While a number of people in South Dakota have spent time in Haiti, many of us have not.  But all it takes is one look at a Brookings photographer's work to better understand the devastation.

Jael Thorpe has been shooting pictures for five years but she did some of her most interesting work last April. Photos from a mission trip show just how difficult life was in the under-developed country, even before the earthquake.

“It's not cardboard so, surprisingly, this would actually be a nice home in Haiti,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe spent a week capturing the images of Haiti and the people who live there. It was part of a mission trip. She and her camera spent time at an orphanage and malnutrition clinic with several others working to do what they could.

“Just the way the buildings are built, just cheaply and poorly, that it's not hard to imagine that they have just been crumbling,” Thorpe said.

Looking through the images she took less than a year ago, Thorpe remembers how dire conditions were then and can only imagine the situation now.

“I think what's the most devastating about it is a country who, the Haitians have nothing to begin with.  So to just completely multiply the chaos and violence and poverty with something of this magnitude, it's pretty hard to fathom,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe says the orphanage where she stayed had electricity for three hours a day, which was considered good. Between that, the high poverty rate and poor water conditions, Thorpe says Haiti will need every bit of help they can get.

“They don't have the resources to recover from this and so they are going to be very reliant on humanitarian efforts, which will probably be slow and so it's pretty hard to imagine,” Thorpe said.