Jan. 11--Three months after an earthquake destroyed much of the Haitian capital, a line of buses drove north into an arid waste of chalky dust.
The buses pulled up to a grid of dirt roads and a few white tents, flapping hard in the wind. Families began to spill out of the buses and look at their new homes, some in stoic resignation, some in despair.
These 62 people made up the vanguard of a larger plan to move much of the Haitian population from dangerous ravines and mountainsides around the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince, before the rainy season hit.
President Rene Preval greeted them at the camp, but he was not the man behind the move.
Sean Penn was.
Within days of the earthquake in January 2010, which killed more than 300,000 people and displaced 1.5 million, the Hollywood actor landed in Haiti and formed a relief organization, J/P HRO. Unlike other celebrities who dipped in and out, Penn stayed on the ground for months and has kept coming back.
Long before he made international headlines with this week's publication of his clandestine jungle interview with the fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Penn's efforts in Haiti highlighted how he is prepared to take risks to become embroiled in some of the world's larger human dramas.
Penn has shown he wants to be viewed as something more than a movie star and is not afraid to flout convention or draw controversy.
In Haiti, his celebrity cut through bureaucracy to help thousands of displaced people -- even if many now question some of the results.
