Every day for the past two weeks, I’ve been reviewing the photos sent from our colleagues on the ground in Haiti. Together, they form a document of the devastating earthquake and the recovery effort—some showing the grim reality of the aftermath, others capturing the humanity of the situation with increasing hope and hints of everyday life. From these images, I’ve gotten a good sense of the reality on the ground, despite being thousands of miles away.

Here are a few of the most notable images so far:

 Early on we saw a lot of images of destruction. I must have parsed hundreds of images of collapsed buildings and homes. This one is particularly powerful because it’s a marketplace that you might see in any metropolitan area, yet it’s been reduced to a pile of rubble as high as the man passing by. How hard was the ground shaking to knock down a building like this? How long will it take to rebuild all of these structures? Where does one even start?

This picture from Delmas-48, a former golf course that is now home to thousands of displaced people, truly captures the scale of this disaster. The depth of this image is astounding… my eye travels along the fairway, which shows just how many are crowded along the avenue in makeshift homes. And what we see here is just a fraction of Haitians left homeless by the earthquake.

This photo of Yolette Etienne, Oxfam’s country director in Haiti, is truly delightful. After suffering personal loss and returning to work immediately to lead the recovery effort, Etienne takes a moment to speak with an expressive group of children. Their energy and apparent character are so sweet and genuine—plus the angle of the shot puts us viewers in a seat completing the circle.  

What photos have you seen that best captured the recovery effort? Add your thoughts below.