world progress come from online activity.
• I’m finally being acknowledged as a social media guru and am going to be working with a awesome author and his publishing company to create the online presence for his new book. I won’t say what it is until everything is finalized, but I will say that it’s high in saturated fact.
• I’m working at the Internet Garage every Friday and Saturday night. I’m coming up to my 2 year anniversary! I still find it funny that the first time I went in there to scan my passport, I left it there and didn’t realize it until I’d been working there for a month and found it in the drawer. Good thing they hired me.

• The weekend before I went to Haiti, I attended the New York Hackathon, an event put on by HackNY at NYU, as an ambassador. The purpose of the event was to put groups of bright NY computer programming students in the same room with the founders of tech start-ups for 24 hours and have them build things together. It was great to see what kind of talent is out there, and it left me wishing that I was a freshman in college again right now so I could participate in events like that. Since the event, I’ve been talking with the founders of HackNY and want to help them get the word out about their organization via various internet pathways.
• Also at the Hackathon, I got to know Dave Winer, a software developer who just moved to NY from Silicon Valley, the author of Scripting News (one of the first blogs according to Wikipedia), and a really nice guy. He is all about collaborating to make new things online, and he is a do-er. I went to a meet-up he hosted last week and it totally satiated the need for collaboration in a university setting I’ve been feeling lately.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to lately, and why I have no time to blog. But I hope that changes soon. Dave demoed some sweet software that I think will make blogging a lot more impulsive, which is a good thing for me. And even though I’m not here on WordPress much these days, you know where to find me.

<3

Arikia

The premise of this conversation: He just told me he wants to leave the country and live on another island.

(Note, French and Creole are his primary languages.)

Recorded April 6, 2010.

[Recorder on]

Me: Why would you want to live on another island?

Dad: Because I think another island is better, is organized, there are organizations, there are other… I can not fight anymore. I don’t want to fight anymore.

Me: But this is your country. If you’re not going to fight for your country, what are you going to fight for?

Dad: My country is the planet. OK? No, it’s not the planet, it’s the universe.

Me: That’s not what your passport says. No. When I was here in June, you talked about how you had pride for your country despite all of its flaws.

Dad: Yes but… what you say… it’s corrupt. There are a lot of things that are not good, that don’t function here.

Me: [Snort] Yeah, I see that.

Dad: Government, people, government. You don’t know the mentality of the people here. You know nothing about this country.

Me: I’m learning.

Dad: Pft. You try.

Me: I’m trying.

Dad: When you work like me, with people, with bosses…

Me: Well if you don’t like the way things are run, like the government, why don’t you make an effort to change it. That’s your responsibility and your privilege as a citizen.

Dad: To do what? To change the government?

Me: To change things. Foreigners can’t change things.

Dad: You know… You know me, I am a fighter, revolutionary, but I can’t do anything to change things.

Me: Why can’t you?

Dad: There is a false democracy here. With democracy you can’t do anything.

Me: Well if you can’t change things who can?

Dad: [Mockingly] “Yes! We Can!” Obama says… but here we cannot do anything.

Me: Well, who can do something, the U.S.?

Dad: That’s good for you to talk like that. That’s good. You are young and you believe in a lot of things. But, my life, I have a lot of deception of my life, you know that?

Me: What kind of deception?

[Man walks up to car window begging.]

Dad: You see that? That’s one.

Me: Are you going to help him? Give him water or something.

Dad: [Ignoring me] You can’t understand what I am saying.

Me: I don’t understand what you mean by deception.

[Traffic, horns honking]

Dad: I took my life with philosophy. But perhaps… perhaps… Comparatively, I have a good life, but I know I can do more for….

Me: For who?

Dad: For our country, for humanity. I can do more, but I can’t…. I say I know I can do more but I don’t have the possibility to do anything. I just live.

Me: OK but, it’s places like this where humanity needs the most. Humanity in the United States doesn’t need anything, they have everything.

Dad: You have an organization, the country is organized. You have everything right for you. You live, you go to school, you go to University, after that, you grow up, you grow up, you grow up. When you work, it’s like that. But everything, I have to do everything by myself here. You understand that?

Me: Yeah…

Dad: If I leave now, it’s because I never surrender with life, with everything. It’s because I am a fighter.

Me: So what would you do? If you left now, what would you do?

Dad: If I can explain myself better in English… you can’t understand me. But I tried to say something but just, but I can’t say. It is a problem to me, I can’t explain myself like everything. I can’t say… how do I want to explain to you?

Me: You’re doing a good job.

Dad: What?

Me: You’re doing fine.

Dad: I’m doing fine?

Me: What would you do if you left here?

Dad: I don’t know. Nobody knows at any time. I have the potential, I have the mentality to do anything, everything but.

[Stalled at a traffic light]

Me: [Referencing an opening in traffic to turn] Go.

Dad: Go.

Me: OK but the people who… you said you wanted to do good for humanity.

Dad: Sometimes, sometimes… every life is a tragedy. Sometimes.

Me: Yeah, but here more than other places.

Dad: Why do you think that? Here more than other places, yeah. But everywhere you go, life is terrific [Correcting himself] terrible. But you have to survive by yourself, you have to fight.

Me: Yeah but, YOU don’t have to fight. YOU can survive just fine, you’re privileged, you have things.

Dad: But —

Me: No listen. You don’t have to fight. The people on the streets here have to fight. I don’t have to fight, you don’t have to fight, so it’s our responsibility to help the people who do have to fight.

Dad: To help… I want to help, but —

Me: And you’re going to help by leaving the country?

Dad: I want to help but not like people do. My way.

Me: What is your way of helping?

Dad: My way is a philosopher. My way is what I think, my way is what is true – what is the truth. My way is what’s exact, to do, to save this country.

Me: You do want to save the country?

Dad: But I can’t, I don’t have people under my control. I don’t have anything.

Me: And you think you’re going to find that if you leave?

Dad: Pft.

Me: Well, if the reason you want to leave is to find people to help you help this country, than I guess I support that. But if you want to leave because it’s easy —

Dad: I build buildings for people, I help people. I build buildings, you know. I help people. I give jobs sometimes. I help people. But it’s not enough. And I know that. The problem is when you know that.

Me: That sounds like apathy. You know what apathy is?

Dad: Huh?

Me: Apathy.

Dad: Apaty?

Me: Apathy. Apathetic.

Dad: I don’t know this word.

Me: I’ll translate it for you on Google translator.

Dad: Apathy.

[silence]

Dad: [Sighing] But this is nice. You are with me.

Me: Oui.

Dad: And you are a beautiful girl.

Me: Merci.

Dad: You love life? No? That’s true?

Me: That’s true.

Dad: And… hm.

[Traffic jam, honking]

Dad: Arikia…

Me: What?

Dad: I love you.

[Recorder off]

“Do you think I’m exploiting his grief? You’re right. It’s shit. It’s like one of those infomercials. Little black babies with swollen bellies and flies in their eyes. I’ve got in here dead mothers, I’ve got severed limbs, but it’s nothing new. It might be enough make someone cry if they read it, maybe even write a check. But its not going to be enough to make it stop. I’m sick of writing about victims, but it’s all I can fucking do. Because I need facts, I need names, I need dates, I need pictures, I need bank accounts. People back home wouldn’t buy a ring if they knew it cost someone else their hand. I can’t write that story until I get facts that can be verified, which is to say, until I find someone who will go on record. So if that is not you, and you’re not really going to help me and we’re not really going to screw, then why don’t you get the fuck out of my face and let me do my work?”

h/t: honesttoblog

When the pilot instructed us over the PA system to prepare for landing, I pulled up the window cover and was taken aback by the sights below: Perfectly straight rows of McMansions with aquamarine pools, massive hotels, order, wealth, functionality. All things that are rarely, if ever, present in Haiti. The contrast was alarming; the perfection, disturbing.  I looked up at the two Haitian men sitting in the row in front of me, staring out the window as well. I wondered what their lives had been like, and what a person would think experiencing the United States after living their entire lives in Haiti. I imagined that person was me, even though I’d only spent two weeks there, and that I was seeing things in perspective for the first time looking down at Miami,  realizing how bad things actually were in Haiti. There are so many problems there, problems of so large a scope they seem impossible to fix. But when you live there, it’s just life. It’s just the way things are.

Impossible though they may seem for fix or even help, I’m still going to try, through my little humanitarian project.

Looking back on my time in Haiti, it all feels like a dream now. A very strange dream. And you were there and you were there and you…

23:36: Orgs I have seen all over Haiti: Partners in Health, Doctors Without Borders, Unicef, USAID. Orgs I have seen none of: Red Cross, Yele Haiti

23:37: And I have been looking. And I have been *around* — walking, driving, in tap taps, on motorbikes, etc..

With the capacious amount of donations directed towards Haiti relief and rebuilding efforts in the immediate aftermath of the quake, lots of which was made possible by technologies that enabled individuals to donate via text message, everyone seems to be wondering: Is my money going where it was intended? Is it making tangible differences in the quality of life of Haitians who were injured or displaced by the earthquake?

So I’ve been keeping my eyes open for organizational efforts over the past 10 days that I’ve been in Haiti.

Of the donated tarps I’ve seen that people are using as walls and roofs on the make-shift shelters they’ve built on the sidewalk and streets outside their crumbled homes, many bear the USAID logo. All over Haiti, every day, you see teams of people wearing bright yellow shirts, rolling wheelbarrows full of rubble away from buildings, picking up trash, and laying the foundations for new buildings. These people are part of the “Cash for Work” program, which is a part of OTI (Organization of Transitional Incentives) and DAI (Development Alternatives Inc.), orgs that were hired by USAID to clean up government properties like schools and community centers. These people make between $8 and $9 a day, depending on the exchange rate.

I’ve seen lots of tents and outposts that are clearly marked as UNICEF areas, especially in the downtown areas where the population is the most dense. I passed one location where two huge UNICEF tents were pitched outside a partially-collapsed building, and Alain and I stopped to ask one of the UNICEF personal (clearly designated by the t-shirt he was wearing), what they were doing there. He said the building was a primary school, and the tents were serving as temporary classrooms:

Walking through the middle of the tent city that formed on the grass of the central park in PetionVille where the sidewalks are lined with vendors selling Haitian paintings, the flaps on the latrines — which somebody had to dig out— bear the red Medicales Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) logo. I have also seen several MSF stations, as well as stations for Partners in Health, set back from the roads and the chaos, where people can go to receive medical treatment.

Last Wednesday, Alain and I decided to hike up a steep hill in Port-au-Prince, through a residential area where people were living in floor-less huts with walls of sheet metal, to the ruins of Hotel Castel. On the way back down, we ran into people from Doctors Without Borders delivering three 1,000 gallon containers: Two full of water and one empty one to be used as a waste receptacle.

They literally are doctors without borders. Nothing gets in their way. We spoke with those two employees for a while about what they were doing and they said they faced a number of technological obstacles, but they found creative solutions around them because they can only work with what they have.

On the converse side, organizations that I have not detected anywhere throughout my journies are the Red Cross and Yele Haiti, Wyclef Jean’s organization. These were perhaps the organizations that I heard the most about in the U.S. before I came here, and they have collected quite a substantial amount of donations. I didn’t really think about it until I read the blog post, “Where’s the American Red Cross in Haiti?” shared with me by Emma Jacobs, my counterpart at Haiti Rewired. (Note: I would be especially critical of/disregard complete the anti-vax scare stuff at the bottom…)

This is not to say that those organizations are not present here and are not contributing. Perhaps they don’t focus as much on branding on the resources that they are providing or the uniforms their employees wear, or perhaps I have simply been in different areas than where their efforts are focused. But I know who I have seen here contributing to the relief and rebuilding efforts, and who I will be donating to in the future.

That’s how I roll.

Photo: Alain Armand

That’s the light blue signature hat of the United Nations MINUSTAH, a controversial presence in Haiti.