Sure, kids would often beg me to buy them a real soccer ball while holding up their busted-up excuse for one and putting on a killer puppy-dog face. But when those efforts failed, they simply moved on. It's either play with what you've got or don't play at all. For a kid, that's a pretty easy choice.

But Haiti in 2010 is a different story. Not only do those kids live with the label "poorest in the Western Hemisphere" — they've also just seen things no child should ever see.

But instead of letting a massive earthquake traumatize them for life, I saw them laugh in the face of tragedy. Quake or no quake, kids will be kids.

When the kids of the Pétionville Club displacement camp scurried up to me with their homemade juice bottle camcorders, I was seriously impressed — and a little jealous. They put my real-life recording gear to shame, and they were having a lot more fun with theirs. It was a nice reminder that sometimes the youngest among us are the most inspiring. Especially in times of uncertainty, when a nation needs to heal.