As the earthquake shook the house around her, ten-year-old Dessica ran outside and into a field behind her small street. "Did you run out alone?" I asked. "Yes", she says. "You didn't wait for your mother or your sisters or brothers?" "No", she says. "I just ran."

Dessica's mother, Marilude, looks over at her small child and nods her head in agreement. "In that moment, we were all running for ourselves." Her face is blank as she says this, but underneath, there is an abiding solemnity. Everyone in Haiti, and especially in neighbourhoods like Marilude's, know that death came to people arbitrarily -- some were lucky, others were not.

Over two weeks after the earthquake, Marilude received her first quantity of food aid, a 25 kilogramme bag of rice from the United Nations World Food Programme, distributed in conjunction with WorldVision. Over the next few weeks, she will use the food to feed her six children -- the youngest are five-year-old twins, and the oldest is 22. "And, actually", she says, "I'm pregnant."

The United Nations began a major scale-up of food distribution, which aims to reach two million people in two weeks through 16 distribution points in and around the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. The UN and its partners faced enormous difficulties in safely and accurately implementing the food strategy, but are combating the delay by prioritizing pregnant women, as well as malnourished children and orphanages.

The food, which Marilude's family will use for weeks, gives her family a sense of security and safety for the first time since the disaster struck. When the earthquake hit, she was at home with the children, and though she was injured when rubble fell onto her hip, she feels confident that the baby will be okay. With searing honesty she admits, the baby is not her top priority.

Marilude is still trying to explain to the children that their father is dead. On 12 January, her husband was working at the Caribbean Market, a location where many people were lost, and his body has yet to be recovered. The younger children either don't understand, or won't admit he's gone.

Because their house was partially destroyed, the family is now homeless and lives in the field where Dessica first ran to escape. The once-empty lot is now a city of sheets, with hundreds of neighbours and destitute families struggling to find food and water.

When Marilude is out of her tent, she covers the family's precious bag of rice with clothes and belongings, to keep it safe from theft. As she lifts the bag and places it in the middle of her tent, Marilude's face suddenly changes -- she is a proud hunter, a good mother, a woman with something to give. Over the past two weeks, Marilude spent every day on the streets, standing in lines, waiting outside government offices, desperately advocating for her family and trying to get on a food list. She is one of the few people in this camp to receive aid and knows that part of her duty in this community is to share it with the other mothers around her who have helped support her family. Dessica says she sometimes eats with Gerline, who has two children of her own and lives in an adjacent tent. Gerline is also a single mother, and was buying food on credit until this week, when she will eat with Marilude.

For now, both women are uncertain about their future. Prior to the earthquake, Gerline and Marilude were working as small-scale street vendors. But neither has gone back to work, opting instead to care for their children. As she feeds her family with this first bag of rice, and begins to feel confident that they are taken care of, Marilude may feel safe enough to resume work.

As the weeks and months unfold, Marilude, and the other women in her camp, will take turns walking each day to the distribution point a few kilometres away. Dessica, too, will walk to distribution points, following behind her mother, watching her yell and wait, carry, cook and share.

Dessica is not quite old enough to understand the scale of what happened in Port-au-Prince. She is only ten years old and the whole world appears to her from her mother's side. She sees struggle and collapse -- but also, today, rice.


Emily Troutman is a writer and photographer whose work focuses on global humanitarian issues. She was named a UN Citizen Ambassador in October 2009. Follow her journey in Haiti on Twitter at www.twitter.com/emilytroutman.