Member of Vancouver family blogs for Esquire from Haiti

Through the turmoil of a shattered nation, a member of a Vancouver family has emerged as a voice of Haiti’s earthquake survivors.

Esquire has tabbed Leslie Rolling as a blogger for the Web version of its magazine.

The promo for Rolling’s first posting — titled “What the news can’t tell you about Haiti” — says:

“Behind the scenes of disaster, one of the most heartfelt bloggers on the ground sheds light on the human connections in an unconnected country.”

http://www.esquire.com/

http://rollingsinhaiti.wordpress.com/

That teaser shares Esquire’s home page with cover girl Angelina Jolie and stories on President Barrack Obama, Conan O’Brien and “Avatar.”

Leslie and husband Chris Rolling, a Vancouver native whose parents live here, direct the nonprofit Clean Water for Haiti. They live an hour north of Port-au-Prince.

In their family blog, Leslie Rolling explained her unexpected role in the on-line conversation about the Haitian earthquake.

“Last week I got an e-mail from the people over at Esquire magazine asking if I would write for their web site. They wanted thoughts about things a week after the quake. Um, ESQUIRE MAGAZINE!

“I do want to preface this by saying that they did some editing. My content is all still there, just shuffled around a bit and there was stuff added, for sensationalism. …

“I have never worked with an editor before. Unless you can count my husband who usually just tells me I use too many words,” she wrote on Tuesday’s family blog.

“And now add ‘wrote for Esquire’ to the list of things that I never thought I would do in this lifetime.”

Chris Rolling also was part of a radio segment earlier this week on American Public Media. He talked about the students he was able to pull from the rubble of a collapsed school, and the one young girl he couldn’t save.