I looked at photos of the quake aftermath in Haiti this afternoon, for the first time. I mean, I had seen the picture of the woman covered in white dust half buried in rubble, it was on the front page of every newspaper, and I've caught sight of other images here and there from news websites and so on, but I've mostly just been reading written updates from particular organisations. But today I realised I was starting to focus more on the online response movement (which is completely awesome, and when you're done reading this, go bid on stuff on help_haiti please) than I was on the impact of what actually happened, so I gave myself a reality check and went through the entire NYT photo archive since the day of the quake.

It's HORRIFIC. I mean, duh. I was slightly shocked that the New York Times elected to include several very clear shots of an infant's corpse - not in the background, as the picture's subject. I guess, why not? It happened. I don't know whether I think it's a good or a bad thing to show it. I don't know why I wasn't expecting photos of the aftermath of an earthquake with a death toll potentially up to 200,000 to be anything less than utterly gut-wrenching. 

What I was really not expecting was how familiar it all looked. It looked so much like New Orleans after Katrina, it took my breath away. Again, I probably shouldn't be surprised that human devastation is universal. Obviously, in terms of numbers, and in the lack of infrastructure to cope with the aftermath, this is much much worse. Just.... the looting in the chaotic streets, the clumps of people trying to flag down helicopters, the dazed looking rescue workers and resigned looking displaced families... 

One of the reasons I decided to take a closer look is that I felt I should do my homework, as it were, as it's coming up in work tasks now, and I'm also starting to get involved in various volunteer response initiatives online, from home, translation, information sharing, possibly looking at some coding for technical tools for the field crews, that sort of thing - the online movement not just to contribute financially but to pitch in and help is astonishing and tremendous and awe-inspiring.

I'm also thinking about going there. Not dropping everything and rocking up unsupervised now, but much like I did in New Orleans, finding a program that's part of the longer term recovery strategy, and spending a month or so this summer doing something like school construction or teaching. I had been thinking about doing some more field-oriented training in the next few months anyway, and while I tend to think of francophone Africa as my region, the reason I've been able to help out so far is that Haiti is French speaking too. It's just a thought for now, but I'm finding the sheer scale of what needs to happen next basically impossible to ignore. 

 help_haiti is such a wonderful, positive example of using our interconnectedness and creativity for good.

My contributions are total manifestations of my innate squareness: I'm offering two slightly odd word-related services...what I love most, research, and (some of) what I do for a living, english/french and french/english translation.

And if you've been outbid beyond your means  and/or you want to donate immediately, may I recommend The International Rescue Committee, who have a first response team deploying in Haiti to meet both acute and longer-term needs, and also provide ongoing support to Haitian refugees in the US - many of whom have lost or are unable to contact relatives, and whose numbers are likely to swell following the earthquake. Full disclosure: I've done work for the IRC before, and they are the parent organisation of my current employer, but they really are truly a force for good in situations like this. There are a great many other wonderful organisations you can support as well/instead - in the UK, DEC are a good bet as they're a coalition of all the major agencies, and of course, the amazing Médecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and Red Cross without whom so much of the response wouldn't be happening at all. It goes without saying, but anything you can spare will help, considering right now there are hundreds of thousands of people sleeping out of doors for a 3rd night running. 

I'll stop pontificating now. I hope you've all had a good week and are looking forward to a fun, happy weekend!

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'm volunteering for Crisis, one of the UK's big homelessness charities, this Christmas. Every year at the end of December they open up extra temporary day and residential shelters, so that London's rough sleepers have a place to go during the festive season, and also to provide a broad range of services from haircuts to job search help. I'm spending two days at the Rough Sleepers Center, working with people who are acutely socially marginalised. I have to admit, I'm a bit scared, but really hoping it will be a good experience. I won't be doing any heavy lifting, literally or figuratively - non-specialist volunteers like myself do basic things like sorting food packages and folding bedclothes rather than attempting to tackle counseling.

UK folks: they still need more volunteers to make sure all the centers are properly staffed. Everyone: you can sponsor me, if you're able, which would be very much appreciated. (With my apologies if such a request makes anyone feel uncomfortable or that it's out of place). Positive thoughts for me and my fellow volunteers as we navigate the unfamiliar territory, for the fabulous folks who make it all happen, and of course the people who are hard up enough to need services like this, also always much appreciated :)

Have a wonderful day y'all!

I'm completely overwhelmed with tiredness and excitement and momentousness, I'm just going to - for now - share a comment I sent Margi in response to an earlier post:

"That's the one thing [crying] I actually didn't do all last night - I screamed, I jumped up and down, I hugged a couple strangers, high fived a whole bunch of people, took a million photos, ran around like a crazy person, clapped my hands randomly and did a bit of dancing... but then this morning, walking home by myself, still in my campaign sweatshirt, i pass this woman at a crossing. she's on the phone but she catches my eye and gives me a thumbs up. and that was it. i literally stopped in my tracks at broadway and 125th with tears pouring down my cheeks. what a day. for the epic motherf***ing win."

And some more photos:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2391397&l=67465&id=831023

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god. President Obama! YEEESS!

The caffeine/adrenaline combo that helped me survive getting up at 5.30am dissipated with a bang at about 11 - by which time the Harlem 4 Obama headquarters were swarming and no major polling issues had arisen in the area, so I headed home for a nap. I just woke up and I'm going to be taking a break from election fever for a few hours to go and catch up with some of the kids I taught last year, but I'm sure I'll have PLENTY to say once we start watching the results coverage tonight!

I'm surprised by how many people from all over the world there are volunteering here. I was a bit unsure about how people would react to me being here but there's a woman who drove down from Canada last night, and a French guy who's part of the leadership in this office somehow. He has a huge Obama sign above the handlebars of his bicycle, I'm not totally sure how he can even see!

The Japanese news crew is still here and about half an hour ago they started filming, which involved the entire crew running into the office at breakneck speed over and over again. You'd have thought Obama himself was making a speech in here or something, they were practically falling over themselves.

I just ran out to grab a diet coke and ended up stuck in a queue at the store behind a Republican Poll Clerk. She was incredibly rude and abrupt but I'm not going to explicitly draw any kind of correlation to her party affiliation for that!

The place is overrun with reporters looking for things to report on but so far - knock on wood - there's nothing much to say except so far so good! we've got crews from france and japan who were clearly expecting there to be drama. But then I think everyone was!

Our campaign director Chet has had about two hours sleep apparently. He just went from sending someone to check on a polling station that is apparently not wheelchair accessible, to fixing the toilet.

8am. Technically, halfway through my shift, but apparently we are now "the crew" for the day. We're checking poll locations and confirming registrations for people who don't have that information, and noting down where poll monitors are and any issues they report. There's only one phone line!

Someone just came in complaining that the ballot paper was confusing. Unfortunately in New York State it always has been - you basically have to tick off a series of rows rather than just one. If you're voting democrat it's Column A all the way down, and that's what all the campaign literature says, but people are confused by the fact that Obama's name appears in several of the rows.

Still, so far, no major problems have been reported.

The voter registration lookup website is down... whoop de doo.

It's 7.15am and I've been at the Harlem for Obama headquarters since a little before 6... it's pretty chaotic right now as the wife of their communications systems guy got hit by a car on saturday (while organising a campaign trip to Pennsylvania) so we're still figuring out how to work without him. I was expecting to be out helping get mobility impaired people to the polls but it looks like we're going to be here at least for a while.

The atmosphere in the air is electric! When I was walking here at 5.45 this morning there were already people gathering at polling stations - I ran home about an hour later to get my laptop and by then there were lines starting to snake out.

And it's a beautiful day, and so far the talking heads on the TV in the corner (at a slight slant because it's on a chair...) are giving us good news. Stay tuned!

Things in Louisiana are looking better. Gustav's heading west of New Orleans, and has been downgraded to category 2 (Katrina was a 3) with no significant increase in strength predicted. There will be surges but right now they are expected to be within the range that New Orleans flood walls can handle. Reports from the French Quarter are of little more than badly windy weather - tree branches, ripped signs, nothing worse. The whole thing is a media circus, so of course you know all of this :)

It's such a relief, and I'm not sure how sheepish I feel about freaking out. Partly, of course, because it's not over yet. And partly because I think every precaution was warranted. The issue is always going to be the false alarm weakening the impact of the next warning, but right now, especially with the rebuilding process from Katrina is still going on, I think it's worth being extra careful.

Mayor Nagin gave the order to evacuate New Orleans. In doing so, he said that Gustav is going to be worse - much worse - than Katrina. It has a footprint that is more than double, and the surges it is expected to produce are two to three times taller than the flood defences on the West Bank, which will apparently become a "bathtub".

He said, if you don't get out, "you're on your own".

Now, he's not known for saying the right thing. For being completely transparent, or for responding appropriately to challenging situations. But there's one thing he knows he needs to not screw up, and that's the evacuation of New Orleans. I can't figure out whether that means he'd be over-inflating the risks to get everyone to actually go and go fast, or whether he would have wanted to speak more measuredly in order to avoid panic and chaos, and only used such strong language because of the genuine severity of the threat.

I'm as much worried about the process of evacuation as I am about the storm damage. Psychologically it's got to be incredibly challenging, especially the day after the 3rd anniversary. Logistically it's going to be pandemonium, and I hope there are no accidents, missing persons or delays. I have no concept of what the services for evacuees are going to be like. Two days ago, the Red Cross was already sending teams but the level of response was nowhere near what it eventually reached in September 2005 to deal with the outpouring of people - much, much too late. Finally, safety-wise, if there's looting again, I'm as much sad for the people losing their belongings as I am afraid that anyone who stays behind to either loot or prevent looting will be i very serious danger. And I'm worried that a lot of people will stay behind because they're afraid for their belongings - their quite possibly quite recently re-acquired belongings.

But I am worried about the storm damage too. I'm scared for the Lower 9th, where all that would be damaged is an amazing rebuild project rather than any existing homes, but it's become such a symbol of hope and collective engagement. I'm scared for the tiny coastal communities no one ever paid much attention to before, during or after the last storm, who are going to get pounded again. I'm scared for the entire community, even the ones who stay safe and dry, surviving the social and economic fallout of another storm. I'm scared for the cats and dogs at Animal Rescue, and all the others who aren't allowed onto evacuation buses or who run away because of the chaos. I'm worried about Rose, the old lady living alone in the rotting house who had hair past her waist because she forgot about cutting it since Katrina. I'm worried about Shine Productions, and the family on Hermes Street with the daughter called Ashley who wore a turquoise dress to prom (I gutted her bedroom and had to throw out all her mildewed photos). I'm worried about my friend Sidney who drove to New Orleans from LA after Katrina, organised a donation drive and a convoy of trucks, and never looked back. Relief Spark, her organisation, has hosted thousands of volunteers in the past three years, gutting houses, rebuilding, cleaning parks, helping at the animal shelter in with an ambitious environmental project. I'm worried about my friend Andi Hoffman, the founder of that project, Green Light, and his young family and his beautiful, colourful house with wonky floors near Tulane. I'm worried about Tulane, and about Stephanie, the teenage girl I met there who founded Youth of Catastrophe after her experience of surviving Katrina.

I have so much faith in the people I met in New Orleans, and in the spirit of service and volunteering that prompted the enormous response last time. I know that Katrina taught everyone many valuable lessons in handling a situation like this. But I can't even get my head around the idea of something twice as big.

It looks like Tropical Storm Gustav is gathering steam... It was downgraded from a Hurricane but it sounds like it's going back up again. The governor has activated the National Guard. Whether it's a false alarm or not, it's good that the administration is being more pro-active.

But, good god, if this does happen again...

I wrote a year ago that things were good, on balance. That there was progress, hope, innovation and transformation. Going back there in March confirmed that in my mind. But on an individual level, there are still a lot of people in very serious trouble. There are still a lot of people in temporary accommodation thousands of miles away. There are still neighborhoods of rotting, flood-damaged houses.

The past three years have been a lesson in human endurance and fortitude. But they've also been a living hell for so many people that I'm terrified of the emotional fallout from a second storm as much as anything else.

So yeah... pray, cross your fingers, light a candle, sing a song. Think strong, solid thoughts about those new flood barriers. Think happy, comforting thoughts for anyone who does get evacuated and gets to sit on a cot in a gym somewhere, wondering. Listen to some jazz. Put some chicory in your coffee. New Orleans, one way or the other, will eventually be OK. But let's hope it doesn't get handed another mountain to climb.

So, I think I might have realized that school is in fact the place for me... I was totally gutted by not getting in to NYU again and immediately discounted the idea both of applying elsewhere this year and re-applying there next year. I took it as some sort of sign.

Then three days ago - within about an hour of sorting out my new house - I found information about PhD studentships at the University of Kingston, in rights, conflict and mass violence (not the perpetration thereof...). I wanted it so instantly and keenly that it made me remember all the really good reasons I had for wanting to go back to school generally as opposed to just NYU specifically. Chief among them: the biggest challenge career-wise of being here as opposed to New York is that I've left my network behind. Through my professors at NYU, and subsequently through my various internships, I had all kinds of connections and open doors across the humanitarian sector and more broadly the international affairs world. Going back to school here would give me similar connections in the UK.

Also, I like school :)

(eloquent, I know. Yes, that would be a PhD I'm thinking about doing :))